I’m going to be scathing in my critique because these people are both dishonest and incompetent and deserve to be called out on it.
Here’s their formula:
It’s a ridiculously simplistic formula.
First, a stylistic quibble. What is up with those asterisks in the denominator? I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wanted the formula to be understandable by people who aren’t familiar with standard math notation, in which the juxtaposition of variables indicates multiplication. But to see it written that way in an official document is just… weird.
The i subscripts in the formula just indicate that the formula is to be applied to one country at a time — country i. I’ll therefore omit the ‘i’s from the rest of the discussion.
∆𝜏 is the amount by which the tariff currently being placed on that particular country should change (according to the Trump administration bozos) in order to drive the bilateral trade deficit to zero. In other words, 𝜏 (the existing rate) + ∆𝜏 (the change in rate) would be the correct final rate (according to the formula) to achieve the dubious goal of a trade balance.
The inanity of insisting on bilateral trade balances
We’re off to a bad start already, because the notion that every bilateral trade deficit should be zero is ridiculous on its face. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose Malawi sells us only mangoes, and the US (henceforth ‘we’, since I’m American) sells them only air conditioners. In order for the trade deficit to be zero, we need to buy the same dollar amount in mangoes that they buy in air conditioners, and we should adjust the tariffs we impose on Malawi until that happens. Why is this desirable? Why should the amount of mangoes be linked to the amount of air conditioners? Who the hell knows? It’s just Trump’s idiotic obsession, and it makes no sense.
To make the stupidity even more obvious, think of an analogous situation. Ernesto sells tacos from a taco truck, and George runs a landscaping business. George occasionally buys tacos from Ernesto, and Ernesto hires George to mow his lawn. Suppose Ernesto pays more to George each month than George spends buying tacos from Ernesto. Is Ernesto being cheated? Is he subsidizing George? No and no. George gets every taco he pays for, and Ernesto gets his lawn mown on schedule. It would be ridiculous to say that either of them is being cheated, and ridiculous to say that the goal should be to make the amounts even.
Why is Trump obsessed with trade deficits? It’s because he is confused enough to believe that the existence of a bilateral trade deficit — a trading deficit with a particular country, Malawi in my example — means that they are cheating us and that we’re subsidizing them. He actually believes that we are just handing over the money, getting nothing in return. In reality, we get every frikkin’ mango we pay for, and they get every air conditioner they pay for. No one is being cheated, and to demand that the dollar amounts should match is idiotic and pointless.
Trump actually declares in his executive order that trade deficits are a “national emergency”. He does this because he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unless it’s a national emergency. Otherwise, the job falls to Congress, where it belongs. Trump is lying about the supposed national emergency.
The formula
According to the USTR statement, the x in the formula is the dollar value of what we export to a particular country, while m is the dollar value of what we import from them. The numerator, x – m, is therefore equal to the trade imbalance. If x is bigger than m, then the difference is positive, and we are running a trade surplus. If x is less than m, then x – m is negative, and we have a trade deficit. But note that they have it backwards in the formula: it should be m – x, not x – m. Why? Because the denominator is positive. If both the numerator and denominator are positive, as they would be in the case of a trade surplus, the formula would deliver a ∆𝜏 that is positive. In other words, the formula as written would actually increase the tariffs for the countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and it would decrease the tariffs for countries with whom we have a trade deficit. The formula therefore punishes the (supposedly) good guys and rewards the (supposedly) bad ones, which is opposite to the administration’s intentions. One more indication of their clown car incompetence.
They could easily have corrected the formula if they were aware of the error. Just put a negative sign in front of the formula, or swap x and m, or redefine x and m as the amounts exported and imported by the other country, instead of the amounts exported and imported by the US. Any one of those three would fix the problem, but no.
Let’s assume that we have corrected that mistake for them and that the numerator now equals the amount of the trade deficit, not the surplus. What about the denominator? Well, it just so happens that the values they chose for 𝜀 and 𝜓 are 4 and 0.25, respectively. Those multiply to 1, thus canceling each other. How convenient. These charlatans actually and blatantly chose the values so that they would cancel out, instead of using the most accurate numbers they could find in the literature. They cheated.
