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Trump thinks his deliberate creation of uncertainty maximizes his power. He’s about to discover that it weakens the American economy, American businesses and American jobs. He’ll ignore all that, but how will MAGA react?

submitted 5 hours ago • 0 comments

Grudgingly, I have to agree. Despite the likelihood of losing in U.S. courts, I can’t imagine that Tariff Man will abandon his beloved blunt instrument. He doesn’t have the intellectual ability to admit to himself that his tariff threats aren’t working. It’s TACOs all the way down.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

The current betting is that Tariff Man loses bigly.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This isn’t how you do a real trade deal, Donald. Many of us on BlueSky could teach you the art of the trade deal, but I don’t think you could muster the discipline or understanding to do it. Not that actual trade policy veterans would help you anyway.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Aside from the hilarity of asking negotiators to put forward their “best offers” at the beginning of negotiations, one wonders who in the Trump regime gets to deliver the letter to the penguins.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Trump’s “deals” are always 2 weeks away. And always will be. He doesn't know what a trade agreement really is. Trump thinks a deal means the other side agrees to buy billions in U.S. products. Everybody else knows that such agreements just set the rules of the game and not individual contracts.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Mainstream journalism is astonishingly biased, but not how you might imagine. Their fear-driven sanewashing of the orange Führer’s insanity betrays a bias favoring Dear Leader’s authoritarian agenda. Cut the sanewashing! Tell us the truth! We can take it. It’s only Trump and his mob who can’t.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

MAGA isn’t reacting well and shouldn’t. I worked a while in eastern Germany and heard plenty about the Stasi. The Palantir project will be more comprehensive and efficient than anything the Stasi dreamed of.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Tariff impacts generally have a lag of a few months, but it’s beginning to happen. MAGA is getting uneasy, but some will soon become angry at how their orange Führer has led them astray about who actually pays for tariffs.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Every journalist who covers the Trump regime needs to read this and absorb its message. Almost all journalists have failed and they must correct course if a democratic America is to survive.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The orange Führer’s attacks on foreign students are killing a major export industry and hurting the U.S. balance of payments. He is making foreign universities richer and ignores his own BOP justification for higher tariffs. Consistency has never been a priority for the stable genius.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Hey, Mr. Tariff Man! Tariffs don’t do what you think they do!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

MAGA is showing its hatred of knowledge and progress. Progress, by definition, brings change. Change is to be feared.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Trade policy is like sex. Everybody thinks they know how to do it.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Another Trumpian attempt at distraction, still trying to believe he dominates trade policy. China’s best response would be to ignore Tariff Man. He’s doing quite a good job of destroying his own relevance to world trade.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

An economics nerd, I have watched crypto since Bitcoin’s beginning about 15 years ago. These things are nefarious and likely criminal. Their only practical use IMO is for money laundering. There are other ways to gamble or speculate if you wish, but don’t support organized crime.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Hehehe … Turns out that Tariff Man’s tariff emergency was fake news after all.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

I know only a trade wonk cares about such trivia, but has anybody compared Trump’s tariffs to the bindings (not just applied tariffs) America has made over decades of GATT/WTO negotiations? One assumes Trump has blown through all our bindings, creating a prima facie case for retaliation by others.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

When I was a commercial officer overseas we helped market American universities to potential foreign students, knowing that higher education is a huge U.S. export industry. The orange Führer is destroying a magnificent U.S. export. The faux dealmaker is giving money away to foreign universities.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

For my European friends: “There is nothing compelling you to cater to the delusions of America’s mad king.”

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

This is why I have been advising exporters in Hawai’i to emphasize Hawai’i or their Pacific origins. Hawai’i is easy to distinguish from the rest of the country. Being seen as American is toxic.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

The EU takes the GATT/WTO view that trade agreements set the rules of the game, leaving it to the private sector to decide what and where to trade. Trump sees deals as managed trade, setting what trade will happen and believes he has “won” if his side makes more money. May be mutually exclusive.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

I had forgotten the first sale rule. Customs valuation, like all of trade policy, is more complicated than Tariff Man can imagine.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

“The Japanese go into trade talks only after countless hours of surveying data, gaming out scenarios, stress testing, perfecting highly choreographed talking points, agreeing upon pain thresholds and amassing binders full of contingency plans. Team Trump just seems to wing it.” Yep.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Foreign leaders should avoid Washington and certainly refuse any Oval Office meeting. Our orange Führer may still have some world influence due to the economic chaos he so enjoys, but he has made himself politically irrelevant. Don’t engage with him.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Here we go again. The Tariff Man needs a new shtick.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.

submitted 14 days ago • 315 comments

Gee, Donald, do you suddenly regret taking the cut advice of one of those South African boers you love? You could also use a briefing on the aid given by your former allies. (Flash: you have no present allies.) The US isn’t the only one who gets asked for money and others give generously.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Intentionally firing live ammunition near two dozen diplomats would seem to merit more press attention than this story is receiving. Perhaps I’m over sensitive, having once been a diplomat in an embassy that was fired upon.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Republicans are oblivious and economically illiterate. Democrats are ineffective. But the bond market takes its revenge coldly and with surgical precision.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

So, who here still believes that Trump told you the truth about who actually pays for his ego tariffs? We’re all going to pay his import tax, bigly.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments