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Trump’s tariffs anger Europe — 50 Comments

1. What I learned recently is that a lot of the trade “understandings” between the US and Europe, as well as between the US and Japan, date back to the end of World War Two, when those economies were shattered. To keep them out of the Communist sphere, America allowed Europe and Japan to “protect” their domestic industries with tariffs while lowering our own trade barriers to them. It worked. Europe and Japan are major players in the world markets.

   But World War Two was 80 years ago, and America’s been asking politely for those two regions to become more fair to us in the way they trade with us. They’re not interested in that. Like with America underwriting European security by paying the lion’s share of NATO (and doing the same for Japan to keep China away), we were also underwriting their economic security for 80 years, allowing them to nationalize their health care, etc.

   Of course, to nations on the receiving end of unequal treatment, equality feels like punishment.

   Here’s my question. If someone who’d been abusing you for years was coming after you again, and you had a gun that when you pulled the trigger it shot two bullets. One bullet was large and would really do damage to your attacker; the other bullet was small and wouldn’t hurt very much, but it would hit you. If that was the case, would you pull the trigger?

   That’s how I look at tariffs. There will be pain for us. But more pain will be directed at our enemies. Enemies defined as those countries that want to keep taking our generosity for granted.

2. The next step is probably attacks on the “wreckers” and “hoarders” who are preventing the glorious economic results Trump promised.

3. Trump has a foolish view of economics as a zero sum game. If one side wins another must lose. He thinks tariffs will make the US win.
   He is wrong. Free trade enriches everyone. Go listen to Ron Paul on the topic. Or many others.
   And Europe is angry. So are many countries. There is a lot of lazy anti Americanism around. But how many “don’t buy US campaigns” can you absorb?
   And purely anecdotally I have heard a lot of people saying they are avoiding US holidays for a while.
   Thoroughly depressing and unnecessary

4. “the US is no longer accepting the fact that Europe protects itself and the US doesn’t” – you are kidding, right? The US has a vast array of tariffs *and of other barriers to entry* for foreign products and services. Apparently none of these were factored into this POTUS decision.

   As just one example that comes to mind, I offer the Jones Act: cargo can only be transported between US harbors on US-built, US-owned, US-flagged and US-manned ships. Here the US is protecting “itself” (actually: its shipbuilding industry and its sailors) against competitors from other countries, and that ever since 1920.

   And honestly, there are FAR more examples out there. Please find out about this, because the narrative that “the US is not protecting itself” is both false and pernicious.

   Incidentally, Coyote points to that pesky little thing, the US Constitution, which just happens to say that the power to levy tariffs lies with Congress, not the President: https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/04/two-questions-and-four-ironies-about-trumps-taxes.html

   And there is a reason why economists pretty unanimously are aghast and predict that this will cause a lot of pain, and not only to some fat cats that got rich off cheap Chinese imports… because those cheap Chinese imports turned into cheap durable and consumer goods for US consumers and businesses, and all of them will now face higher prices. In many industries, there is simply no comparable US producer, so the idea of “buying American” to substitute Chinese goods is simply not feasible. And for those industries where there ARE US producers, these US companies will happily raise prices now that their competition has to raise theirs to recoup tariffs, because after all, why shouldn’t they take advantage of the fact that the playing field just got tilted?

   My best guess is a spurt of inflation because of all that merry price raising (wasn’t Trump elected to combat inflation?), plus major pressure on the stock market because of the Trump-induced regime uncertainty, and indeed lots of business going out of business because their supply chains just got burdened with incredible tariffs.

5. David Clayton:

   The Great and Wonderful Oz has spoken, and now we are all wiser.

   Oh, and of course no one here has ever heard of Ron Paul.

   It takes a lot to make me get snarky, but condescending simplifiers can do it.

6. It’s like I linked to in the other thread, when it was Biden’s administration there was no media hand-wringing and pants-wetting about tariffs, and Janet Yellen was using exactly the same logic Trump was using and no one said she was an economic illiterate. I’m quoting here again, from just last April. It’s like the media thinks they have the neuralyzer from “Men In Black” and they can just wipe our memories when they want.