After that suspiciously convenient choice of parameters, the formula is now just ∆𝜏 = trade deficit divided by total imports:
Do they actually apply this formula? No. They massage its output even more. They divide ∆𝜏 by two, for no good reason. That means that for the formula to match the actual tariffs, they should multiply the denominator by 2. They fail to do that, as you’d expect. Why 2? My hypothesis is that even those dunces realized that the numbers they were getting from the formula were ridiculously large, and dividing by 2 was a way to get them down to a range that they considered reasonable. More number fudging with no theoretical justification.
Next problem: according to the corrected formula, ∆𝜏 should be negative in the case of trade surpluses. That is, we should decrease the tariffs on imports from those countries. If the existing tariff rate is small enough, it should even go negative, according to the formula, in order to balance our trade with that country. Trump doesn’t like that, so he has arbitrarily declared that everyone will pay a minimum of 10%, whether there’s a trade deficit or a trade surplus. In other words, the policy, which is already misguided, is also unfair — it says that it’s OK for the US to screw other countries by imposing high tariffs, even if they’re doing the “right” thing and allowing us to run a trade surplus with them.
The actual rates
Here are the charts spelling out the actual tariff rates.
The chart labels them “Reciprocal Tariffs”, but that is a lie, since the formula doesn’t take into account the tariff rate charged by the other countries on our exports to them. It’s completely missing from the formula. They aren’t reciprocal tariffs, they’re misguided tariffs in response to trade deficits, and they punish US importers instead of the countries selling us those goods and services.
The label on the middle column is wrong for the same reason, and it’s even further wrong because it depicts a bilateral trade deficit as a quantifier of “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, which it isn’t. We can run a bilateral trade deficit for no other reason than that Americans want more of what the other country is selling us than they want from us. That’s not “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, and the Trump administration is dishonest for trying to sell it that way.
The numbers in the middle column are apparently those that come straight out of the formula. You can tell, because the tariffs that are actually being imposed by the US are just the middle column divided by 2. That’s the arbitrary factor of 2 I mentioned above. The only exceptions are in those cases where dividing by 2 would leave a less than 10% tariff, in which case the tariff is set to 10%. Gotta make sure that everyone gets screwed at least that much.
The US Trade Representative’s explanation
Now some excerpts from the USTR statement. The very first paragraph:
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.
Well, duh. The phrase “tariff and non-tariff factors” covers literally every possible factor in the entire world. Yes, there are actual reasons that we buy more in mangoes from Malawi than they buy from us in air conditioners. Therefore we should conclude that we’re getting ripped off?
While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.
Not by any reasonable person. You need to do the homework before making policy decisions that will affect the entire world economy. If they want less of what we’re selling than we want of what they’re selling, that can lead to a trade deficit, independent of all the factors they list above.
This doesn’t mean that trade practices can’t be unfair, but it does mean that to assume something nefarious is going on merely because we’re running a bilateral trade deficit is stupid.
If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.
No. If we like Malawian mangoes more than the Malawians like our air conditioners, nothing is broken. Nothing is unfair. No reason to blindly punish the Malawians. It just means that American demand for Malawian mangoes is greater than Malawian demand for American air conditioners. No big deal.
A case could be made for nudging the US’s global trade deficit — which is the aggregate trade deficit we’re running with all of our trading partners put together — toward zero, but trying to eliminate every bilateral trade deficit is bonkers. These people are clueless.
Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices…
Right there they say that ε < 0, but a few sentences later they assign it a value of 4. The last time I checked, 4 was greater than 0, not less. Their sloppiness is consistent, at least. What is wrong with these folks?
let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:
As noted earlier, they have the numerator backwards. It should be positive for a trade deficit, not negative, in order for ∆𝜏 to be positive, which represents an increase in tariff rates.
To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.
Which inside the Trump administration is less than 0, lol. And how convenient that εφ multiplies to 1, as noted above.
Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25.
It wasn’t to be conservative. It was to fudge the numbers so that the product εφ came out to be 1. And picking a value of 4 for elasticity isn’t “being conservative” in the sense of “this value is more likely to be correct”. It’s conservative in the sense of “we’d better make this number big because otherwise the tariffs will be so outrageously huge that everyone will see that we’re idiots.”
Think about it. They want φ to be small (whether or not the evidence supports it), because they want to maintain the fiction that other countries will mostly absorb the tariffs and that importers and retail customers will shoulder less of the burden and therefore experience less inflation. On the other hand, a small φ balloons the value of ∆𝜏 to ridiculous levels. So they set 𝜀 to 4 to bring ∆𝜏 down, even while acknowledging that the true value of 𝜀 is closer to 2.
The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).
I haven’t verified that, but either way I would sure like to see the actual number. Why didn’t they include it? Is it really 0.25? In any case, the question of pass-through to retail prices is irrelevant when you’re trying to determine which country is absorbing the cost of the tariffs. It’s the pass-through factor to importers that is relevant, and that is close to 1, even if the pass-though to retail customers is less. That means that US importers are bearing the cost of the tariffs and passing some of that cost on to consumers. It’s inflationary, and it’s a tax by the US government on US importers, not a tax on foreign countries. Which contradicts Trump’s whole rationale.
The reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero.
No, they were “left-censored” at 10, as you can see by looking at the charts. 10 is the minimum tariff you’ll see in the third column of the charts.
Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment.</p
No explanation of why “heterogeneity in rates” is to be avoided, and no comment on the fact that it isn’t avoided, given the large range of new tariff rates in the third column of the charts. That means there’s still plenty of incentive for transshipment. Take Vietnam, for instance, with a new rate of 46%. There’s a *lot* of incentive for them to transship through one of the countries with a 10% rate.
Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent.
There is no inherent limit. Tariffs could be 100%, 180%, or 2100%. 99% is an arbitrary limit. Tariffs could even be negative in a perverse world, in which case the government would be giving importers a bonus for importing more and nudging us toward a trade deficit. Obviously that wouldn’t happen in practice, but my point is that the 99% is arbitrary, and anyone who thinks tariffs are limited to being less than 100% doesn’t understand tariffs.
The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent.
It’s pointless to state the unweighted average. An unweighted average is really just a weighted average with all of the weights set to 1. That gives Liechtenstein equal weight with China, which is stupid. Our trade volume with China is some 1,770 times as great as our trade volume with Liechtenstein, but these geniuses are weighting them evenly and presenting the average as if it had some kind of significance. Morons.
Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.
Here, they tell us that the import-weighted average of tariffs is 41 percent. Combine that with their assumed pass-through rate of 0.25. meaning that exporters in other countries will shoulder 75% of the tariff burden. That’s unrealistic and it clashes with the actual data, but even if you take the Trumpers at their word and assume that only 25% of the additional cost due to tariffs is passed to importers, that’s still over 10%, because 0.25 * 41% is greater than 10%. 10% import inflation! So much for Trump’s campaign promise: “I’ll reduce prices on day one.” Idiot.
Good job, Trump supporters. By voting for him, you put power in the hands of these dishonest and incompetent economic doofuses.
petrushka:
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to care about this. I have no idea what’s in the files, but any time a president is this desperate to cover something up, I want to know what it is. And so do most Americans.
I mean, the guy is pretending the files are forgeries by Obama, Clinton, Comey and Brennan. That’s how desperate he is. And he’s even turned on his supporters:
“PAST supporters”, “weaklings”, “I don’t want their support anymore!”. That is a guy in full panic mode, lashing out at the very people he needs on his side right now.
Trump, today:
Anyone want to guess who actually appointed Jerome Powell?
Trump, during his first term, with Jerome Powell standing right next to him:
I’m no expert on probability, but for the last eight years, democrats have been desperate to put trump out of business.
One plausible theory is, neither party is innocent, so MAD.
