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EU to impose counter tariffs on $28 billion of US goods
- maxehmookau 2y agoI'm so glad that a spat at the upper echelons of governments are going to cause untold misery for millions across the world for... no discernable benefit? Wonderful news.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago>no discernable benefit? No discernable benefit to you maybe, but every crisis ends up benefiting those at the top as it always leads to a wealth transfer either during the crash phase, or the recovery phase, or both. See 2009 crash, Covid, etc. Your leadership doesn't work to serve you, they work to serve themselves and the elite. People keep calling Trump a stupid bafoon but how come this stupid bafoon keeps getting richer and richer all the time if he's as stupid as people think him to be? To whit, how much are you willing to bet that after Trump's mandate is over in 4 years time, both Trump, Elon and all his other cronies, will walk away with a bigger net worth than the one they came in? So no, what you see as stupidity now on the news is actually a carefully orchestrated multi year enrichment plan for the elite covered in bread and circus to distract the plebs, that will become evident as time goes on and events unfold.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoThere is nothing left down here to be vacuumed up, as we probably agreed by now that trickling down doesn't happen.
- Detrytus 2y agoMaybe that's the Trump plan? 1. Launch TRUMP and MELANIA cryptocurrencies to get a few hundred millions of dollars of cash. (and possibly also get some cash from the "First Buddy" Elon Musk) 2. Announce tariffs, and in general cause chaos, crashing the stock market. 3. Buy the dip. 4. Revoke all tariffs. 5. Profit.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoDon't forget shorts.
- maxehmookau 2y agoTrue. Sorry, I thought that was implied!
- 9dev 2y agoTangent, but I think from a certain level onwards, money keeps multiplying itself. You’ve got people working for you that take care of the smart decisions and investments, and people like trump are way too busy with their schemes and bullshit to care about the „boring“ parts of tending to their wealth.
- elif 2y agoPerhaps you missed this, but emperor says that we will be so rich soon that we won't know what to spend all our money on. Just hold on. /s
- pjc50 2y agoThey like the misery. And it's what their constituents want and voted for. People really underestimate the angry pro-misery constituency.
- watwut 2y ago> governments Why the plural? This is something that was very much US made and other countries have no choice but to react. This is not something caused by multiple "upper echelons of governments". This is something caused by exactly one government - US one. What did you expect, other countries to instantly give up their economy and soverenity the moment Trump said "I hate you and seek to harm you economically"? Especially since he added multiple times "and I want to annex you, take away pieces of your territory" and then added completely baseless accusations as a reason for it?
- maxehmookau 2y agoPersonally I didn't expect anything, I'm British. My point is more that it's economic ping-pong beyond the control of almost everyone except governments. The US government is specifically to blame here though, of course.
- immibis 2y agoThis trade war may be caused by one government, but they're not the only one causing untold misery for millions for no discernable benefit.
- permalac 2y agoCare to explain? I'm willing to do the mental gimnastics if guided. Ilistrate.
- redeeman 2y agoso who is imposing biggest tarrifs? and who imposed biggest tarrifs 2 years ago?
- ginko 2y agoIf you're trying to make a point then you should spell it out. Because I don't understand what you're getting at.
- redeeman 2y agoi am asking which has the highest tarrifs? because isnt it the case (and im asking) that for a very long time, the EU has had tarrifs for US goods, while the US did not, or had much lower?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago>The proposed target products include industrial and agricultural products, such as steel and aluminium, textiles, home appliances, plastics, poultry, beef, eggs, dairy, sugar and vegetables. Why tariff such low margin US goods and not high margin US services like software? US doesn't export much goods, as most of the bulk of their economy is tech, finance and services not exporting cheap merch in shipping crates like Asia. How about a 100% tariff on Office 365, Windows, AWS, Azure, etc? How is a tarif on US textiles or eggs supposed to be a deterrent? When was the last time you saw US eggs or clothes in the EU shelves? Even in the US, less than 10% of the textiles are domestically made.
- rafaelmn 2y agoHow do you tariff a software service ? Tariffs are applied at import ? Are you paying US software if its hosted in EU datacenter by EU subsidiary ? Or if software licence is sold by EU subsidiary ? The concept makes no sense to me.
