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Talking about the merits of these tariffs kind of misses the point. The person who wrote this article is very smart. I am sure they are smarter than I am. He ha

Talking about the merits of these tariffs kind of misses the point. The person who wrote this article is very smart. I am sure they are smarter than I am. He has produced a pretty solid analysis of trade policy. But in articles like this people ascribe their own motivations and goals to the tariffs that aren't actually there. Buried in this article is the assumption that the motivation of tariffs and trade policy is to maintain competitiveness with China in manufacturing for both economic and security reasons. This may be important to the author but it isn't a top priority for the administration. Competitiveness with China and onshoring manufacturing are certainly talking points but they is not stated as the primary motivation for the tariffs. The administration characterizes trade imbalances as countries taking advantage of us. The tariffs are targeted based on trade imbalance. If manufacturing was the goal why apply tariffs to things like raw materials? If competition with China is the goal why apply tariffs to South Korea or Japan, pushing them closer into China's orbit? These are just not the goals of the tariffs and neither their rhetoric or actions suggest that they are. People have a hard time dealing with values and motivations that are wildly different from their own so they construct all sorts of parallel explanations and defend those instead. But talking about these explanations is non sequitur. It is like the administration adopted a policy of jailing all Capricorns and only Capricorns and people started writing think pieces about how the criminal justice system would be more efficient if they focused on programs to reduce recidivism.