   “I wouldn’t rule out anything out at this point. We need to keep everything on the table. We want to work with the Chinese to see if we can find a solution,” she said in an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen, when asking about the possibility of Washington imposing tariffs if China does not adjust its approach to industry incentives.

   “I’m not thinking so much of export restrictions, as some shifts in their macroeconomic policy, and a reduction in the amount of, particularly local government subsidies, to firms,” Yellen said.

   She nevertheless stressed the need to create a level playing field in the green technology space.

   “We just want to make sure that we’re not driven out of business, and that our firms and workers have opportunities in these industries which will be important ones in our future,” she added.

   What she was talking about was “fair trade” and a goddamned protective tariff with an argument satirized by Bastiat 150 years ago, and all the pundits nodded along. Just one year ago this was. No economists popped up in legacy media to lecture her on why this was fallacious.

   But she was protecting HER cronies and THEIR cronies. And that makes all the difference.

7. Habeck is the energy minister (green of course) who has presided over the dismantling of their energy infrastructure notably coal and nuclear, so they have a host of other problems

8. Gorgasal:

   That’s the administration’s position, but I followed it with a link to a piece that says it’s not true, plus a quote from that piece explaining the rather dubious way the Trump administration gets its high figures for European protectionism.

9. Some time back, likely the Bush admin, a tariff on imported steel was imposed/raised. Helped domestic steel producers and their employers.
   Thomas Sowell said that the increased prices stopped or prevented so many projects requiring steel that the net was job losses exceeding the gains in the steel industry.
   But the latter had a concentrated voice; big corporations, lobbyists, congressmen from those districts.
   The various, anonymous projects which ceased or didn’t start were one-offs here and there and that other place. No concentrated voice.

10. @Richard Aubrey:But the latter had a concentrated voice; big corporations, lobbyists, congressmen from those districts.
    The various, anonymous projects which ceased or didn’t start were one-offs here and there and that other place. No concentrated voice.

    Seen and Unseen. Granted. But the thing is always true, unless you are in legacy media and the industries you favor are the ones getting protected by a Democratic President for whom you act as a propaganda arm.

11. Why Neo so ‘snarky’ I kept the point clear and short. If you misread that in some way I apologise.
    Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?

12. @David Clayton:Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?

    Do you think Janet Yellen was wrong to argue for tariffs a year ago using Trump’s logic when she was Secretary of the Treasury for Biden? Do you think she thinks economics is a zero-sum game? Was she unqualified to lead the Federal Reserve?

    Or do these experts lie to you when they want?

    Here’s Yellen reassuring you that tariffs won’t be noticed by consumers.

    Was it wrong when she said it? If so, why did she tell you wrong things? If not, why is it wrong for Trump to say it?

13. Trump has a foolish view of economics as a zero sum game.
    ==
    He’s been in business cutting mutually advantageous deals for 57 years.

14. @Mitchell,

    Hmmm…I’d have to know more before I pull the trigger. Is your enemy someone who’s trying to kill you, or someone who just annoys you? How much damage would the bullets cause where? A small bullet may not cause a lot of damage, but if it nicks an artery, you’ll bleed out in ten minutes. At any rate, in about 99% of the cases, you’re better off holding your fire and working out a diplomatic solution.

15. Do you think Ron Paul is wrong and Trump is right?
    ==
    Ron has a son who is a serious person, one Dr. Rand Paul. Ron Paul himself is the proverbial stopped clock.

16. Nikita’s I think everyone arguing for tariffs is wrong. Free markets have made countries wealthy.
    Tariffs are just another big government tax.

    Art Deco – global markets and national economies are not the same as a New York real estate business. Trump was happy to see many of his businesses go bankrupt. Not a great way to run a country.

17. “Free trade enriches everyone.”

    And unicorns are great pets for kids.

    In Oz…everyone keeps crapping on about “free trade” as if it actually exists, but POTUS Trump noted the huge barriers to genuinely “free” trade here…particularly biosecurity…which in the era of COVID, varroa mites, & fire ants, not to mention feral animals by the score, is a near farce.

    Keep digging…there’s a unicorn in there somewhere.

