Trump announces reciprocal tariffs

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the announcement, which came yesterday:

And on trade, I have decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less. In other words, they charge us a tax or tariff, and we charge them the exact same tax or tariff. Very simple.

Sounds kind of good to me, but I freely admit that economics is not my strong suit. However, surprisingly, even the BBC can’t seem to find anything too terrible to say about these tariffs. An excerpt:

Trump cast his plan for so-called reciprocal tariffs as part of his effort to bring investment to the US and boost manufacturing.

“If you build your product in the United States, there are no tariffs,” he said, adding that he was “just doing what was fair”. …

Historically, the US has championed free trade and kept the majority of its tariffs low, except on certain products such as footwear and, more recently, steel and aluminium.

The US has an average tariff rate of 3.4%, compared with an average rate of 5% in Europe, according to the WTO. …

John Cassidy, chief executive of Red Cedar Investment Management, said Trump’s string of rapid-fire tariff announcements had unnerved Wall Street, which “does not like the unknown”.

But he warned against over-reacting, noting that tariffs that Trump imposed during his first term had a relatively mild impact on the US economy.

“I think Trump’s playing a hand here and I think he’s got a very strong hand to play,” he said.

However, Alex Durante, economist at the Tax Foundation, said it remained to be seen what changes could result from Trump’s moves.

He does not think tariffs are the best strategy for dealing with trade complaints, given the costs and uncertainty they introduce for US firms and risks of retaliation.

The gist of it is that nobody seem to know what will happen. But the objections seem rather tepid to me.

Your mileage may differ.

The three hostages who might be returned tomorrow, plus news on some of those who have already, and an apology returned

The New Neo Posted on by

The three hostages due to be released tomorrow have been named. They are American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, Russian-Israeli Alexandre Troufanov, and Argentinian-Israeli Iair Horn.

Interesting that all three have international connections. Perhaps – we can hope, anyway, although it may be a very vain hope – they were treated a bit better than the last group, for that very reason.

The name of Troufanov rang a bell for me, and I wasn’t sure why. But I think it might have been this

Troufanov was taken hostage along with his grandmother Irena Tati, mother Yelena (Lena) and girlfriend Sapir Cohen. The three women were released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023. Troufanov’s father was killed in the Oct. 7 attack.

So that’s another family that has suffered especially greatly as a group, during and since October 7. According to this article, Troufanov was originally kidnapped by Palestinian Islamic Jihad rather than Hamas. Hostage Dekel-Chen’s family seems to be intact, fortunately, and his pregnant wife actually gave birth to a third child while he was in captivity. Iair Horn was kidnapped with a brother who’d been visiting him, and the brother (or the brother’s body; who knows?) remains in Gazan hands.

Here are the three, before:

They may or may not look anything like that tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that they are released.

The hostages who have already been released in the latest deal have stories to tell which are coming out bit by bit. I doubt we have the entirety of anyone’s story, either; some details are kept hidden because they don’t want to jeopardize further hostage releases. But more and more of the obvious sadism of their captors is revealed. For example, there’s this:

Speaking with Channel 12 news alongside three other mothers of the surveillance troops, Shira Albag quoted her daughter Liri as saying, “I got out of the hell that we went through there, but the men, the soldiers, are going through worse than us.”

“The terrorists also made a point to show them videos and share with them all sorts of things that they [the male hostages] were going through there, that they were starving… all sorts of things that are really tough,” the soldier’s mother said. “Even today when they’re here, we don’t know everything exactly what they went through.”

The women kept journals in captivity – I’m surprised they were allowed writing implements – but of course Hamas burned them before their release.

And this is not surprising; it’s what I was thinking:

Orly said her daughter had told her that if she had been released two months earlier she, too [like the three men recently released], would have looked emaciated.

“To see her in this state today and say, ‘Well, she probably ate well, she was fine’ — that’s not true: there were periods when they had nothing to eat or the same portion was used for four, because there were four of them at the time, and after that, it was used for two, so they had the opportunity to gain a little weight,” she said.

Fattening them up for presentation.

As I wrote in an earlier post, these women had been traumatized even before they were kidnapped. They were at the surveillance post, the one that had given warnings – that were ignored – of an imminent attack. They also watched their fellow soldiers at the post be murdered and perhaps tortured before murder. And only then were these women taken into captivity.

It seems to me they will be bonded to each other for life, having shared such intense experiences and having supported each other.

Now the IDF head has apologized to them:

Halevi met with Agam Berger, Liri Albag, Naama Levy and Karina Ariev, who were released from Hamas captivity after some 15 months. The fifth surveillance soldier released from Hamas captivity, Daniella Gilboa, was not present at the meeting.