clodushid 2y ago
The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. If you want to understand the tariffs today, just go read one of his many books. His goals are pretty simple: reindustriaize America No more free trade China is evil and the worlds enemy It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China.
- mjevans 2y ago
  We're more likely to 'on shore' with 3D printer like automated fabricators (think next baby step between CnC machines and Replicators). As far as any mention of jobs? Those are long gone and never coming back. Trade still makes sense for raw inputs and any outputs though.
  - hooverd 2y ago
    Yea, they're not talking about high value manufacturing. They practically want to burn that down; it's all about bringing low value textile production back.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Even Navarro (or is it that other guy who's name refuses to stick in my brain) that admits that the jobs they want to take out of China (screwing in many tiny screws) will not be jobs in the US but automated factories. So it's not a jobs program they are pushing. It's having manufacturing on local soil and less money going offshore. This is not something they mentioned during the campaign, but are saying it now. During the campaign it was all about those manufacturing jobs.
    - 9rx 2y ago
      What really stood out to me is that they say the factories will produce their own power on-site, with approvals for power plants happening "faster than we've ever had before", because the grid is "at risk of bombings". Which suggests to me that it not just about having manufacturing local for the sake of it being local or to stop money going offshore, but because it is preparing for war.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        Then they are playing the long con in expecting to not have to vacate at the end of the term as there is no way that enough manufacturing returns to be local with the ability make enough of anything in the time span of this single term
        9rx 2y ago
        > expecting to not have to vacate at the end of the term Perhaps that's exactly where the need is foreseen? Such a takeover would assuredly lead to a bout of violent conflict, that very well could lead to all out civil war if not managed well. You wouldn't need the kind of manufacturing required to take on the world, but you'd need a little bit to keep the people at bay. Americans with manufacturing facilities might not be so friendly after that kind of stunt, but if you can make new friends from abroad with facilities on US soil...
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  I think you have cause and effect backwards. Trump pulled in Navarro because Navarro had the plan that Trump's been advocating for since the 80's. IOW, it's Trump's plan that Navarro is actualizing, not a plan that Navarro convinced Trump to make happen. Trump's first term tariffs happened under Lighthizer, who was much more rational than both Trump & Navarro.
- gman2093 2y ago
  If this were a goal, the USA would not want to push other countries into China's sphere of influence. The simpler explanation is that non-tariff taxes require congress and are not fully under control of the executive branch. This allows the executive branch to seize the power of the purse.
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    Tariff taxes also require congress. It’s a constitutionally enumerated power of Congress specifically to levy import duties.
    - bilbo0s 2y ago
      Well, I mean, since we threw out the opposition in Congress? I'm thinking we'd better not rely on Congress to put a stop to anything. A simple veto removes that problem. No way what's left of the opposition in Congress comes up with the votes to override a veto.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- samtp 2y ago
  I believe the real architect of the strategy is Ron Vara [0] [0] In case you didn't know Run Vara is a fake economist that Navarro made up in his books and memos to justify his own deeply flawed policies.
  - emptyfile 2y ago
    Tha fact that he just shuffled around the letters of his own name for the fake economist is simply amazing. Brave new world.
    - adamc 2y ago
      It tells you a lot about him. Honesty is not a defining feature.
- goatlover 2y ago
  > China is evil and the worlds enemy And what is the US under the Trump administration? China didn't start a trade war, accuse every other country of ripping it off, hasn't talked of acquiring Greenland and making Canada it's 51st state, or discuss bombing cartels in Mexico.
  - sharemywin 2y ago
    let's not forget about arguing against due process, prison without trials, weird interpretations of ancient laws, mercurial application of the law. or the free speech threats. the AP, threaten licenses from news orgs, threaten law firms, sue news orgs.
    - goatlover 2y ago
      And today he's signed an executive order to investigate Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs because he doesn't like what they've said about him as president. This is authoritarian playbook stuff.
  - anon84873628 2y ago
    The parent comment is summarizing the viewpoints of one of the delusional people responsible for these policies, not endorsing them. The fact that it is all illogical and hypocritical is precisely the point.
- adriand 2y ago
  > The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. He's also a complete and utter liar. I happened to come across him speaking on Fox News when he stated that "Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels". [1] As a Canadian and as someone who isn't living in some bizarre alternate reality, I can assure you that Canada has not been taken over by cartels. The claim is insane. The fact that his interviewer did not challenge him on this insanity is unsurprising yet also insane. I bring this up first because it made me angry, but secondly because I think it's relevant to this discussion: of course things are going to turn out badly when the architects of policy are either liars, are living in an alternate reality, or both. 1: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-adviser-insists-canada-has-been-taken-over-by-mexican-cartels/ https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-adviser-insists-canada-has...