Among the people photographed hobnobbing with the Epstein crowd: Stephen Hawking. And the current Prime Minister of Canada.
Go figure.
I don’t know what’s going on.
petrushka:
Please tell me you haven’t fallen for Trump’s claim that Obama, Clinton, Comey and Brennan fabricated the files.
The Carney photo was a deepfake:
Don’t fall for AI-generated image showing Canada’s PM Mark Carney, Ghislaine Maxwell and Tom Hanks
ETA: There is a verified photo of Carney with Ghislaine Maxwell, however, at a music festival. Carney’s sister-in-law hosted the festival on her estate and invited Maxwell, who was her high school friend.
What I said. Do you think Stephen Hawking was an evildoer?
You seem very certain about something. Am I misreading you?
What do you know?
petrushka:
All I know about Hawking is that he was mentioned in an email from Epstein to Maxwell:
“Virginia” is Virginia Giuffre.
Yes. I’m certain that Trump really, really doesn’t want the files to be released. Any time a president tries that hard to hide something, I want to know what it is.
Trump is in a hole and is too stupid to stop digging. After insulting his supporters on Truth Social (see my earlier comment), he insulted them again in the Oval Office today:
Amidst the unending stream of lies, Trump let loose a couple of weird ones yesterday. At an AI summit in Pennsylvania, he went into a bizarre digression about his uncle John, who was an MIT professor.
1. He claimed that his uncle was the longest-serving professor in the history of MIT, which is false.
2. He claimed that his uncle taught Ted Kaczynski, which is false. Kaczynski never attended MIT.
3. He claimed that he’d asked what Kaczynski was like as a student, and his uncle replied, “Seriously good. He’d go around correcting everybody.” That conversation was entirely made up. His uncle died in 1985, 11 years before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber.
He’s a pathological liar, and it cracks me up that colewd can’t — or won’t — see it.
keiths,
To Trump’s credit, this is new material.
Trump’s old material with regard to his uncle used to be that his uncle is a genius, has the best genes, therefore Trump himself is genius with best genes. Moreover, Trump is especially expert on the topic of nuclear physics because his uncle once tried to explain to him something about it and Trump thought he understood. And ever since, Trump claims to know (and nobody knows it better than him) what exactly nuclear bombs do, he is horrified by it, and therefore he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. This has been Trump’s “uncle routine” – in print – since late 1980s!
From Wikipedia:
What I find curious is that so many celebrities and politicians associated with him. The standard conspiracy theory is that he was running a blackmail operation for one or more governments. I find this plausible, but I’m unable to figure out why anyone thought it safe to be seen with him.
It has been 20 years since the first investigation of Epstein began. That covers the second Bush term, two Obama terms, one Trump term, and one Biden term. During that time, no one has released any substantial information.
Excuse me if I suspect this is a bipartisan scandal.
Excuse me for wondering if evidence has been destroyed or edited.
https://www.wired.com/story/metadata-shows-the-dojs-raw-jeffrey-epstein-prison-video-was-likely-modified/
petrushka:
If it is, then so be it. Either way, the American people deserve to know.
I’m wondering if it’s being destroyed or edited right now. This administration is certainly corrupt enough to do it.
Also, my antennae went up when Trump said yesterday that “Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.” Anyone trust Pam Bondi to be the arbiter of what is credible and what isn’t?
I would like to know, just out of curiosity. If everyone lost interest, I would lose interest. I’m not immune to herd effects.
Regarding the current risk to evidence, I’m thinking that multiple attorneys have seen the evidence used to indict Epstein and Maxwell. Not to mention numerous FBI and CIA officials that hate Trump.
The last lawyer to represent Epstein says he asked Epstein point blank if there were anything detrimental to Trump, and he said no. Obviously, Trump is one of the multitude who were photographed in the presence of Epstein. I believe this was before 2005.
I’m still thinking there is probably no usable evidence against clients of Epstein. In general, photographs and videos cannot be admitted as evidence without eyewitness corroboration. There may be an exception for security cameras, but any such evidence would require a strict chain of custody.