18. David Clayton, the dead horse of “but he had bankruptcies “ is silly. He took risks and some didn’t workout. And some had the Trump name on them but were licensing deals not owned by Trump.
    Regarding other countries retaliating, none that matter can afford to walk away from the 26% of the world market that is the USA. Trump understands the leverage that gives him, and I see nothing wrong with forcing investment back into the US, especially manufacturing. That’s why China and SE Asia were so hard hit. It’s where the outsourced plants are.

    As for the aghast economists, yeah don’t care what they say.

19. Greenspan and bernanke persuaded mr that ron might have a point about the Fed on other matter maybe less so

20. @Bill:As for the aghast economists, yeah don’t care what they say.

    I would care more if they weren’t prostitutes who said what they were told to say; if they didn’t tell us that Democrat tariffs are fine and dandy and create jobs and consumers will never notice.

    @David Clayton:Nikita’s I think everyone arguing for tariffs is wrong. Free markets have made countries wealthy. Tariffs are just another big government tax.

    That’s exactly how I feel about them. Over and above that I believe in a moral case for free trade. But the people who are frightening you about Trump’s tariffs today do not believe it themselves, because they turn on a dime and say the opposite when it benefits them to do so.

    Incidentally you need to find someone more recently relevant than Ron Paul if you’re expecting any traction by name-dropping, and you seemed to have badly misjudged the type of audience that was ever receptive to Ron Paul even when he was relevant.

21. David Clayton:

    As I have written time and again, tariffs make me uneasy but I don’t know what their net effect will be. I’ve read plenty from each side, and I have no sense of which side is correct. They each make some good points, but in general in the past I’ve not been impressed by the ability of financial “experts” to make predictions about anything.

    But if you’re asking specifically about Ron Paul, in general I find myself unimpressed with him and have disagreed with him many times in the past. I have found that Trump is not 100% on his predictions – who is? – but he’s often been surprisingly correct.

22. The never-Trumpers at National Review and some of the offshoot neocon never-Trump sites would be happy to have you, David Clayton.

    I think free trade is a wonderful idea, and like so many theories, in practice it’s got a lot of problems. For trading partners operating entirely in good faith and strictly adhering to the principle, sure, it’s good.

    I am having a hard time viewing the idea that US tariffs are just like the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “good faith.”

    I’m also having a hard time taking European wailing seriously, since Europe has been taking advantage of US taxpayers for the entire duration of my life (born four years after V-E Day).

23. global markets and national economies are not the same as a New York real estate business
    ==
    This is a trivial remark.
    ==
    Trump was happy to see many of his businesses go bankrupt. Not a great way to run a country.
    ==
    The Trump Organization was an equity investor in several businesses which applied for re-organizations. Most of the applications involved the same set of casino properties in Atlantic City. No, he was not ‘happy’ to see that.
    ==
    Try saying something that is not misleading.

24. Greenspan and bernanke persuaded mr that ron might have a point about the Fed on other matter maybe less so
    ==
    No, we don’t benefit from a gold standard.

25. Europe’s been ticked off at the US for any and every reason imaginable ever since those “colonists” became successful enough to make Europe as a whole a second-class entity. This is nothing new; just another excuse.

    As I recall history, this country paid its way with tariffs until taxes and the Fed took over and gained control. Will tariffs work in today’s world? Maybe, maybe not … but the way we’ve been going isn’t working well. Lost too much capability on outsourcing in the 80s/90s, now it’s time to pay the piper and bring back what we once had. Or at least try.

    (And it was Trump or Biden. A successful business man or a senile pedophile. I’m not going to judge Trump’s efforts less than 3 months into his administration.)

    Grumble, grumble. Rant, rant.
    🙂

26. There’s pros and cons to a gold standard definitely; the world didn’t move off it for no reason, and if being on it was such a slam dunk then some country would have gone back on and kicked everyone’s ass and more would have followed suit.

    One of the cons being that your economic growth is limited to mine output or else you have deflation, which will limit it for you.

27. Europe angry at Trump! That’s it life has no more reasons for me to partake of it. “If you look for me tomorrow you will find a grave man”!

28. Europe has been looking down its collective nose at the US for a very long time.

    They could afford to, for obvious reasons.
    They have fantastic old buildings. As with everything else, the ultimate basis of…everything…is agricultural surplus. Imagine what had to be sweated out of the peasants not much beyond the Neolithic to pay decades if not centuries of workers to haul and lift and chip stone.