  - grey-area 2y ago
    Here another example of him lying: It recently emerged a that he had been inventing quotes in all his books from a certain ‘Ron Vara’ a distinguished but entirely fictional economics professor. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/navarro-ron-vara-tarrifs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/navarro-ron-v...
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  > It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China Then why are we also slapping tariffs on Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Mexico, EU, RoW?
  - grey-area 2y ago
    Don’t forget Laos!
    - goatlover 2y ago
      And Lesotho, a country Trump had apparently never heard of.
  - 9rx 2y ago
    If we assume what is said is valid (a huge assumption, I know) and ignore the contradictions: They claim that China is able to pass into the US through Canada, Mexico, etc. and that the tariffs there are to put pressure on those governments to also put the squeeze on China in kind.
    - CharlieDigital 2y ago
      Then why did he just lift them on everyone except China?
      - 9rx 2y ago
        He said because of the bond market reaction.
exe34 2y ago
> The administration characterizes trade imbalances as countries taking advantage of us. it seems likely to me that they know their voting base is too dumb to understand, so they make up stuff that sounds good to get the support.
- matwood 2y ago
  Like how they keep incorrectly characterizing VAT.
  - exe34 2y ago
    It's interesting how they kept changing their excuse for not putting tariffs on Mother Russia, and finally landed on something they thought was plausible.
jonnat 2y ago
Worse than projecting one's values onto a rationalization of the new tariffs is to simply take the administration's rhetoric at face value. That other countries are "taking advantage of us" is just a talking point. We have to look at how the tariffs fit historical conservative programs. Republicans have long wished to replace our progressive income taxation with a flat tax system, but that's simply not achievable, even for Trump. Further decreasing tax rates from high earners and replacing revenue with tariffs to avoid the ballooning of the government debt, for which Trump was heavily criticized during the first term, may be the closest he can get to approximating flat taxation.
- morsecodist 2y ago
  I don't take their explanation at face value. I think you very well could be right in your analysis here. It is more interesting to me that actual targeting is based on trade imbalance. They could easily have used the same rhetoric and targeted the tariffs based on something else. I think the way they are targeted is sufficient to rule out a lot of explanations I have seen proposed like I mentioned above. What you are mentioning seems super plausible to me I just can't be sure yet.
  - notahacker 2y ago
    You hit the nail on the head with the targeting. Trump has a long held obsession with tariffs based on an inability to understand that trade isn't a competition where if you buy more stuff you lose. It's arguments about tariffs as a revenue source replacing other taxes which are ancillary ones thrown out to appeal to other vaguely Republican instincts. Obviously if the US actually wanted to use them as a revenue source they wouldn't set them at punitively high rates likely to simply eliminate trade, frame it as a battle to reduce import dependency or dangle the carrot of trade deals to anyone willing to bend the knee. Not to mention his rapid reverse ferret reframing it as focusing on China
- bregma 2y ago
  Tariffs are also revenue. It just moves the revenue from income taxes, which can affect the rich if they have incompetent accountants, to consumption taxes, which affect predominantly the poors and middle class. Tariffs are a tax levied on American consumers, not on foreign governments. Using them to decrease income taxes on the rich is something only an out-of-touch millionaire could dream up. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
It reminds me a lot of Brexit. Politicians in the south of the country were warning that the financial sector (predominantly in London) would loose 100,000 jobs and people in the north were saying "oh, that sounds pretty good". A few years later when that didn't happen to that extent I remember an interview with someone from a fishing port which lost a lot of business that previously went to Europe. They were complaining that Brexit wasn't hurting the right people and why are prices increasing all the time. It seems no amount of logic is going to convince some people.
- h2zizzle 2y ago
  I'm trying to figure out what you mean. Experts forecast Brexit would hurt the financial sector, Northerners said they were cool with that, the forecast was wrong, Northerners were upset. Nothing about that sounds illogical. Vindictive and short-sighted, sure. But everything follows reasonably. I say this as someone who's stomach sank when I'd heard that Brexit had passed and that there was a real chance that Donald Trump could be elected.
  - tim333 2y ago
    A lot of voting, Brexit and other stuff, comes mostly to whether people are pissed off with the current situation or not. If pissed off they vote for a change as in Brexit, otherwise not. I'm not sure a lot of the reasoning gets much deeper than that. I remember asking Brexit voters who said they didn't want EU regulations to name one actual regulation that inconvenienced them and I don't think I got one answer.
    - h2zizzle 2y ago
      That's fine, but "Brexit voters were generally irrational or misinformed" does not change the fact that this particular case features Brexiters who voted cynically for an outcome that they were assured would happen by the very people who were seeking to prevent Brexit, who were then justifiably upset when those predictions didn't come to pass. It's not a good example of the irrationality of Brexit. Maybe of the futility of attempted revenge.
spacemadness 2y ago
Thank you. I see these coping strategies everywhere, from sources I would never imagine would try to find reason within the damage these will do. People want to feel like these are rational well thought out choices with experts behind the reasoning and that they must be missing something. Because how could the POTUS willingly cause so much harm to the country? So there is cope instead of coming to terms that this man is single handedly destroying the economy and their future.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > So there is cope instead of coming to terms that this man is single handedly destroying the economy and their future. Now I'm imagining new posters in the style of Obama's Hope but with Trump and Cope underneath
cowpig 2y ago
Agree, and I find this totally bizarre. The Trump administration's power is based in the Russian propaganda machine and xenophobia. Blanket tariffs (except towards Russia and Belarus, not mentioned in Ben Thompson's article of course) are in service of those two power bases.
- kjksf 2y ago
  US is still sanctioning Russia, meaning there's zero trade between US and Russia. It's illegal for US people and companies to buy from Russia. That's why there are no tariffs on Russia: there's no trade, there's nothing to tariff. I don't see how you concluded that US is currently "in service of Russia".
  - cowpig 2y ago
    The tariffs undermine US-Europe alliance, and US hegemony. These are core goals of Putin's Russia.
  - cowpig 2y ago
    > US is still sanctioning Russia, meaning there's zero trade between US and Russia. It's illegal for US people and companies to buy from Russia. Quoting the Trump administration: U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million, down 12.3 percent ($73.5 million) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $3.0 billion in 2024, down 34.2 percent ($1.6 billion) from 2023. [0] If the same formula were applied to Russia as every other country in the world, the Russian tariff would be above 40% since it's half of (3500-500)/3000 = 85.7% [0]: https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia-and-eurasia/russia https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
  - j4coh 2y ago
    Are you sure? In 2024, exports of Russian goods to the US totaled $3.27bn, and the US exported $526m worth of goods to Russia. Not a ton, but more than many countries that received tariffs. Or what definition of zero trade are you using?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
lanfeust6 2y ago
Broadly that is true of the administration's motives, but as concerns trade with China, they are obviously aware of both the national security and competitiveness angle. Not only did Biden take the lead on that already with the exact above rationale, China is currently more steeply targeted.
bregma 2y ago
> It is like the administration adopted a policy of jailing all Capricorns and only Capricorns and people started writing think pieces about how the criminal justice system would be more efficient if they focused on programs to reduce recidivism. I was born on January 19. Should I be concerned?
- intended 2y ago
  No, Just say January 19th is a leap year.
fanzhang 2y ago
Bingo -- analysts of Trump are way too overeager to attribute "4D Chess" super analytics driven goals to Trump. In reality, he's doing exactly what is on the tin: reducing tariffs, and doing what he wants to do, because he feels like it.
throw4847285 2y ago
It is considered socially unacceptable to armchair psychoanalyze other people, but I think we can waive that when it comes to the most powerful politician on the planet. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-rationale-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-rat... In some cases, Occam's Razor says, "this person is not acting rationally" and you have to weigh that possibility even if it is uncomfortable. Desire for dominance is common, and is not rational. Why should it surprise us to see it in Trump?
- pnut 2y ago
  Looking at trump's actions as desire for dominance makes them seem rational, in the sense that they have a common motivation. From that perspective, he's at least acting consistently, and has been rewarded over his lifetime for it. Punch people/organisations/nations in the mouth repeatedly until they beg for mercy, then keep pounding them until they forfeit their dignity and pledge allegiance. Everyone, everywhere, all the time. The weaker the better. Until stopped.
anon84873628 2y ago
The confusing part is that the actions don't seem logically consistent with any of the possible goals. >The tariffs are targeted based on trade imbalance Ok, I buy that based on the stupid formula they showed. Is "not ruin everything else" not also part of his goals? Can you explain what I'm missing? I think people just keep underestimating exactly how stupid and ignorant Trump is. That's why nothing makes sense. He does not understand the law of comparative advantage and thus doesn't understand that trade is the engine of growth. He only sees fixed size pies and win-lose deals, so he's not capable of finding real solutions.
- gizzlon 2y ago
  > Can you explain what I'm missing? That goal 1 is to make Trump feel important and to prop up his ego. Goal 2 is probably to dismantle the rule of law and democracy in the US.
jhanschoo 2y ago
Indeed, Paul Krugman has been doing the rounds on podcasts recently and he seems to think that Trump is doing tariffs and trying to eliminate trade imbalances because he has always had that idea of doing tariffs and thought that trade deficits were being taken advantage of, and the talk about a greater strategy are post-hoc rationalizations. Sometimes a simple person has a simple reason divorced from complicated reality.
- pstuart 2y ago
  Trump thinks he can replace income taxes with tariffs: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/economy/trump-abolish-irs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/economy/trump-abolish-irs/ind... Punishing other countries is just a bonus.

