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Posted
1 minute ago, immamac said:

It isn't, China knows that and that's why they want to send their best and brightest to negotiate with a bunch of ass clowns. 

Fully agree with you there. China is playing this masterfully and we’re sitting around holding our dicks.

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Posted
Fully agree with you there. China is playing this masterfully and we’re sitting around holding our dicks.

To be fair, being able to outmaneuver this clown show doesn’t require a chess master on your side. Just someone who can exercise modest restraint and patience, and not smear shit on themselves.
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Posted
20 minutes ago, Thomas Walsh said:

How is China playing this masterfully?

Primarily by following this easy-to-execute maxim:

Never-interrupt-your-enemy-when-he-is-ma

We're shooting our own dick off.  China's first good move is to stay out of the way, and give us a clean shot.

Long-term, it will be to fill the vacuum created by the US's absence of a trade penis, which it already shot off.  As an immediate example, see China's new conversations with the EU about removing/reducing tariffs on Chinese EVs.

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Posted
10 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

No kidding!  I mean it's extremely clear they played it wrong:

Gns9mBuXAAAnNyY?format=jpg&name=small

Listen, man, a great negotiator makes sure to tell his opponent exactly what he thinks they're doing wrong in the middle of negotiations. There's a whole book about it.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Primarily by following this easy-to-execute maxim:

Never-interrupt-your-enemy-when-he-is-ma

We're shooting our own dick off.  China's first good move is to stay out of the way, and give us a clean shot.

Long-term, it will be to fill the vacuum created by the US's absence of a trade penis, which it already shot off.  As an immediate example, see China's new conversations with the EU about removing/reducing tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Ok I was looking for specifics. From what I’ve seen they’ve just gone tit for tat up the percentages.  
 

The largest consumer and importer on the planet will always have a “trade penis” fyi. No reason to be so absolute on this. 
 

It’ll be interesting to follow the deals like the potential EV one you cite. For the time being China will likely have to subsidize industry until one of us “blinks”. 

Posted
7 minutes ago, Thomas Walsh said:

The largest consumer and importer on the planet will always have a “trade penis” fyi. No reason to be so absolute on this. 

Not if it's trying to be the smallest importer on the planet.

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Posted
12 hours ago, Thomas Walsh said:

Ok I was looking for specifics. From what I’ve seen they’ve just gone tit for tat up the percentages.  
 

The largest consumer and importer on the planet will always have a “trade penis” fyi. No reason to be so absolute on this. 
 

It’ll be interesting to follow the deals like the potential EV one you cite. For the time being China will likely have to subsidize industry until one of us “blinks”. 

image.thumb.png.7f2ed9937d8a755274b05fed2da865ed.png
 

You’re killing in here. Keep up the good work.

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Posted

How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 was sold to voters as a magic bullet that would revitalize the country’s economy. Its impact is still reverberating.

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.

The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a run for its money across the Atlantic.

Even Mr. Trump’s abrupt reversal last week of some of his tariffs, in the face of a bond-market revolt, recalled Britain, where Liz Truss, a short-lived prime minister, was forced to retreat from radical tax cuts that frightened the markets. Her misbegotten experiment was the culmination of a cycle of extreme policies set off by Britain’s decision to forsake the world’s largest trading bloc.

“In a way, some of the worst legacies of Brexit are still ahead,” said Mark Malloch Brown, a British diplomat who served as deputy secretary-general of the United Nations. Britain, he said, now faces a hard choice between rebuilding trade ties with Europe or preserving them with Mr. Trump’s America.

“The fundamental issue remains the breach with our biggest trading partner,” Mr. Malloch Brown said, adding, “If the U.K. ends up in the arms of Europe because neither of them can work with the U.S. anymore, that’s only half a victory.”

cont'd

Quote

 

Mr. Trump was a full-throated champion of Brexit in 2016, drawing explicit parallels between it and the political movement he was marshaling. He initially imposed lower tariffs on Britain than the European Union, which some cast as a reward for Britain’s decision to leave.

Brexit’s drag on the British economy is no longer much debated, though its effects have been at times hard to disentangle from subsequent shocks delivered by the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and, now, Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

The government’s Office of Budget Responsibility estimates that Britain’s overall trade volume is about 15 percent lower than it would have been had it remained in the European Union. Long-term productivity is 4 percent lower than it would have been because of trade barriers with Europe.

Productivity was lagging even before Brexit, but the rupture with Europe compounded the problem by sowing uncertainty, which chilled private investment. The years between the referendum and Britain’s formal departure at the end of January 2020 were paralyzed by debate over the terms of its exit.

By the middle of 2022, investment in Britain was 11 percent lower than it would have been without Brexit, based on a model by John Springford, who used a basket of comparable economies to stand in for a non-Brexit Britain. Trade in goods was 7 percent lower and gross domestic product 5.5 percent lower, according to Mr. Springford, a fellow at the Center for European Reform, a think tank in London.

Mr. Trump has kicked off even more volatility by imposing, redoubling and then pausing various tariffs. His actions, of course, affect dozens of countries, most dramatically the United States and China. Already, there are predictions of recession and a new bout of inflation.

Brexit and its aftermath had multiple second-order effects, both economic and political. Ms. Truss’s plan for debt-funded tax cuts, which were driven by a desire to jump-start Britain’s torpid economy, instead triggered a sell-off of British government bonds as investors recoiled from her proposals.

A similar sell-off of American bonds began last week, with far-reaching implications for the United States. Rising bond yields put pressure on governments because it means they must pay more to borrow funds. Sell-offs are also destabilizing because they signal deeper anxiety about a country’s creditworthiness.

In Britain’s case, fears of a credit crisis forced Ms. Truss to shelve the tax cuts, and she soon lost her job. While that calmed the markets, it left a residue of doubt among investors about Britain. Mortgage rates remained elevated for months, reflecting what one analyst unkindly labeled a “moron premium.”

This skittishness among investors has constrained Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, from taking bolder measures to recharge the economy. Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week ruled out relaxing the government’s self-imposed fiscal constraints, citing the blowback to Ms. Truss’s free-market experiment.

“I would argue that the reason we have such a small-c conservative chancellor is due to the experience we had with Truss,” Mr. Malloch Brown said. “It is directly related to not wanting to prompt the Truss effect again.”

Unlike Britain, the United States still has the world’s default currency in the dollar, and until last week, Treasuries remained a haven for investors. But economists predict that both will be subjected to greater pressure under Mr. Trump.

“Confidence has been shaken, the bond vigilantes are more alert,” said Richard Portes, a professor of economics at London Business School. “People are now much more sensitive to policy inconsistency and policy irresponsibility.”

Brexit also diminished Britain’s influence on the diplomatic stage, something it has only recently begun to recoup with Mr. Starmer’s efforts to act as a bridge between Europe and the United States.

Mr. Trump’s retreat from America’s role as a security umbrella for NATO has driven Britain closer to Europe. But Britons still wrestle with the legacy of Brexit. A defense pact with the European Union, for instance, is being held up by France’s demand that Britain make concessions on fishing rights — an old chestnut from Brexit negotiations.

The longest-lasting effect of Brexit, analysts say, may have been on politics. The years of bitter debate divided and radicalized the Conservative Party, which governed from 2010 to 2024 with a patchwork of policies on immigration and trade that reflected the unwieldy coalition behind Brexit.

Some Brexiteers pushed a vision of Britain as a low-tax, lightly regulated, free-trading nation — Singapore-on-Thames, in their catchphrase. Others wanted a stronger state role in the economy to protect workers in the left-behind hinterland from open borders and the ravages of the global economy.

These contradictions resulted in policies that often seemed at odds with the message of Brexit. Britain, for example, experienced a record surge of net migration in the years after it left the European Union. The difference was that more of these immigrants were from South Asia and Africa, and fewer from Central and Southern Europe.

Brexit’s backers sold the project as a magic bullet that would solve the problems caused by a globalizing economy — not unlike Mr. Trump’s claims that tariffs would be a boon to the public purse and a remedy for the inequities of global trade. In neither case, experts said, does such a panacea exist.

“The truth is, Brexit did not correct any of the problems caused by deindustrialization,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. “If anything, Brexit made them worse.”

Frustrations over the economy and immigration were among the reasons that voters swept out the Conservatives in favor of Mr. Starmer’s Labour Party last year. But his government has kept grappling with these issues, as well as with the bruised aftermath of Britain’s divorce from Europe.

Mr. Trump’s MAGA coalition has some of the same ideological fault lines as the Brexiteers, pitting economic nationalists like Stephen K. Bannon against globalists like Elon Musk. That has led analysts to wonder if post-Trump politics in the United States will look a lot like post-Brexit politics in Britain.

“Brexit caused profound damage to the Conservative Party,” Professor Travers said. “It has been rendered unelectable because it is riven by factions. Will the Republican Party be similarly factionalized after Trump?”

 

 

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Posted
6 hours ago, bolverk said:

How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 was sold to voters as a magic bullet that would revitalize the country’s economy. Its impact is still reverberating.

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.

The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a run for its money across the Atlantic.

Even Mr. Trump’s abrupt reversal last week of some of his tariffs, in the face of a bond-market revolt, recalled Britain, where Liz Truss, a short-lived prime minister, was forced to retreat from radical tax cuts that frightened the markets. Her misbegotten experiment was the culmination of a cycle of extreme policies set off by Britain’s decision to forsake the world’s largest trading bloc.

“In a way, some of the worst legacies of Brexit are still ahead,” said Mark Malloch Brown, a British diplomat who served as deputy secretary-general of the United Nations. Britain, he said, now faces a hard choice between rebuilding trade ties with Europe or preserving them with Mr. Trump’s America.

“The fundamental issue remains the breach with our biggest trading partner,” Mr. Malloch Brown said, adding, “If the U.K. ends up in the arms of Europe because neither of them can work with the U.S. anymore, that’s only half a victory.”

cont'd

 

Brexit was also covertly backed by Russian misinformation on social media.

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Brexit was also covertly backed by Russian misinformation on social media.