There are lots of living victims. I have no idea who they might have named as abusers. That evidence is sealed by various courts. And it is not in the form of documents.
Releasing names of possible clients, in the absence of admissible evidence, is not likely to happen. Names of island visitors have already been released. It is interesting that Bill Gates wife divorced him, rather expensively, after he was named.
petrushka:
I wouldn’t. Anytime a president is that determined to keep something hidden, I want to know what it is. Trump is so desperate that he’s calling his followers “weaklings” and “stupid” and trying to pass off the Epstein files as forgeries by Obama, Clinton, Comey and Brennan. I have no idea what’s in those files, but whatever it is, it’s obviously something that Trump really, really doesn’t want us to see.
petrushka:
Over a thousand, according to the Justice Department.
Fox News Reporter:
Karoline Leavitt:
That’s a lie, of course. Trump explicitly claimed that the files were forged:
I wish reporters were more aggressive. Someone should quote Trump’s words to Leavitt and ask her for evidence that the files are forgeries. She knows that there isn’t any, so it would be interesting to see how she would tapdance in response to that question.
The people around Trump are as amoral as he is, but most of them aren’t as stupid. They must groan every time they hear Trump blurt out something idiotic like this, knowing that they’re going to have to try to clean up after the guy. Reporters should hold their feet to the fire.
The Moron in Chief still thinks the dementia test he took at Walter Reed was an IQ test:
Trump calls AOC, Jasmine Crockett ‘very low IQ’
For anyone who hasn’t seen the test:
Tests for Dementia: Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)
A reporter confronted Karoline Leavitt over Trump’s bizarre Kaczynski story. Unsurprisingly, she dodged the question.
At least one committed suicide a few days after being hit by a truck.
This hints at why it would be difficult to prosecute Epstein clients. And why it is difficult to name them without anyone willing to testify. No law prevents victims from naming abusers.
We already have the names from flight logs, but that is not evidence of crimes.
Let us assume that the files contain depositions naming abusers. Releasing that kind of information could endanger the victims without enabling prosecution. The people who built this system were not stupid.
There have been some dots to connect about Epstein. We know he was trafficking underage girls for many years before his arrest. We can be pretty confident that he had a large potential customer base of wealthy old men who wanted sex with underage girls, and were willing to pay handsomely for this. We know he held parties where girls and clients could mingle (meat market parties). Which means those attending the parties couldn’t help but know or meet one another. We know Trump was a regular at these parties.
At this point, things get a bit more solid, because his New York apartment was raided at the time of his arrest, and an impressive amount of material was confiscated. One thing that has come out is that the DOJ has whole stacks of CD-ROMs or DVDs of videos of clients engaging in sex with these girls – each of them carefully labeled as to which girl and which client. Also collected were tons of correspondence between Epstein and everyone he knew or sold to. Reports now tell us that hundreds of DOJ employees have spent thousands of hours combing through this treasure trove – AND that they have been instructed to “flag” any references to Trump, whatever that means.
Now, all this material (and there is a lot of it) can sort of be divided into four categories. First is child pornography – Epstein had a lot of this, but nobody wants the government to release a bunch of child pornography. Second is detailed identification of Epstein’s girls (one of whom has already committed suicide) but I don’t think the public wants that either. Third is grand jury testimony (which the DOJ has requested the judge to release), but that material probably contains a lot of hearsay and speculation, and it’s focused on the Epstein and Maxwell, not on the victims or clients. I seriously doubt a redacted transcript of the grand jury testimony would implicate anyone else.
And last, the stuff everyone wants, which is the identification of Epstein’s clients. And yes, the DOJ simply HAS to know who these people were, after years of careful investigation of material identifying them. I note that Bondi was very careful to say they had no “client list”, implying that they don’t know who the clients were. This is simply not credible. Such a list is something they construct, not something they found. What is credible is that a sizeable collection of very wealthy men is something you don’t want to antagonize. At the very least, many of them are major political donors. Releasing their names would cause repercussions I’d gladly buy popcorn to watch.
petrushka,
That sounds clever, but falls apart under scrutiny. Is the earth really a bit flat, and we’re being persuaded by a shady network that it isn’t at all? The truth is somewhere between flat and globular….
colewd,
Seriously, I’m stumped. What would you offer for my consideration?
