Donald Trump had a plan. It was not a good plan, or even a plausible one. But it was, at least, a coherent plan: By imposing large trade barriers on the entire world, he would create an incentive for American business to manufacture and grow all the goods the country previously imported.
Whatever chance this plan had to succeed is already over.
The key to making it work was to convince businesses that the new arrangement is durable. Nobody is going to invest in building new factories in the United States to create goods that until last week could be imported more cheaply unless they’re certain that the tariffs making the domestic version more competitive will stay in place. (They’re probably not going to do it anyway, in part because they don’t know who will be president in four years, but the point is that confidence in durable tariffs is a necessary condition.)
But not everybody got the idea. Eric Trump tweeted, “I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose.”
Eric’s father apparently didn’t get the memo either. Asked by reporters whether he planned to negotiate the tariff rates, the president said, “The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”
Someone seems to have then told Trump that this stance would paralyze business investment, because he reversed course immediately, writing on Truth Social, “TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”
However, there is a principle at work here called “No backsies.” Once you’ve said you might negotiate the tariffs, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate.
Local manufacturing isn’t the goal, they’re going for grift, rug pull, collapse…
He hasn’t botched the tariffs - his goal is to weaken the US as evident by the outcome of every fucking decision he makes. And to that end, he’s accomplished his mission.
Stop treating him like a village idiot who’s trying to run our country and failing; and start treating him like a domestic enemy to the US who’s trying to destroy our country and succeeding.
‘Botched’ is what happened when that rally shooter missed, and what actively happens every time someone who swore the Oath of Office/Enlistment/Commissioned Officers is within arm’s reach of that traitor and fails to uphold their obligation to defend our constitution from all domestic threats.
He is not only attacking the US, he wants to breakup democracies world wide and through causing international crisis and turmoil, push all countries into becoming authoritarian regimes, controlled by oligarchs and one-party systems.
That is the actual goal, and he is doing that while trying to maintain plausible deniability, by staging himself as an incompetent and incoherent buffoon.
And even if he is a real buffoon and doesn’t understand the end goal, he has a lot of more intelligent antidemocratic advisors around him that do. This is not coming out of nowhere.
I think he’s just an egotistical POS who wants to be remembered for something huge, like taking Greenland.
He wants to stand out among other former presidents but he’s too stupid to figure out how to do that while also improving America.
I mean the coherent portion of the plan was “let’s put what effectively are sales taxes on everything, so we can remove the tax burden completely and permanently from companies and billionaires!”
I don’t think Trump’s plan had anything at all to do with helping America. The tariffs are about wielding power, making threats, creating fear and division, etc.
Trump can pull the tariffs away at a time of his choosing to curry good-favour when he needs it. And since he has that control, and knows the broad effect on stock-prices, he can also use it as a self-enrichment exercise too.
Yeah, it’s just a shakedown. The authoritarian countries will just outright bribe him to get the tariffs dropped, democracies are in a bit of a pickle because they typically can’t do that, so they’ll have to be more creative. We’ve been through this before.
Very true.
This is why EUs response to this is making me sick. Just grow a fucking pair already. They’re tiptoeing around slamming back with massive tariffs, basically confirming to trump that he should push harder to get whatever he wants.
China immediately slapped back with massive tariffs, and this is how it needs to be done.
The EU needs time to get their economies on war footing. They know what’s coming.
One fun thing to think about is the situation is a direct boon for Russia. They can just import stuff and export to the US at their 0% tariff rate and make a killing.
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I’m convinced that Trump is now confident that his family will control the presidency indefinitely. That’s how he can claim “his policies will never change”
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Crash the market.
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Have him and his billionaire friends buy back most of the market at a reduced rate.
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Own most of America, be Oligarchs for life changing the political and economic system for ever.
Nope, plan seems to be going exactly how it’s supposed to. They probably won’t even use their own money as they control the payment systems for the government.
America is well on its way to begin a dead ex-soviet style authoritarian oligarchy - much worse than the corrupt Capitalist Liberal Democracy it was before.
This won’t end in 2028, and will probably still be a this way or worse in 2058 and beyond. This isn’t some minor change. It’s Trump becoming his own Putin styled leader.
Trump has always just followed his mentors plans, first Roy Cohn, now this. You’re cooked, sorry. Done for.
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But it was, at least, a coherent plan: By imposing large trade barriers on the entire world, he would create an incentive for American business to manufacture and grow all the goods the country previously imported.
Really Atlantic…??
A. You believe that was the plan as opposed to simply bullying the world to bend the knee and beg…?? Bend the knee and beg is Mafia Don Mangolini’s definition of negotiate.
B. You believe that plan to be “coherent”…??
🙄 🤦♀️
A - Read the rest of the article. He addresses this.
B - I think it’s a reasonable description. As the author says, it’s a stupid, bad plan, but its more or less coherent, in the sense that there’s a basic A+B=C logic to it. He’s primarily contrasting this with the absolute incoherence of the execution.
Too bad he can’t botch eating a hamberder. Or stepping out of the shower without falling. Or playing Russian roulette and not losing. There are at least 593 other things he could botch that would do the world much more service.
You think the guy who wears diapers so he can shit himself on purpose, showers?
Touché. Maybe he can shit himself to death
Here come the pundits: “This is a president that is known to joke to try and troll the press, that was obviously just a joke he made to troll the press. Its all just obviously just him bull shitting, you can’t believe anything he says, he jokes all the time”
coherent
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
https://archive.ph/xYuVB the archived link for anybody who wants to read it.
How can you botch something that was ireetrievably fucked up from the start? It’d be like defacing a teratoma.
Donnie has bankrupted everything he’s ever touched (including casinos). Why would anyone look at that track record and assume he wouldn’t do it again. The man’s an imbecile.
FALSE! Donald Trump and ALL those Right Wing Commentators TOLD me This was GOOD that Prices are going UP and those Convicted Fraudsters would NEVER Lie to Me!
