Miscellaneous News

siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
ironborn said:
Tariffs just a smoke screen for Trump, maybe it is what Navarro truly believes.
The real issue is the US debt, about 9 trillion of it will mature this year. US government has no money to redeem it.
That's why some countries offer 0% tariff would not cut it with Trump.

Orange führer ultimate wants either re-roll the debt to a longer term, 30 to 50 years or maybe even 100 years. Or wants
some sucker countries to buy more. Projection is US might need to issue another $12 Trillion debt in the near future.
And that's why Vietnam's 0% tariff offer got rejected. US is a consumer economy, it does not have enough crap to sell to the
rest of the world to cover the trade deficit even it wants to. And most of its products aren't competitive on the international market either. Japan has 0% tariff on import passenger vehicles, still no one will buy US made cars.

That's why Trump talks like a street merchant about getting money from everyone. It's not the imbalance of the trades. It's the US debt.
The problem is there aren't that many countries can or want to purchase additional US debt, at least not that large amount. When China and US relationship on OK terms, China would purchase US debt with trade surplus. That time has long passed. Trump can throw 1000% tariff on China, he still can't solve US debt problems. Europeans and Japanese can't cover the amount of US debt that's maturing this year. Neither could any other countries that has trade surplus. How much US debt can Vietnam buy with trade surplus.

Trump ultimately wants to make a deal on US debt with creditors or potential buyers. Since he and most his inner circle are bunch of illiterate ivy league graduates, the only solutions is to go hardcore tariff on other countries, it's the only leverage he has at this moment.
If he had asked nicely, he might get some results, too bad he think hammer (in case of US, it's a 12 gauge shotgun) is the solution to every problems he has. He's also unwilling to do any real negotiations with anyone does not help either.

American's mindset still stuck at 19-20th century imperial colonialism. Grab/rob whatever it can and whenever it needs to. Unfortunately for Trump and his America, China is standing in his way. And it's burning him alive from inside when there is nothing he can do about it.
Click to expand...

Trump can just declare the PRC a U.S. colony and say that China will cover all the debt.
 
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
escobar said:
Trump says if China does not withdraw its 34% tariff increase by tomorrow, April 8th, the US will impose “ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th."
View attachment 149561
Click to expand...

So to recap:
  • 20% for "fentanyl"
  • 25% for "any importing Venezuela oil"
  • 34% for "reciprocal"
  • 50% for "cuz we can"
  • 24.3% for previous trade war round 1.0 effective tariff rate
  • Total: ~153.3% tariffs.
Beijing should treat this as full-scale economic embargo. ~153% tariffs is effectively economic decoupling and a trade embargo/sanction. That's even higher than what I'd expect in an Taiwan AR situation.

Unironically, I welcome them to go harder.

edit: added Venezuela import tariffs
 
Last edited:
FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
So to recap:
  • 20% for "fentanyl"
  • 25% for "any importing Venezuela oil"
  • 34% for "reciprocal"
  • 50% for "cuz we can"
  • 24.3% for previous trade war round 1.0 effective tariff rate
  • Total: ~153.3% tariffs.
Beijing should treat this as full-scale economic embargo. ~153% tariffs is effectively economic decoupling and a trade embargo/sanction. That's even higher than what I'd expect in an Taiwan AR situation.

Unironically, I welcome them to go harder.
Click to expand...

25% for trading with Venezuela, 500% for trading with Russia. Etc.

Road to 1000%.
 
S

sndef888

Captain
Registered Member
Honestly I don't hate Trump

He's at least a normal person, not some two-faced political psychopath like the rest of the US government

Look at what he's saying, his demeanor. He's just a normal guy who loves his country and hates war.
He's surrounded by warmongers and neocons but I hope he manages to keep them at bay and doesn't get kennedy'd

You can tell he doesn't really hate China. He should be given a good position once China becomes the global economic leader.

 
S

SanWenYu

Captain
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
So to recap:
  • 20% for "fentanyl"
  • 25% for "any imporing Venezuela oil"
  • 34% for "reciprical"
  • 50% for "cuz we can"
  • 24.3% for previous trade war round 1.0 effective tariff rate
  • Total: ~153.3% tariffs.
Beijing should treat this as full-scale economic embargo. ~153% tariffs is effectively economic decoupling and a trade embargo/sanction. That's even higher than what I'd expect in an Taiwan AR situation.

Unironically, I welcome them to go harder.
Click to expand...
Taiwan should be getting really scared as normal trade relations with the western countries is about the only thing holding Xi from pressing that button.
 
I

iewgnem

Senior Member
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
So to recap:
  • 20% for "fentanyl"
  • 25% for "any importing Venezuela oil"
  • 34% for "reciprocal"
  • 50% for "cuz we can"
  • 24.3% for previous trade war round 1.0 effective tariff rate
  • Total: ~153.3% tariffs.
Beijing should treat this as full-scale economic embargo. ~153% tariffs is effectively economic decoupling and a trade embargo/sanction. That's even higher than what I'd expect in an Taiwan AR situation.

Unironically, I welcome them to go harder.
Click to expand...
You mean en European style embargo where they embargo their own life support. A few percentage of export revenue loss seems a pretty small price to pay to see the elimination of China's only strategic rival.

Also there's an important detail in China's export control on rare earth magnets: it's not just against the US, it's global. In other words China already low-key established the mechanism to actually embargo the US from access to any and all manufactured goods regardless if the company tries to produce them in third party countries, e.g if you sell anything to America China doesn't like, you get cuts off from electric motors, or anything else China adds to export control.

China is playing for either unconditional American surrender or annihilation, or as FM already said, China will fight to the end. I don't think Americans or most Chinese has mentally prepared for what that means yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top