clodushid 2y ago

The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. If you want to understand the tariffs today, just go read one of his many books. His goals are pretty simple: reindustriaize America No more free trade China is evil and the worlds enemy It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China.

mjevans 2y ago
We're more likely to 'on shore' with 3D printer like automated fabricators (think next baby step between CnC machines and Replicators). As far as any mention of jobs? Those are long gone and never coming back. Trade still makes sense for raw inputs and any outputs though.
- hooverd 2y ago
  Yea, they're not talking about high value manufacturing. They practically want to burn that down; it's all about bringing low value textile production back.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Even Navarro (or is it that other guy who's name refuses to stick in my brain) that admits that the jobs they want to take out of China (screwing in many tiny screws) will not be jobs in the US but automated factories. So it's not a jobs program they are pushing. It's having manufacturing on local soil and less money going offshore. This is not something they mentioned during the campaign, but are saying it now. During the campaign it was all about those manufacturing jobs.
  - 9rx 2y ago
    What really stood out to me is that they say the factories will produce their own power on-site, with approvals for power plants happening "faster than we've ever had before", because the grid is "at risk of bombings". Which suggests to me that it not just about having manufacturing local for the sake of it being local or to stop money going offshore, but because it is preparing for war.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Then they are playing the long con in expecting to not have to vacate at the end of the term as there is no way that enough manufacturing returns to be local with the ability make enough of anything in the time span of this single term
      - 9rx 2y ago
        > expecting to not have to vacate at the end of the term Perhaps that's exactly where the need is foreseen? Such a takeover would assuredly lead to a bout of violent conflict, that very well could lead to all out civil war if not managed well. You wouldn't need the kind of manufacturing required to take on the world, but you'd need a little bit to keep the people at bay. Americans with manufacturing facilities might not be so friendly after that kind of stunt, but if you can make new friends from abroad with facilities on US soil...
bryanlarsen 2y ago
I think you have cause and effect backwards. Trump pulled in Navarro because Navarro had the plan that Trump's been advocating for since the 80's. IOW, it's Trump's plan that Navarro is actualizing, not a plan that Navarro convinced Trump to make happen. Trump's first term tariffs happened under Lighthizer, who was much more rational than both Trump & Navarro.
gman2093 2y ago
If this were a goal, the USA would not want to push other countries into China's sphere of influence. The simpler explanation is that non-tariff taxes require congress and are not fully under control of the executive branch. This allows the executive branch to seize the power of the purse.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  Tariff taxes also require congress. It’s a constitutionally enumerated power of Congress specifically to levy import duties.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    Well, I mean, since we threw out the opposition in Congress? I'm thinking we'd better not rely on Congress to put a stop to anything. A simple veto removes that problem. No way what's left of the opposition in Congress comes up with the votes to override a veto.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
samtp 2y ago
I believe the real architect of the strategy is Ron Vara [0] [0] In case you didn't know Run Vara is a fake economist that Navarro made up in his books and memos to justify his own deeply flawed policies.
- emptyfile 2y ago
  Tha fact that he just shuffled around the letters of his own name for the fake economist is simply amazing. Brave new world.
  - adamc 2y ago
    It tells you a lot about him. Honesty is not a defining feature.
goatlover 2y ago
> China is evil and the worlds enemy And what is the US under the Trump administration? China didn't start a trade war, accuse every other country of ripping it off, hasn't talked of acquiring Greenland and making Canada it's 51st state, or discuss bombing cartels in Mexico.
- sharemywin 2y ago
  let's not forget about arguing against due process, prison without trials, weird interpretations of ancient laws, mercurial application of the law. or the free speech threats. the AP, threaten licenses from news orgs, threaten law firms, sue news orgs.
  - goatlover 2y ago
    And today he's signed an executive order to investigate Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs because he doesn't like what they've said about him as president. This is authoritarian playbook stuff.
- anon84873628 2y ago
  The parent comment is summarizing the viewpoints of one of the delusional people responsible for these policies, not endorsing them. The fact that it is all illogical and hypocritical is precisely the point.
adriand 2y ago
> The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. He's also a complete and utter liar. I happened to come across him speaking on Fox News when he stated that "Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels". [1] As a Canadian and as someone who isn't living in some bizarre alternate reality, I can assure you that Canada has not been taken over by cartels. The claim is insane. The fact that his interviewer did not challenge him on this insanity is unsurprising yet also insane. I bring this up first because it made me angry, but secondly because I think it's relevant to this discussion: of course things are going to turn out badly when the architects of policy are either liars, are living in an alternate reality, or both. 1: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-adviser-insists-canada-has-been-taken-over-by-mexican-cartels/ https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-adviser-insists-canada-has...
- grey-area 2y ago
  Here another example of him lying: It recently emerged a that he had been inventing quotes in all his books from a certain ‘Ron Vara’ a distinguished but entirely fictional economics professor. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/navarro-ron-vara-tarrifs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/navarro-ron-v...
CharlieDigital 2y ago
> It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China Then why are we also slapping tariffs on Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Mexico, EU, RoW?
- grey-area 2y ago
  Don’t forget Laos!
  - goatlover 2y ago
    And Lesotho, a country Trump had apparently never heard of.
- 9rx 2y ago
  If we assume what is said is valid (a huge assumption, I know) and ignore the contradictions: They claim that China is able to pass into the US through Canada, Mexico, etc. and that the tariffs there are to put pressure on those governments to also put the squeeze on China in kind.
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    Then why did he just lift them on everyone except China?
    - 9rx 2y ago
      He said because of the bond market reaction.

exe34 2y ago

> The administration characterizes trade imbalances as countries taking advantage of us. it seems likely to me that they know their voting base is too dumb to understand, so they make up stuff that sounds good to get the support.