And is continuing that with the ‘BBB’.
He pushed hydroxychloroquine, bleach and shining uv lights in people.
I expect you have bought into the ivermectin bullshit. This and HCQ will be the “well tested alternative” to which you refer. In reality, there is no good evidence for its efficacy. Enormous amounts have been wasted on this. But it is distinctively MAGA to place belief in it above the evidence for vaccine.
Yes. Starmer has proved to be an enormous disappointment in many respects. I don’t regard people pointing out his deficiencies as suffering from “SDS”. That would be stupid.
Maria Bartiromo:
Peter Navarro:
“Unilateral deals”, lol. But then he screws up by admitting that letters aren’t deals:
Trust in Trump, everybody. He keeps his promises. He ended the war in Ukraine, prices are down sharply (including gas), he released the Epstein files, eliminated taxes on Social Security, got 90 trade deals in 90 days, and he never lies. America is respected again. Oh, wait — none of that is true. But trust me — you should trust in Trump.
Trump, on Truth Social:
I’m smart! I am, I am, I am!
It’s comical. Even with an administration as incompetent as his, how many meetings do you suppose Trump attends where he isn’t the dumbest person in the room?
Howard Lutnick was on Face the Nation Sunday, and he bullshat his way through the entire interview. Here’s a sample:
Margaret Brennan:
Lutnick:
Brennan:
Lutnick:
No, it went up 0.3 percent, and it now stands at 2.7 percent. Trump promised lower prices, but instead they’re increasing at 2.7 percent per year, and they’re expected to rise even faster as tariffs kick in.
It’s exactly the opposite. A weaker dollar makes imports more expensive. It doesn’t soften the tariffs, it adds more pain. Lutnick knows this. He was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, fercrissakes. He’s lying through his teeth.
It’s already changing, and most of the tariffs haven’t even kicked in yet.
It’s prices, not rates, but thank you for explaining what inflation is. I always wondered about that.
Yeah, it’ll reset them higher. Yay, Trump!
Lutnick is a Leavitt-level liar.
I’d say, any cabinet meeting qualifies. Do you really think Trump is dumber than Hegseth, or RFK Jr.? For that matter, do you think Trump is more corrupt than Pam Bondi or Tulsi Gabbard?
We are governed by a full-blown idiocracy.
Flint:
Yes. They can maintain a train of thought and speak semi-coherently. They’re stupid and hopelessly incompetent, but not as stupid as Trump.
That’s a tougher call. Hard to pick a winner out of those three, because they’ve all shown that they will do anything they can get away with, regardless of morality or legality.
Trump, at an AI summit today:
Bonus geography lesson:
Trump’s approval is an abysmal 37% in the latest Gallup poll, and among independents it’s an astonishing 29%. Where’s colewd? He’s constantly telling us about the wisdom of the independent voters, so I’d love to hear his explanation of how the independents got it wrong this time.
Here’s how Trump is doing on specific issues. There isn’t a single one where he’s above water:
All respondents:
Independents:
keiths,
Hi Kieths
I just came across this on twitter. This seams like Trump is using Tarrifs to help negotiate peace.
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1949144126793851141
https://www.statista.com/statistics/923792/job-approval-ratings-us-presidents-midterm-elections/
colewd,
You linked to my comment but didn’t respond to my question:
keiths,
He has always under polled. The polls that matters are October- November 2026 and 2028.
colewd,
Since the question is “How do independents feel about Trump and his policies?”, the polls that matter are the ones being taken now. Interesting that you give so much weight to the opinion of independents when they agree with you, but dismiss their opinions as not mattering when they disagree. It’s a sure sign (as if we needed another) that you’ve assumed your conclusion and are casting about unsuccessfully for justifications.
