Or São Tomé and Principe -- a very poor micronation in the Atlantic with one export: cocao.
So, Trump is making chocolate more expensive in America if only indirectly: Europe will buy the STP chocolate, leaving US to import at a higher price + tariff from elsewhere.
It's going to be more expensive no matter where it came from. Cocoa harvests are failing because of drought and other issues. We may be chocolate-less in a decade or less.
Contact affected countries via EU, assess the harm done by Trumps lunacy, develop joint measures to alleviate the damage. Network around the US.
They wanna be isolationist? Let them. See how it plays out.
tariff in x on imports from 🇺🇸 +
mean VAT rate on goods in x +
(number of visits by government officials from x to Biden - number of visits from government officials from x to Trump)
Look how small some of those nations are while US a behemoth. Kind of like soft power once meant we were gracious about smaller less developed nations using tariffs while we could afford in some cases to not reciprocate so they could grow and integrate into the global system. Brutal Americans, yes.
Yes, I've seen there was a "formula" at work here, but it's the equivalent of dividing apples by oranges and coming up with a result dictating how many pears you need. The FT is very good on the nonsense: https://www.ft.com/content/85d73172-936a-41f6-9606-4f1e17cb74df
Plus, "the numbers" do not pertain to the trade balance, but only to the trade balance in goods.....Count in the trade balance in services and the trade balance with EU is very small indeed.
Feels like we are not calling this what it is? Short-term Tr*mp lines his pockets with payments for special exemptions. Long term, a
sign he plans to be around past 2028-takes at least until then to shift production to US.
Well, the catch is that enough human beings decided to elect one of their the most ignorant, vile and stupid fellow humans as president, and gave him all the reasons to believe he could be a king.
A good old-fashioned absolutist despot, and a particularly stupid one for that 🤷♀️
Who again thought it was a good idea to leave the most prosperous economy in the hands of a man whom his Wharton professor called the stupidest student he ever had?
I really wish the message today was more unified around “let your republican senator know you don’t want these tariffs.” They can stop this. They can say there’s not a national emergency. They can block the tariffs. This needs to fall on their shoulders.
Thanks for the link. Illuminating article. Favorite quote:
[This will] hurt US consumers, because the pass-through of tariffs is higher than USTR claims. And the appreciation of the dollar will tend to offset the effects, by hurting US exports. In short this is both stupid and destructive.”
It’s peak Amateur hour! They really want America to make cheap t-shirts instead of Vietnam making them, like that’s high value!? No idea where these people learnt anything about Economics!?
I think it was like the pardons. Bessent showed up with a few and Trump said “Fuck it. Tariff them all.” So, at the last minute, they grabbed an internet spreadsheet list of all countries in the world and slapped some numbers.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-reciprocal-tariff-chart-2054514
According to analysts and later White House clarification, each country's tariff rate was based on the U.S. trade deficit with that country, divided by the value of that country's exports to the U.S. Trump then cut that number in half, saying he was being "kind."
The column beside the country’s name is headed “Tariffs”. E.g. Thailand = 90%. This is a blatant lie! 🇹🇭 does not have a 90% tariff on US goods! Rich 🇺🇸 buys 90% more goods than it sells to them. If it wasn’t so destructive to the world economy, it would be hysterically funny in its stupidity.
A bilateral trade imbalance just isn't problematic. We rich Americans like buying stuff from Vietnam. The Vietnamese can't afford to buy as much from us. What's the problem?
It's like saying I have a trade imbalance with the grocery store because I buy food and they don't buy anything from me.
Who the fuck knows? Maybe one of his major donors went there on vacation and got food poisoning. We should stop looking for logic in his decisions. It’s just soft-brained madness.
Nope. He is creating a vehicle for companies in the US to ask him for a favor. Trump is TRANSACTIONAL and wants US companies to do what he says "or else." This is one of the "or else" things. If you comply, stop doing DEI, Etc you get an "exception" to the tariff. If not? Well it sucks to be you.
everything trump does is to distract from what he just did the day before, notice the war text chain is old news now. he is a master at distraction and we take the bait 100% of the time.
My guess is it has something to do with the size of our trade deficit with countries linked to GDP or something. Or - Occam's razor, he's just going by his gut
Is this related to China's strategy of moving their manufacturing throughout other asian countries? A risk mitigation strategy they implemented after his last round of economic warfare during his first term. i dont know the manufacturing trade data so this is a hypothesis.
This is somewhat what I was thinking also, many of those countries have been growing as manufacturing centres partly by China but also by companies looking to move away from China for manufacturing due to cost and other business continuity concerns post covid.
They remind him of what a coward he was during the Vietnam War and its aftermath, getting out of combat on a BS medical, while some poor kid had to serve in his stead.
Comments
So, Trump is making chocolate more expensive in America if only indirectly: Europe will buy the STP chocolate, leaving US to import at a higher price + tariff from elsewhere.
They wanna be isolationist? Let them. See how it plays out.
New tariff against country x =
tariff in x on imports from 🇺🇸 +
mean VAT rate on goods in x +
(number of visits by government officials from x to Biden - number of visits from government officials from x to Trump)
https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com/post/3llueew3wes2e
They're too small and not rich enough to buy as much from us as we do from them.
sign he plans to be around past 2028-takes at least until then to shift production to US.
A good old-fashioned absolutist despot, and a particularly stupid one for that 🤷♀️
[This will] hurt US consumers, because the pass-through of tariffs is higher than USTR claims. And the appreciation of the dollar will tend to offset the effects, by hurting US exports. In short this is both stupid and destructive.”
It’s Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School.
According to analysts and later White House clarification, each country's tariff rate was based on the U.S. trade deficit with that country, divided by the value of that country's exports to the U.S. Trump then cut that number in half, saying he was being "kind."
It's like saying I have a trade imbalance with the grocery store because I buy food and they don't buy anything from me.
We Really like your husband work.
Ty
That's my take.
This is the “anti DEI” shit (aka white supremacy)
just...wow....
They haven't spoken about trade in 5 years and now within 2 months:
https://bsky.app/profile/angrystaffer.bsky.social/post/3llul2b7ai22m
Vietnam is shown as having an effective tariff rate of 90% against US trade.
I’m genuinely curious whether these numbers have any merit whatsoever.
https://bsky.app/profile/hmmvryintrstng.bsky.social/post/3llugxrcu3c2j
What did the US-Citizens do
to deserve such a dump Government?
...
they VOTED
@anneapplebaum.bsky.social
...so it appears that Stinky sees every country like a TrumpWorld supplier that he can push-over, welsh on, or bankrupt.)
https://bsky.app/profile/ianbremmer.com/post/3llup7dfi3c2i
That's not to support these tariffs, which are the economic equivalent of saying, "hold my beer" to Smoot-Hawley, but that's undoubtedly why.