    I wonder how much of the upset in Europe is simply finding out they don’t call the tune as they thought they did.

29. How much oil does the world pump? One would think this is a eminently countable figure, and yet there is no agreement among experts what this number actually is, and a wide range of estimates – hence great uncertainty on forecasts.

    It seems to me that the same is true of tariffs. Trump Bad !! That’s always the first volley. But if all tariffs are ‘bad’, then what is the proper response to tariffs that have existed in place at American expense, for decades? I’ve been trying to understand a bit more about Trump’s complicated formulation. I think the only way this will become clear is via argument, rhetoric, and eventual action by various economies as they work their estimates – and their uncertainties – in give & take. Already quite a few countries have signaled their willingness to negotiate.

    This is part of an economic re-set. I think Trump aims to wean the economies of the world, especially our allies, off the long-standing teat of American aid in one form or another, in the post WWII world. As many have noted before, the over-weaning government-service economies of the European nations is at least because they could afford to provide these service *for free* because their economies (a) had high tax rates and (b) were not encumbered by defense spending on the scale the US offered – *for free*.

    Trump, as usual, disrupts. But I expect order to return eventually – and a better deal for the US economic interests. And, hopefully more clarity on what impact these historical ‘trade arrangements’ have actually had on our economic health, and economic growth.

30. • 100% agree with folks who point out that true Free Trade is not a reality for much of the trade that occurs today – see 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE).

    • For me Free Trade is not a desirable outcome, and the critical trade factor is not tariffs, barriers, etc. – see Conventional Wisdom.

    • The critical trade factor is the desirability of the marketplace – see “location”.

    • Access to the USA market, possibly the most desirable “location” in the world, is an asset that should be monetized ^^ – see 10% baseline tariff.

    • Lastly, It is no surprise to me that a real estate billionaire understands the importance of location – see 5th Avenue, Central Park, etc.

    ^^ = 100% expect other USA assets – tangible and intangible – to be monetized and new income streams to be developed – just listen to Burgum-Interior, Lutnick-Commerce & Bessent-Treasury

31. Interesting framing neo. I couldn’t care less what Europeans think of tariffs. The most important audience are American voters.

    Just because the conventional wisdom has been wrong about so many big things in the past decade or so doesn’t mean that it is wrong about everything. This really looks like the scenario where the conventional wisdom about free trade may have really been right. And Trump has wagered his whole presidency and the future of his movement on it. Lovely.

    At a minimum, I think that free trade definitely has trade-offs and definitely creates losers. However, I strongly suspect that (i) the winners of free trade greatly outnumber the losers; and (ii) most of the winners from free trade don’t perceive how much it benefits them.

    Another angle that hasn’t been addressed here. Allowing the President impose tariffs of this magnitude on an ideological flight of fancy is totally bonkers. Congress has the power to levy taxes, not the president. The enabling statutes are broad, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that not a single member of Congress members who voted to give the president discretion over tariffs thought they were doing this. I wouldn’t be shocked if SCOTUS or Congress shut this down.

32. You are a complete ignoramus, Clayton, or else just a barefaced liar. No other possibilities. The other countries do not practice “free trade”.

33. If there were up/down votes here Aggie at 9:01pm would get a big upvote from me.

34. ”…a lot of the trade ‘understandings’ between the US and Europe, as well as between the US and Japan, date back to the end of World War Two, when those economies were shattered. To keep them out of the Communist sphere, America allowed Europe and Japan to ‘protect’ their domestic industries with tariffs while lowering our own trade barriers to them. It worked. Europe and Japan are major players in the world markets.”

    This! During the Cold War we allowed this unequal relationship because it benefited both sides. It quickly turned a large block of first-world people from an economic liability (think “Marshall Plan”) to a geopolitical asset. German machine tools, Japanese electronics, and French aerospace all contributed greatly to the fight against the Soviet Union. What’s remarkable is that this unbalanced relationship continued for nearly forty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    ”…the US Trade Representative explained that Trump’s sweeping ‘reciprocal tariffs’ were calculated using a complex formula that aims to ‘balance bilateral trade deficits’ between the US and its trading partners.”