Bingo.  How we can't do the simple math of "a state actor that has openly rooted for the United States and the West to fall into decline and lose power and influence - and still does - wants the US and the West to do X.  That state actor is conducting numerous activities to accomplish X.  SO....we should probably do all we can to AVOID X, BECAUSE X IS WHAT OUR ENEMY WANTS"....well, it still blows me away.  If Russia genuinely wants us to do something, that should be enough to convince us "nope, we shouldn't do that."  Instead, one of our two parties - ironically, the one that built a reputation on RESISTING Russian efforts to fuck with the US - is now all-in on doing exactly what Russia fucking wants, to the fucking letter.

For the millionth time, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

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Posted
19 hours ago, Goredho said:

Chinese govt > US consumers > US govt

I think the US Govt (elected and appointed officials) will be more keen to stay this course longer than the American consumer. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe 40% of Americans are too stupid to realize what has caused the deep recession we'll all be living in 6 months from now. 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I think the US Govt (elected and appointed officials) will be more keen to stay this course longer than the American consumer. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe 40% of Americans are too stupid to realize what has caused the deep recession we'll all be living in 6 months from now. 

American consumers will riot in the streets before they allow any real pain. IMO. 

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Posted
11 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I think the US Govt (elected and appointed officials) will be more keen to stay this course longer than the American consumer. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe 40% of Americans are too stupid to realize what has caused the deep recession we'll all be living in 6 months from now. 

I was visiting a buddy in Tampa yesterday.  We were strolling through Ybor City cigar and rum-ing and I saw an old guy wearing a red hat that said ‘Trump Was Right About Everything’

All these years and we have no example of Trump being wrong about something. Sad. 

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Shaddie said:

American consumers will riot in the streets before they allow any real pain. IMO. 

I'm not so sure. I think it more likely that they'll eventually riot in the streets while enduring all of the pain regardless. 

1 minute ago, Gatorubet said:

I was visiting a buddy in Tampa yesterday.  We were strolling through Ybor City cigar and rum-ing and I saw an old guy wearing a red hat that said ‘Trump Was Right About Everything’

All these years and we have no example of Trump being wrong about something. Sad. 

Sigh. 

Posted

Trump says he's changed his mind.  Well, he's not changing his mind because there was never any tariff exemptions in play.

Trump Warns Tariffs Coming for Electronics After Reprieve - Bloomberg

From Truth Social

NOBODY is getting “off the hook” for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst! There was no Tariff “exception” announced on Friday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff “bucket.” The Fake News knows this, but refuses to report it. We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations. What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China, which will do everything within its power to disrespect the American People. We also cannot let them continue to abuse us on Trade, like they have for decades, THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! The Golden Age of America, which includes the upcoming Tax and Regulation Cuts, a substantial amount of which was just approved by the House and Senate, will mean more and better paying Jobs, making products in our Nation, and treating other Countries, in particular China, the same way they have treated us. The bottom line is that our Country will be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Posted

https://newrepublic.com/post/193930/ports-not-collecting-trump-tariffs-glitch

Quote

Thanks to a technical glitch, Donald Trump’s tariffs haven’t even been collected at U.S. ports.

On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that an entry code in the U.S. system for American ships to use to have their freight exempted from tariffs isn’t working, and “the issue is being reviewed.” As a result, no tariffs are being collected by the U.S. government for the time being.


U.S. shippers told the news outlet that they have not been charged higher tariff rates on their containers as recently as Thursday, despite Trump’s claims that tariffs are in effect and are being collected. This latest snafu is on top of the fact that many companies and industry groups are still unsure of when tariffs will be collected, especially since Trump keeps changing the rates erratically in social media posts and executive orders, and making new threats almost daily.

“There has been some confusion on what President Trump has said in social media posts on when the tariff starts and what is written in the executive order,” Jarred Varanelli, vice president of U.S. sales at logistics firm Savino Del Bene, told CNBC. “Social media posts are not law on the pause and increase in tariffs. With the constant changes to the regulations, all customs brokers in our industry have a difficult task ahead of them.”

If there were doubts about the tariffs being a wise policy, those have increased several times over the fact that U.S. authorities can’t even implement them.


“Whether you agree or disagree with the policy, you have to ask, do we have the ability to do it this rapidly?” Dewardric McNeal, managing director and senior policy analyst at consulting firm Longview Global, said to CNBC. “This glitch may be an indication we need more time. It seems odd this is the time it happens. This adds policy chaos for the implementer.”

For now, CBP is telling shippers to pay duties and tariffs within 10 days of their cargo’s release, in which time it expects the glitch to be resolved. But the whole mess is just further evidence of a complete lack of strategy, planning, or direction with Trump’s tariffs. It doesn’t inspire confidence from the markets, hedge funds, manufacturing workers, or anyone outside of MAGAworld.

 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Sir, this besmirching the reputation of genuine practitioners of clownal and harlequinnish arts will not stand.

At some point the ags are going to get pissed at these guys for cheapening their clown college degrees. 

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Posted

Seems like someone at the shipyards could make a killing if they had a label maker that was printing labels:

"This container arrived in 'Murica on whatever date tariffs were the lowest. Also, our check's in the mail, we promise." 

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