“It was wrong to have not taken you seriously, you were amazing soldiers, I apologize for what you experienced in captivity,” Halevi said to the soldiers, according to leaked remarks. …

The chief of staff also told them that the military would fully investigate what happened on October 7, and that they should “be partners in the investigation” by providing testimony. …

“From me personally and in the name of the commanders in the IDF, I am very sorry for everything you have been through, it’s our responsibility, and we can’t go back and change. We are very focused on learning so that this will not recur.

“From what you have told me now, I understand that you, with superior heroism, have dealt with unimaginable difficulty, both during captivity and in the way you were during the release,” Halevi added.

Too little, too late. But still, something.

Fifteen female surveillance soldiers (out of fifty-two soldiers killed at the base) were murdered that day by the terrorists, and seven were kidnapped. One of those kidnapped was murdered later in captivity, five have been returned to Israel in the exchanges, and one was rescued.

Halevi is slated to resign on March 5, due to the IDF’s failure to prevent the October 7 massacre.

Vance goes to Europe, and has a few things to say

The New Neo Posted on by

J. D. Vance gave Europe a tongue-lashing about their lack of devotion to free speech and liberty in general, and their reluctance to pay for defense. For example:

The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe … is the threat from within — the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States.

Lots more at the link.

Seems to me that Vance is taking a leaf out of Milei’s book. Or maybe vice versa.

At any rate, here’s the head of NATO:

I also want to thank you personally for everything you have done over the years in engaging with Europe. It has been noted before, and it’s really important. And I look forward also from that perspective to our talks and on Europe stepping up, the European part of NATO stepping up. You’re absolutely right. It has to be done. We have to grow up in that sense and spend much more.”

Rutte then took particular aim at the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and beyond, which negotiated a ceasefire between warring factions on the Ukraine and Russian sides, though ultimately failed to keep the peace.“We also have to discuss the defense industrial base. Of course, this is a problem we have both in the US and in the rest of NATO. We are simply not producing enough. We are not keeping up with the Russians and the Chinese. And then, of course, Ukraine, how to bring Ukraine to a lasting peace. And no Minsk again. So it has to be lasting.

Easier said than done. But sometimes people actually respond to leadership.

Keeping up with the DOGE news

The New Neo Posted on by

I can’t keep up – there’s too much news breaking every day. But I try.

This seems important. Some of it isn’t due to payments to people perpetrating fraud, but some definitely is. At the very least, we seem to have utterly incompetent bookkeeping. How much is merely that and how much is payment to people perpetrating fraud? Either way, it’s shocking:

On Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) held her DOGE subcommittee hearing and announced it has discovered that over the past 20 years, the U.S. government has squandered $2.7 trillion on improper payments. Just last year alone, the government handed out $170 billion to individuals who were deceased, criminals, or otherwise ineligible for government programs.

Even more alarming, the government made $44 billion in payments with no clear record of where the money actually went — officials simply don’t know.

Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest culprits when it comes to these improper payments. The Biden administration lost a staggering $764 billion due to a combination of inaccurate record-keeping, bureaucratic incompetence, and outright fraud.

This has been going on under presidents from both parties. No one seemed to have the power and energy – and in some cases, even the inclination – to look into it. Before we had computers, it would have been difficult – well-nigh impossible – to search thoroughly. But we’ve had computers for a long time.

Remember the old adage, “good enough for government work”? This isn’t good enough – even for government work.

And what’s up with the limestone mine? Yes, the limestone mine (and I linked to Yahoo because they’re not known for being sympathetic to any causes on the right, and nevertheless they’re covering this):

In a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, said that the US government stores and processes all retirement paperwork in a limestone mine.But he added: “We were told the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000 because all the retirement paperwork is written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down a mine.”

Musk said: “Instead of working in a mineshaft, carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine, you could do practically anything else, and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way.”

DOGE’s X account later published photos of the facility.

I’m surprised they haven’t enlisted monks to be scribes.

This is actually not news, although it was news to me and probably to you. But the article mentions that:

A 2014 Washington Post report said 600 Office of Personnel Management workers processed federal employees’ retirement papers by hand at the site, with them passing thousands of case files from cavern to cavern.

The manual process continues to operate because of successive administrations’ failures to automate it, the outlet said, delaying how fast workers receive their full retirement benefits.

The left is trying very hard to stir up outrage about what DOGE is doing, with stories like this one, parts of which seem bogus. But yes, I am pretty sure that DOGE is causing some hardship. But something needed to be done, and it’s been needed for a long, long time.

In addition, although this isn’t a DOGE action, it’s along the same lines. From Lee Zeldin:

RFK Jr. confirmed

The New Neo Posted on by

He’s not my favorite of Trump’s nominees. But I’ll give him a chance.

The vote mirrored that for Tulsi Gabbard yesterday – Mitch McConnell was the only Republican voting no.