    If that’s the goal then it’s bound to fail. There is no way the American economy and the European economies can balance like that. The demographics won’t allow it.

    From an economic perspective people tend to go through three phases in their adult lives. From about age 20 to 45 or so people are net consumers in the economic sense. They are buying their first houses, upsizing those houses as the kids come and the parents get promoted, buying cars, appliances, furniture, etc, and then sending their kids off to college. All this while their incomes are the lowest of their careers.

    Then from about 40 to 65 or so the consumption slows way down. The kids move out of the house, the house is downsized, parents stop buying minivans every five years because they’re not ferrying kids all over town everyday, etc. But the parents are still in the workforce and are, in fact, in the most economically productive period of their lives. They have the highest skills and experience, the highest incomes, and they’re investing large sums in preparation for retirement.

    After 65 people retire and convert their investments to cash, annuities, and some bonds. They also start spending down their assets. All of this reduces the level of investment in the economy.

    The median age in America is still in the 30s, and as a result America still has a consumption-driven economy. That’s not true in Europe. The median age in Europe as a whole is in the mid 40s, and in Spain, Italy, and Germany (and Japan) it’s in the late 40s. They still have a sizable workforce and investment but not a sizable consumption. As a result the European economy is investment- and export-driven. They have the cash and the workforce to build stuff but not enough consumers to consume it, so they have to export the excess.

    There’s no way to balance those two economies the way Trump seems to want to. He can make the tariffs more “fair”, but that’s not going to balance the trade that occurs. The only way to force a balance in trade like that is to set trade at zero.

35. Five years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre businesses started flocking to China, and not just IBM and DuPont. One fellow who owned a 100 employee dental handpiece manufacturing business near my business wrote about attending a DenTech conference in Shanghai in 1994. This is part of what he said in a local newspaper interview on September24, 1994:

    “China is a fascinating, fascinating opportunity. It feels like you are glimpsing the emerging industrial power of the future. Airplanes are full of Japanese, Americans, and Europeans every day who have come to investigate China or are already pursuing business interests there.”

    He said of Shanghai “it’s a very metropolitan city of 14 million with a business friendly outlook, but very different from the American concept with political opinion one-sided with signs hanging everywhere praising the communist leaders…and with virtually no single-family residential housing, apartments are everywhere, with government subsidized leases for Chinese people running about $1.50 a month. Likewise, wages are extremely low with the average about $30 a month.”

    “Money seems plentiful with their government’s drive for jobs and investment oiling the financial machine. Joint ventures with the Chinese government skirt restriction and high costs that bog down importers. Duty runs 12 percent and sales tax 20 to 30 percent. The government realizes its’ better to leapfrog to state of the art, rather than to try to develop it itself.”

    “While there he got a chance to tour a dental manufacturing plant, including a division that made handpieces similar to his. The latter he called backward because it lacked capitalization and any high-tech equipment, using brass instead of stainless steel. Also, rust was abundant. He said, it’s about 25-30 years backwards.”

    “Just a few months after his visit, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and a planeload of American executives followed in an effort to encourage more investment in China. They stopped in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.”

    After this man’s glowing account, I wrote him a letter, one businessman to another. I told him that what the Chinese wanted was not so much his investment, but his knowledge and expertise. Their “leapfrog” was intellectual theft. And I recounted Tiananmen Square, telling him that if he went there he would be in business with communist murderers who aborted baby girls, killed protesters and harvested their organs, and that the current government was little different that Mao’s which had starved and butchered millions and millions of people.

    Trump’s tariffs are not really aimed at our allies. They are an attempt to hinder the outflow of technology, to stop our turncoat, greedy bastard business executives from selling us out. This is not really about Canada, Mexico, or Europe. It’s about China.

36. Neo “As I have written time and again, tariffs make me uneasy but I don’t know what their net effect will be.”

    We are all about to find out. Here is a list of things that may well happen and here’s hoping they don’t.

    1. Global, and US inflation will rise.

    2. Global, and US growth will fall.

    3. Global, and US unemployment will rise.

    It will be easy to see what happens in the next few months.