matwood 2y ago
Like how they keep incorrectly characterizing VAT.
- exe34 2y ago
  It's interesting how they kept changing their excuse for not putting tariffs on Mother Russia, and finally landed on something they thought was plausible.

jonnat 2y ago

Worse than projecting one's values onto a rationalization of the new tariffs is to simply take the administration's rhetoric at face value. That other countries are "taking advantage of us" is just a talking point. We have to look at how the tariffs fit historical conservative programs. Republicans have long wished to replace our progressive income taxation with a flat tax system, but that's simply not achievable, even for Trump. Further decreasing tax rates from high earners and replacing revenue with tariffs to avoid the ballooning of the government debt, for which Trump was heavily criticized during the first term, may be the closest he can get to approximating flat taxation.

morsecodist 2y ago
I don't take their explanation at face value. I think you very well could be right in your analysis here. It is more interesting to me that actual targeting is based on trade imbalance. They could easily have used the same rhetoric and targeted the tariffs based on something else. I think the way they are targeted is sufficient to rule out a lot of explanations I have seen proposed like I mentioned above. What you are mentioning seems super plausible to me I just can't be sure yet.
- notahacker 2y ago
  You hit the nail on the head with the targeting. Trump has a long held obsession with tariffs based on an inability to understand that trade isn't a competition where if you buy more stuff you lose. It's arguments about tariffs as a revenue source replacing other taxes which are ancillary ones thrown out to appeal to other vaguely Republican instincts. Obviously if the US actually wanted to use them as a revenue source they wouldn't set them at punitively high rates likely to simply eliminate trade, frame it as a battle to reduce import dependency or dangle the carrot of trade deals to anyone willing to bend the knee. Not to mention his rapid reverse ferret reframing it as focusing on China
bregma 2y ago
Tariffs are also revenue. It just moves the revenue from income taxes, which can affect the rich if they have incompetent accountants, to consumption taxes, which affect predominantly the poors and middle class. Tariffs are a tax levied on American consumers, not on foreign governments. Using them to decrease income taxes on the rich is something only an out-of-touch millionaire could dream up. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

tonyedgecombe 2y ago

It reminds me a lot of Brexit. Politicians in the south of the country were warning that the financial sector (predominantly in London) would loose 100,000 jobs and people in the north were saying "oh, that sounds pretty good". A few years later when that didn't happen to that extent I remember an interview with someone from a fishing port which lost a lot of business that previously went to Europe. They were complaining that Brexit wasn't hurting the right people and why are prices increasing all the time. It seems no amount of logic is going to convince some people.

h2zizzle 2y ago
I'm trying to figure out what you mean. Experts forecast Brexit would hurt the financial sector, Northerners said they were cool with that, the forecast was wrong, Northerners were upset. Nothing about that sounds illogical. Vindictive and short-sighted, sure. But everything follows reasonably. I say this as someone who's stomach sank when I'd heard that Brexit had passed and that there was a real chance that Donald Trump could be elected.
- tim333 2y ago
  A lot of voting, Brexit and other stuff, comes mostly to whether people are pissed off with the current situation or not. If pissed off they vote for a change as in Brexit, otherwise not. I'm not sure a lot of the reasoning gets much deeper than that. I remember asking Brexit voters who said they didn't want EU regulations to name one actual regulation that inconvenienced them and I don't think I got one answer.
  - h2zizzle 2y ago
    That's fine, but "Brexit voters were generally irrational or misinformed" does not change the fact that this particular case features Brexiters who voted cynically for an outcome that they were assured would happen by the very people who were seeking to prevent Brexit, who were then justifiably upset when those predictions didn't come to pass. It's not a good example of the irrationality of Brexit. Maybe of the futility of attempted revenge.

spacemadness 2y ago

Thank you. I see these coping strategies everywhere, from sources I would never imagine would try to find reason within the damage these will do. People want to feel like these are rational well thought out choices with experts behind the reasoning and that they must be missing something. Because how could the POTUS willingly cause so much harm to the country? So there is cope instead of coming to terms that this man is single handedly destroying the economy and their future.