- rhdjebejdbd 2y agoToll-wires
- kolinko 2y agoKind of like Vat is applied now - you’re from a given country, you pay more per month for a subscription
- lifestyleguru 2y agoThat a country whose currency is world's reserve currency somehow concluded that they're cheated on, wow. By the time the FED balance sheet will reach pre March 2020 levels, we will be living in Back to the Future II.
- lelag 2y agoAren't we already living in the Biff got rich timeline?
- namaria 2y agoOther countries stashing dollars is basically pure seignorage profits for the US. And these countries using the dollar as a long term storage of value is geopolitical insurance. This makes no sense unless you read it as the Trump administration sabotaging US interests.
- blitzar 2y ago> This makes no sense unless you read it as the Trump administration sabotaging US interests. Occam's razor - they are all morons.
- namaria 2y agoYeah, assume no malice when stupidity can be postulated. Caveat: intentional stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rich_sasha 2y agoThis isn't aiming to be overdramatic, but still there's interesting comparisons with the arch-populist, Hitler. His main quality was really that he captivated crowds, his resentments resonated with his voters, and he had no inhibitions to do the unthinkable. Without in any way comparing Trump to Hitler in other ways, in these three specific things they are alike. Reading about Hitler's rise to power, it's obvious he kind of bumbled his way into it. There were many people for whom it was convenient, he did many random reckless things that should have been disastrous but somehow he made them into success - for example rearming the Ruhr, or frankly invading Poland with the French army right on its western border. Hitler was incredibly lucky for a long time, and that's why he managed to do so much damage. But there wasn't really a clever master plan to it. He had hateful ramblings in his head and acted rashly on them. It was sheer luck and shock effect that he wasn't spat out after just a few heads in politics. I suspect this is also what Trump is doing. And as in 1930s, for a while, everyone else has too much to lose to stand up to it. But unless he will have Hitler's luck for just as long, eventually the random lashings will end badly for him. Of course Hitler's luck ran out in the end too, with him dead, Germany on its knees and split into two, and German imperialism more or less dead.
- ben_w 2y agoI'm wondering if it may be more impactful (and mutually beneficial) if everyone outside the US lowers the tariffs they have with each other? If the US doesn't want to buy Chinese or EU or Canadian etc., make it cheaper for China, the EU, Canada, etc. to replace the US with each other.
- pjc50 2y agoThe EU would already prefer that people buy European. The problem with anti-import schemes is that they inevitably hit exports. Trade has to have something in both directions, eventually.
- superzamp 2y agoIf that's the goal, one might wonder why are tariffs implemented in such a static way. Why not having your own tariffs importing from XYZ be updated on a monthly basis based on what XYZ imported from you last month.
- pjc50 2y agoUncertainty has a cost. The stupid daily changing trade war with Canada is causing a lot of Canadian companies to make medium or long term decisions to decouple from the US.
- superzamp 2y agoOh I definitely agree with that. I’m just wondering here if having something mechanical, predictable, deterministic (instead of whatever the hell that is that we have right now) wouldn’t be an interesting way to align incentives.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago> is causing a lot of Canadian companies to make medium or long term decisions to decouple from the US. Like which? Because recently Canadian investment firm Brookfield Asset Management moved their head office from Toronto to New York. So it seems it's only strengthening the US and weakening Canada. Large corporations don't care about nationalism/patriotism, they just go where the money is. They'll say they support Canadians to save face and get public support, while through the back door moving their assets and jobs to the US, or any other jurisdiction that makes them more money.
- runeks 2y agoAs a EU citizen I really wish we weren't stupid enough to impose counter tariffs. Just because the Trump administration is punishing (ultimately) its citizens for buying non-US goods doesn't mean I want the EU to punish me as well.
- wdb 2y agoI prefer not to buy any US goods when not absolutely necessary. No need to support a country that wants annex a EU country.
- pjmlp 2y agoUnfortunely we are a bit compromised in what concerns computing, we need to get back to cold war ecosystem of computing hardware, operating systems and programming languages.
- hoppp 2y agoDeal. Americans can have Windows and MacOs and Europeans will have Linux. It's a fair deal no take-backsies
- pjmlp 2y agoWe also need to sort out the hardware where Linux runs.