    Of course free markets are imperfect and many countries place artificial limitations on trade but the alternative is going to be much worse. Historically protectionism, mercantilism and tariffs do not make the dynamic growth economies that we have seen in the last 80 Years.

37. I don’t think anyone knows where this is going.

    No, but many of the usual suspects are whining, fear mongering and throwing tantrums like there’s no tomorrow.

    And that’s an EXCELLENT sign.

38. BTW, that Batya Unger-Sargon article (linked to above) packs quite a punch…and is titled:

    “Former TDS Survivor Goes on Epic Rant About Tariffs on ‘Piers Morgan,’ Leaves Lefties Shellshocked”—
    https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/04/03/former-tds-survivor-goes-on-epic-rant-about-tariffs-on-piers-morgan-leaves-lefties-shellshocked-n2187441?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

39. Bumping David Foster’s link from the open thread today.
    I recommend the comments also.
    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/73683.html

40. Perusing the Salem media group (Townhall, RedState, PJMedia) I found 8 posts that support Trump’s tariffs in various ways.
    In case someone is looking for talking points to use on their freaked out family and friends.
    One per outlet so as not to strain the link monitor.

    https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/04/02/trump-has-been-telling-it-to-us-straight-for-decades-n4938545?state=

    https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/04/03/general-motors-responds-to-trumps-tariffs-in-a-way-that-will-make-indiana-very-happy-n2187483

    https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2025/04/03/why-we-should-be-very-angry-about-the-tariffs-and-why-trump-is-right-again-n2654937

    He’s referring to the tariffs placed on American products by other countries.

41. A little education helps. The dollar value of American manufacturing has never been higher as demonstrated by the St. Louis Fed. The US Chamber also reports that there are over 600,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs. My retirement accounts are heading south. As a former Economics major, this was entirely predictable to me.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1azZr

42. MORE LINKS to discussion of Trump tariffs like AesopFan’s post.

    But before I do, Neo at 5:30 writes dismissively about a piece explaining “the rather dubious way the Trump administration gets its high figures for European protectionism.”

    But the European Union in Brussels would hardly exist without regulating banana size and shape and color, and that clothes dryers must be small and ineffective at drying!

    In fact, many barriers to freer trade o regulations — it’s what these French-style technocratic elites live for, like the expert Aristocracy they pretend to be. Thus, having lived enough in Europe, I am not dismissive of the high rates Trumps Team finds in EU nonfinancial trade barriers.

    In better news, soon after this deliberate period of chaos comes the tax spending bill (like expansion of tax cuts to poorer people and the middle class), and deregulation of the economy to increase productivity.

    BACK TO EVALUATING trump tariff policies. Few here have tried to address the greater contexts of tax policy of this huge change in the monetary system. From Bretton Woods, NH after the Second World War, to Nixon’s floating exchange rates — now we have a new kid in the block with Trump II.

    I think Dutch economist Dr Schasfoote (below) best explains it, and quite lucidly. And I think two aims are improved American security and lowering US interests rates to make the avalanche of Federal Debt due ($17billion!M!) for refinancing through 2026 more affordable. And Trump tariffs are intended to corral both.

    Also, poli sci prof Matt Goodwin on the global cultural and economic consequences.

    This, here are links this investor is sharing with interested friends: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Wins over Skeptical CNN Report
    (9m 3Apr25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WWvBEiFvE

    A political science Prof in the UK puts Trump-o-nomics into the bigger global socio-political context.
    The economic and cultural diversity that existed before hyper-globalism can soon re-assert diverse solutions to scarcity besides, ritually “off-shoring” the making and building of everything. (6m, 3Apr25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fvHlr9oA_E

    “Donald Trump’s new tariffs are more than just economic policy—they’re a full-blown rebellion against the failed promises of globalisation.

    “For decades, elites told us deregulated markets, free trade, and open borders would lift everyone. But they gutted working-class communities across America, Britain, and Europe, outsourced jobs, crushed wages, and eroded national cohesion. This is the beginning of a new economic era—and Trump’s Liberation Day is just the start.” Hence, American reshoring of manufacturing. (Go long on robotics stocks, folks.)