dylan604 2y ago
> So there is cope instead of coming to terms that this man is single handedly destroying the economy and their future. Now I'm imagining new posters in the style of Obama's Hope but with Trump and Cope underneath

cowpig 2y ago

Agree, and I find this totally bizarre. The Trump administration's power is based in the Russian propaganda machine and xenophobia. Blanket tariffs (except towards Russia and Belarus, not mentioned in Ben Thompson's article of course) are in service of those two power bases.

kjksf 2y ago
US is still sanctioning Russia, meaning there's zero trade between US and Russia. It's illegal for US people and companies to buy from Russia. That's why there are no tariffs on Russia: there's no trade, there's nothing to tariff. I don't see how you concluded that US is currently "in service of Russia".
- cowpig 2y ago
  The tariffs undermine US-Europe alliance, and US hegemony. These are core goals of Putin's Russia.
- cowpig 2y ago
  > US is still sanctioning Russia, meaning there's zero trade between US and Russia. It's illegal for US people and companies to buy from Russia. Quoting the Trump administration: U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million, down 12.3 percent ($73.5 million) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $3.0 billion in 2024, down 34.2 percent ($1.6 billion) from 2023. [0] If the same formula were applied to Russia as every other country in the world, the Russian tariff would be above 40% since it's half of (3500-500)/3000 = 85.7% [0]: https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia-and-eurasia/russia https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
- j4coh 2y ago
  Are you sure? In 2024, exports of Russian goods to the US totaled $3.27bn, and the US exported $526m worth of goods to Russia. Not a ton, but more than many countries that received tariffs. Or what definition of zero trade are you using?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

lanfeust6 2y ago

Broadly that is true of the administration's motives, but as concerns trade with China, they are obviously aware of both the national security and competitiveness angle. Not only did Biden take the lead on that already with the exact above rationale, China is currently more steeply targeted.

bregma 2y ago

> It is like the administration adopted a policy of jailing all Capricorns and only Capricorns and people started writing think pieces about how the criminal justice system would be more efficient if they focused on programs to reduce recidivism. I was born on January 19. Should I be concerned?

intended 2y ago
No, Just say January 19th is a leap year.

fanzhang 2y ago

Bingo -- analysts of Trump are way too overeager to attribute "4D Chess" super analytics driven goals to Trump. In reality, he's doing exactly what is on the tin: reducing tariffs, and doing what he wants to do, because he feels like it.

throw4847285 2y ago

It is considered socially unacceptable to armchair psychoanalyze other people, but I think we can waive that when it comes to the most powerful politician on the planet. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-rationale-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-rat... In some cases, Occam's Razor says, "this person is not acting rationally" and you have to weigh that possibility even if it is uncomfortable. Desire for dominance is common, and is not rational. Why should it surprise us to see it in Trump?

pnut 2y ago
Looking at trump's actions as desire for dominance makes them seem rational, in the sense that they have a common motivation. From that perspective, he's at least acting consistently, and has been rewarded over his lifetime for it. Punch people/organisations/nations in the mouth repeatedly until they beg for mercy, then keep pounding them until they forfeit their dignity and pledge allegiance. Everyone, everywhere, all the time. The weaker the better. Until stopped.

anon84873628 2y ago

The confusing part is that the actions don't seem logically consistent with any of the possible goals. >The tariffs are targeted based on trade imbalance Ok, I buy that based on the stupid formula they showed. Is "not ruin everything else" not also part of his goals? Can you explain what I'm missing? I think people just keep underestimating exactly how stupid and ignorant Trump is. That's why nothing makes sense. He does not understand the law of comparative advantage and thus doesn't understand that trade is the engine of growth. He only sees fixed size pies and win-lose deals, so he's not capable of finding real solutions.

gizzlon 2y ago
> Can you explain what I'm missing? That goal 1 is to make Trump feel important and to prop up his ego. Goal 2 is probably to dismantle the rule of law and democracy in the US.

jhanschoo 2y ago

Indeed, Paul Krugman has been doing the rounds on podcasts recently and he seems to think that Trump is doing tariffs and trying to eliminate trade imbalances because he has always had that idea of doing tariffs and thought that trade deficits were being taken advantage of, and the talk about a greater strategy are post-hoc rationalizations. Sometimes a simple person has a simple reason divorced from complicated reality.

pstuart 2y ago
Trump thinks he can replace income taxes with tariffs: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/economy/trump-abolish-irs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/economy/trump-abolish-irs/ind... Punishing other countries is just a bonus.