- seec 2y agoWhile Linux did originate in the EU, it is now primarily sponsored by American companies. In fact, one can argue that Linux is originally a poor copy of UNIX that was possible only because it would have been complicated to make the IP legal claims where it was born. And its rise is largely linked to the internet (from DARPA) and later Android (from Google). The EU is largely a freeloader when it comes to tech things and it seems like it cannot succeed in that field largely because of the EU bureaucracy (try to standardize things before they even started). I think it's about time the EU starts to worrying about that, because it is no good to be so dependent on another country for something so critical.
- hayst4ck 2y agoWhen your model is that he is a decapitation strike (https://archive.is/1xkxK https://archive.is/1xkxK) against the US, everything makes perfect sense. Blockcades are an act of war. They are strategically useful to disable a foreign military through robbing it of supplies it needs. These tariffs are having a blockade like effect by cutting off trade. Does it matter that much whether trading is ceased due to foreign ships blocking trade routes or a foreign backed coup making us do it to ourselves "willingly?" Our military is absolutely failing to live up to their oath to defend us against enemies foreign and domestic.
- sofixa 2y ago> Our military is absolutely failing to live up to their oath to defend us against enemies foreign and domestic. A good portion of them are probably cheering. That being said, even for those with humanity, empathy and a conscience, a coup against the elected president is quite a serious thing to do, even if he is treasonous and obviously trampling human rights, constitution, separation of powers and being allowed to do so by the other branches of government that are supposed to be the checks and balances.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoAlso, standing by and allowing the U.S. to be destroyed from within is quite a serious thing to do when it goes against their oaths.
- maeln 2y ago> Our military is absolutely failing to live up to their oath to defend us against enemies foreign and domestic. You guys voted to have the republican being the majority in both the house and the senate, get the presidency and also, indirectly, the supreme court. That is democracy in action. If the military intervened right now it would just look like a coup. You can't really be surprised that the people you put in power do what they say they were going to do. Now if they try to do something like the January 6 again, that is something else.
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- rich_sasha 2y agoIt will be interesting to compare the UK and EU cases, as well as China. EU responded immediately with counter-tarriffs on goods worth about as much as those taxed by the US. UK and China grumbled but said they don't want to escalate. These are both in different ways similar to the EU case (China because it's big, UK because it's a European "ally", whatever this means nowadays). The very limited evidence so far, from Canada, seems to suggest that immediate retaliation works better.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago> UK because it's a European "ally", whatever this means nowadays If we wander through a typical supermarket, there'll be very little produce (if any) from the U.S. - most if it will be from europe or asia.
- Marsymars 2y ago> UK and China grumbled but said they don't want to escalate. Do you have a source on China saying they're not escalating any more? Because they just applied a pile of farm tariffs two days ago in response to the 10% US tariffs.
- rich_sasha 2y agohttps://www.ft.com/content/69f582a6-3cec-4858-b115-3a24329102b4 https://www.ft.com/content/69f582a6-3cec-4858-b115-3a2432910... > China, the world’s largest steelmaker and exporter, warned it would “take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests” but did not immediately announce retaliatory tariffs.
- tmaly 2y agoI was trying to get a historical sense of what happens after tariffs. From what I could find, the modern example is the EU tariffs on Chinese solar panels. The outcome was negotiation. I think trade negotiation is the best outcome we can hope for. Tariffs are going to really hurt jobs if they persist.
- stogot 2y agoIsn’t this what trump wants? He’s already delayed twice and he always talks about a “deal” but he starts with a shock strategy. Someone told me he wrote this in his book
- senordevnyc 2y agoI doubt very much that Trump has read a book in the last half-century, let alone written one.
- tim333 2y agoI wonder if Trump has ever read an economics book? He seems to be approaching this all in a rather counterproductive manner. I'm reminded of "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I was reading the HN thing on the potato famine yesterday and I think it was the same idea - they Brits didn't want to starve a million Irish to death, they just had this free markets are great idea and were to stupid to change. Likewise Trump doesn't actually want to wreck the US and global economies but has this tarrifs are great idea and same thing.
- rasz 2y agoIts only a matter of time for EU, Canada, Mexico, Australia, China, basically everyone to sit together at a table and harmonize counter tariffs in a collective action. 20% more on Canadian steel? everyone else bumps all tariffs in unison.