    Investment advisor Peter Schiff says Trump is creating a market collapse. Yet Dr Ron Paul heralds this as the final demise of the fiat money system which has rewarded ruinous inflationary policies ever since Nixon, killing a beast corrupting state politics everywhere (eg, inflating away debt like Argentina has repeatedly done).
    WHO IS RIGHT?

    Dutch economist Dr Schasfoort lays out the historical and geopolitical realities driving the international monetary system to be reformed at this time.

    This lucid and long portion explains monetary history and outlines the three steps Trump tariff policy involved in Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephan Miran’s and Scott Bessent’s papers last November: market chaos, tariff reciprocity, followed by foreign nations payment to the U.S. for agreeable security insurance.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ts5wJ6OfzA
    (24m, 3Apr25) But Schasfoort omits mentioning the enormous value that lowering the dollar exchange rate with foreign currency will achieve. It will greatly help lower Federal debt refinancing costs, too: about half of all US Federal debt ($17 billion) must be refinanced in the next 18-24 months.

    The final 5 minutes give us his speculations of possible hitches in this plan. (This new video has generated an impressive amount of argument over Schasfoort and Trump’s knowledge. SEE COMMENTS at the link if interested. It is very impressive.)

    Finally, the entrepreneur Silicon Valley billionaires on the “All-In Podcast” discuss the existential need for Trump tariffs.

    SEE 28m and especially note Chamath’s extended commentary at 30m+. He discovers a 1987 interview with Trump with Larry King Live, where Trump says why tariffs matter. Trump has been consistent about tariff policy for many decades.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iazo7g40VbQ&t=3856s
    In their view, the riskiness and reward is high. But the assembled Team Trump to achieve it is the best and most competent around.

43. A longer defense and explanation of Trump tariffs by Justin Nomad at the British Lotus Eaters.

    Justin says every commentary about Trump tariffs gets the problem-solution being dealt with WRONG — the key problem is that virtually EVERYTHING is imported. This must be reversed and rebalanced.

    Extended reply to Mike Pence’ widely circulated Trump tariff critique (You can skip to 18 or 20m+). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwgpmNc7oak
    (3Apr25, 32m)

44. TJ – Even if you look at it that way, there are going to be winners and losers. You can increase domestic production of goods, but there are going to be trade-offs. We can have more domestic manufacturing, but we’re going to pay for it with higher prices, slower economic growth, and the alienation of our allies as our actions slow their economic growth.

    No one voted for or consented to the trade off. Trump talks about tariffs and protectionism as unmitigated goods. They are not. There are significant costs, starting with bit hit that retirement accounts took yesterday.

45. As I said last night, this is about China. From CNBC this morning:

    “China’s Finance Ministry on Friday said it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10.
    The ministry criticized Washington’s decision to impose 34% of additional reciprocal levies on China — bringing total U.S. tariffs against the country to 54%…”

    China is the target. The other is distraction.
    Where did Sec. Hegseth just visit? What was that Chinese circling threat around Taiwan all about?

46. One thing I find very odd in this debate is how US citizens don’t recognise how economically powerful the US is a result of the global economy of the last 80 years.
    Look at average wages, GDP, savings or anything else you fancy and you will see a country with immense wealth.
    But nothing is for ever. Are you really going to to start manufacturing everything at home? With your average wages? When you just started booting out all the cheap migrant labour?
    And with your production costs who are going to sell to abroad? Certainly not the Chinese , EU, Africa, India, Latin America as they all have far cheaper costs than you – and are about to impose their own stupid import taxes.
    Or will you sell to each other? How much are you prepared to pay for jeans or an iPhone. And that’s before we start to look at all those tariff free US coffee farmers 🙂

47. David Clayton: FOAD

48. Thanks for the Gish Gallop Mr. Clayton. The answer to each of your question depends on granular features of the good in question.

49. My husband spent a career in manufacturing management. A lower labor rate is not necessarily the only factor. British manufacturing costs are actually higher than ours, as is the case in most of Europe. Properly managed, it’s cheaper to make product in New Jersey than in Mexico.

50. David Clayton:

    It is hard to take a Brit seriously about nearly anything after they have willingly imported East Asians hordes into their country for political expediency and destroyed their own culture.

    So once again, FOAD.

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