I do think that RJK’s anti-vax views have been somewhat exaggerated by his detractors. He’s certainly not against all vaccines, for example.

And here’s a relatively fair article about him from, of all places, the BBC.

The DOJ sues New York, Hochul, and James

The New Neo Posted on by

Bondi announced the move, and why:

“They [NY] have a ‘tip-off’ provision that requires New York’s DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information,” Bondi said. “It’s tipping off an illegal alien. And it’s unconstitutional, and that’s why we filed this lawsuit.”

The left is screaming – among other things – “we must protect these people from Musk stealing their data!” This of course has zero to do with Musk, and everything to do with policies that New York enacted in 2019, when Musk was happily making Teslas and was still more or less on the left, or at least not on the right.

More here, from Jonathan Turley:

“One of the interesting aspects about the case against New York is that its law has a provision that is called a tip-off provision. So that an unlawful immigrant is told whether the federal authorities have inquired about your status, and the federal officials are saying, ‘Well, what gives with that?’” Turley told Jesse Watters. “You know, you’re basically giving a tip off to someone that we’re trying to apprehend.”

Turley said that Trump has been forthright about his intentions.

“This is going to be a very interesting fight, and there’s nothing subtle about this. This is sort of smash-mouth litigation saying, ‘We’re at odds, and we’re going to have to resolve this in the courts.’ This is part of a general move by the Trump administration to go ahead and get these fights going,” Turley said. “They want to establish the rules, and President Trump has said, ‘Look, I’ll comply with court orders that go against me. I’ll appeal them, but we want judicial review.’” …

“The important distinction there, Jesse, is that there’s a line of cases in the Supreme Court called anti-commandeering cases. And in those cases, which rest on state’s rights, the court has said, ‘Look, you can’t require the state to carry out federal functions and federal policies.’ But that tip-off provision is an active effort that works against federal enforcement,” Turley said.

A state cannot actively work against the federal authorities.

Also, Alan Dershowitz has released another video along the lines of the one I spotlighted the other day. Here’s the new one:

What will happen on Saturday with Hamas and the hostages?

The New Neo Posted on by

Unfortunately, I can’t answer the question. I don’t think anyone can at this point, including the main players.

At least four things happened recently to get us to this possible fork in the road. First was the terrible condition of the last three hostages released. Second was Hamas saying it canceled any more releases till further notice – although they’ve now sort of walked that back and said maybe (I can’t find a link for that at the moment, but I heard it late last night). Third was Trump’s saying that’s it, enough, give back all the hostages or you’ll regret it – in other words, FAFO. And Netanyahu has echoed what Trump said, except Netanyahu only said that “the hostages” have to come back on Saturday rather than all the hostages.

The agony of the families who were expecting their loved ones back during this first phase must be horrific. Perhaps Trump and Netanyahu are calculating that Hamas’ reluctance to continue meant most of the remaining hostages are dead, or in such horrible condition that Hamas will never release them. Or maybe Hamas considered pausing the returns in order to fatten up the next group up a little more, but Trump and Netanyahu are saying their time for stalling has run out.

Hamas has never had to fight this war with Trump as the US president – only with Biden and company in charge. What will they do? What will Israel do? What will Trump do? Letting go of the planned return of the hostages is extraordinarily painful, because this time the idea is that they will probably die soon if they aren’t dead already, although there’s renewed evidence that at least some are still alive. But Hamas may have overplayed it’s hand. Let’s hope so.

Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed as head of intelligence

The New Neo Posted on by

All the Republicans in the Senate voted yes, except their former leader Mitch McConnell.

Interesting.

Here’s a report:

With the coordinated and persuasive assistance of Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Vice President JD Vance, crucial senators who had lingering concerns about Gabbard were convinced to back her in the crucial committee vote last week, including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Todd Young, R-Ind.

Her success came despite the impassioned plea of Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Democrats, who all opposed Trump’s DNI pick.

I don’t think that there’s any love lost between the Democrats and Gabbard since her defection from the party and support of Trump. As for McConnell, here’s what he said:

The Kentucky lawmaker flagged Gabbard’s refusal to label Snowden a “traitor” as a serious concern.

“Edward Snowden’s treasonous betrayal of the United States and its most sensitive lawful intelligence activities endangered sources, methods and lives,” he said in a statement after the vote.

He also denounced Russia’s “unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine” as something that threatens American interests and is “solely the responsibility for Vladimir Putin.”

“Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge these facts is an unnecessary risk,” he said.

McConnell questioned Gabbard’s evolving views on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes expanded surveillance that accounts for 60 percent of the intelligence in the president’s daily briefing.

Gabbard introduced legislation to repeal FISA’s Section 702 when she served in the House, but she said ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing it had been fixed and called it a “vital” national security tool.

What’s Trump going to do about Ukraine?