A thousand bucks says that if the polls favored Trump right now, you would not be saying “Oh, those don’t count. The only ones that count are in October-November of 2026 and 2028.”
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here’s Trump cheating at golf in Scotland with the help of his caddie. Think about it: the president of the United States is so insecure and so bereft of integrity that he cheats even at golf.
He also has many imaginary tournament wins.
Pathetic.
An interesting tariff wrinkle: Howard Lutnick’s firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, has created a market allowing investors to bet on whether the courts will allow Trump’s tariffs to stand. (They’ve already been ruled illegal by a lower court, but the case is under appeal.) That market is predicting 3-to-1 that the lower court’s ruling will be upheld. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if the tariffs suddenly vanish.
As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick was required to divest himself of his Cantor Fitzgerald stake, which he did in May by creating trusts for his adult children, two of whom are now (officially, at least) running the company. Lutnick himself has to feign confidence that the lower court’s ruling will be struck down, but it’s interesting that his firm recognizes the uncertainty and actually sees it as a way to make money.
This is wild. There’s been a catastrophic drop in Trump’s approval among Gen Z (18-29 year olds). According to YouGov/Economist pollsters, Trump’s net approval among Gen Z voters was +19 in November, immediately following the election. It now stands at -43 — a massive 62 point drop.
Trump seems obsessed with being thanked – with having his ego buffed. First Zelensky, now Gazans. Sorry we forgot to thank you when the Israelis shot dozens in aid lines (did they thank you for the weapons?), our children waste away before our eyes, and we have no idea where that bowl of rice actually came from. But hey, the American people get a ballroom, right? Which they can use alternate Thursdays. And a
bribeplane Trump gets to keep after a taxpayer funded overhaul. The MAGA moral vacuum.Allan Miller,
Hi Alan
Do you think the republicans have a unique moral vacuum?
keiths,
I do not personally take much creed in polls well before elections as things can shift dramatically. If we look at the RCP average polls for congress the Dems are in big trouble if the election was held now. This can easily change in a little over a year from now.
colewd:
Stop trying to change the subject to elections. The question is “How do independents feel about Trump right now?”, and the answer is that they disapprove of him and his policies by huge margins.
You were happy to cite independent voters when they agreed with you, but now that they disagree with you, you’re downplaying their disapproval of Trump. There’s no mystery here. You support Trump because you are a cult member.
That’s embarrassing to admit, so you’ve been casting about for other excuses for your continued support of him. You seized on the supposed wisdom of the independent voters, but that has backfired on you.
What’s your next excuse?
Who am I to judge? I’m not the one claiming objective morality. But ‘other people are shit too’ is a pretty feeble excuse for the crass greed and indifference to suffering exhibited.
Allan:
At a cost of an estimated 1 billion dollars, no less.
Sen. Chris Murphy introduced an amendment yesterday that would prevent Trump from taking the jet with him when he leaves office. The Republicans actually voted it down. That’s how complete the moral vacuum is.
Bill, do you think it’s right for Trump to accept a massive bribe from the Qataris and then be allowed to keep it after taxpayers pay a billion dollars to retrofit it?
Allan Miller,
We agree.
keiths,
There is not accountability to pollsters this far from the election. You can see this by the variation between pollsters. The most accurate posters in the last election show very little change since November.
colewd:
Polling is their full-time job, and they are always held accountable. Gallup isn’t some fly-by-night organization, you know, and they aren’t the only ones to find a steady decline in Trump support among independents, either. Here’s a Grok-generated table illustrating the decline:
Fake polls! All of them! The Dear Leader’s approval numbers are rising. He says they’re rising, and if there’s anyone whose word we can trust, it’s his. Any bad news about Trump (like today’s job numbers) must be false. And what do those independent voters know, anyway? They’re a bunch of losers suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Right?
Also, you dodged my question:
keiths,
There are numbers here but what are they polling? Who is he running against?
Keiths, I don’t think that you need to convince anyone you hate Trump. We got the message. 🙂