The New Neo Posted on by

Many people expect him to abandon the country, throw it to the Putin wolf. I’ve never thought that would happen. But I do think that, in characteristic fashion, he’ll change our relationship to Ukraine in accordance with his own priorities and what he sees as America’s interests.

When the war between Russia and Ukraine began with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it was shocking and deeply disturbing. Initially I thought Russia would win handily, but that turned out to not be true and Ukraine mounted a fierce resistance. It always seemed as though it might be a futile resistance for the simple reason that Putin seemed determined to play out the old Russian way of war: throw a lot of people into it and sustain high casualties, and outlast the enemy because of Russia’s huge population.

At this point, the war has gone on for three years with much loss of life on both sides. To what end? Ukraine remains standing, and Russia has control of some extra territory that was Ukraine’s. But the war has seemingly been more or less stalemated for a long time, and meanwhile we supply a great deal of aid to Ukraine, particularly military aid.

Trump has long said he plans to negotiate an end the war. This is in line with his general dislike of war – a dislike I think we all share – and especially of US involvement in foreign wars. But my sense is that he also has a general desire for fairness to Ukraine; although the country will lose something, it shouldn’t lose its essential nationhood and most of its territory should remain intact. Nevertheless, America’s interests, which include a stable Europe, are not to endlessly fuel an interminable war between Russia and Ukraine that at this point is mostly only good for causing more death and destruction.

When I imagined what that agreement might look like, I have long thought it would involve not only some land loss by Ukraine, but no NATO membership and yet some sort of guarantee of protection. Trump might arrange some sort of deal where we help Ukraine in yet-to-be-decided ways while getting something back.

Today Trump announced he’d talked to Putin and that the negotiations are set to begin:

Trump added that the negotiating process “will begin by calling President Zelenskyy [sic], of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now,” before revealing that the American delegation to any peace talks would be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff.

In a Facebook statement, Zelensky confirmed that he and Trump had “a meaningful conversation” about “opportunities to achieve peace [and] discussed our readiness to work together at the team level, and Ukraine’s technological capabilities—including drones and other advanced industries.”

“We also spoke about my discussion with [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent and the preparation of a new document on security, economic cooperation, and resource partnership. President Trump shared details of his conversation with Putin,” Ukraine’s president added.

“No one wants peace more than Ukraine,” Zelensky concluded. “Together with the U.S. [sic], we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done.”

For Trump’s part, the American president said the conversation with the Ukrainian had gone “very well.”

It is impossible to know what’s really going on behind the scenes or what Zelensky really thinks. But my hunch is that once he realized Trump was going to be the next president, he started shifting to a practical way to look at things. I doubt he wants the country to keep bleeding, and I think he sees there can be something – quite a bit, actually – in this for Ukraine, if he plays his cards right.

As best I can determine, we are still giving Ukraine military aid at the moment. Whatever nonmilitary aid Ukraine was getting through USAID has been suspended for 90 days along with other USAID payments in general, although it isn’t completely clear that humanitarian aid has completely stopped.

Also, see this, which I see as a way to put pressure on Europeans to pay their share, in typical Trumpian fashion. The article is from today:

America will no longer front the lion’s share of aid to Ukraine, the Trump administration said today in a devastating blow to Kyiv that will pile pressure on Europe to fill the void.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Washington will ‘no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship’ with its allies, adding that ‘Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine’.

He stressed that the United States was no longer ‘primarily focused’ on Europe, and said that the old continent would have to fund most of Ukraine’s defense itself in a turn away from a 75-year role as the ‘primary guarantor of security in Europe’.

The article also says there won’t be US troops in Ukraine. Is this any sort of surprise? I never thought there would be. And that Ukraine would have to cede some territory. Did anyone think there would be a peace deal without at least some territory ceded? If so, I think that person was dreaming. The details – which we don’t know yet – are what matters.

Here is one possibility, from an article that was published yesterday:

Ukraine has offered to strike a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump for continued American military aid in exchange for developing Ukraine’s mineral industry, which could provide a valuable source of the rare earth elements that are essential for many kinds of technology.

Trump said that he wanted such a deal earlier this month, and it was initially proposed last fall by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.

“We really have this big potential in the territory which we control,” Andrii Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. “We are interested to work, to develop, with our partners, first of all, with the United States.” …

Ukraine’s rare earth elements are largely untapped because of the war and because of state policies regulating the mineral industry. The country also lacks good information to guide the development of rare earth mining.

Geological data is thin because mineral reserves are scattered across Ukraine, and existing studies are considered largely inadequate. The industry’s true potential is clouded by insufficient research, according to businessmen and analysts.

In general, the outlook for Ukrainian natural resources is promising.

That could easily be part of the deal, benefiting both Ukraine and the US.