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Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize. These tariffs are China's Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chines

Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize. These tariffs are China's Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chinese crops by destroying sparrows that were picking at them. Killing sparrows killed a predator of insects which did more damage to crops. This coupled with reality denying policies and ignoring experts led to one of the most devastating famines the world has ever experienced. Hand waiving away this policy that denies reality and hurts America as a rational plan that went wrong is absolutely dangerous. Killing sparrows was "rational" in the same way these tariffs are. Authoritarians believe in power over reason. They do not like submitting to the authority of those who have studied problems because it is an attack on their own supremacy, so they fail to predict second order effects, which were likely obvious. The damage this administration is doing to trust will be felt for generations. An agreement with America will have no value. No world leader will care what we say, they will only look at what we do. They will see power we have not as potentially being used for their own defense, but as a potential attack on their own sovereignty and they will wish to see us weakened so that they can spend less resources trying to determine our intentions.

magicreadu 2y ago
Both you and OP are not looking at this from the right angle. The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping. US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right. And China has shown that agreement with them has no value. Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl, in part to slow trumps tariff down. They did neither of those things. Trump hasn’t forgotten that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throw16180339 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - permo-w 2y ago
    has no one considered that it could be simple market manipulation? have Trump's friends and allies been buying stocks in the last week or so?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - boyanlevchev 2y ago
      Did you see this? Unusually good timing… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gutsy-traders-make-1-5-billion-triple-leveraged-bet-tqqq-on-nasdaq-100 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gutsy-tra...
      - permo-w 2y ago
        to be fair, I also made quite a lot of profit in stocks in the last few days without any inside knowledge of the whitehouse. it was a fairly safe bet that these tariffs were not going to last forever, and even if they were, there'd be reprieves
    - margana 2y ago
      Why not both?
    - arandomusername 2y ago
      Easier to just promote a shitcoin like he did already.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- MVissers 2y ago
  Decoupling from China will lead to China annex Taiwan sooner. China will have the USA and the world by the balls then, so not sure we want that to happen quicker. And I don't think anyone is calling themselves allies of the USA right now. The whole world is looking to decouple from the USA. Europe is completely over the USA, they can't rely on them for leadership, protection or for trade. From a tech perspective, expect Europe to decouple from the USA from an economic and cultural perspective in the next decade. Smartest thing Europe can do is to create alternatives to US services, build its own defense industry and stop looking at the USA for any leadership.
  - permo-w 2y ago
    is TSMC not currently building a plant in the US? and ASML are Dutch, so they're not at risk. I’m not saying that China taking Taiwan wouldn't be a massive strategic boon, but I don't think it would be "having the world by the balls" by any means
    - robocat 2y ago
      A knowledge economy depends on information. TSMC will keep key knowledge within Taiwan as part of their Silicon Shield[1]. Look closely at a business you know well and notice how much the profits depend upon information in people's heads. Everything runs on a combination of money (capitalist profits) and non-money gains (other gains that people really care about). [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tsmc+silicon+shield https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tsmc+silicon+shield
      - permo-w 2y ago
        do you not think that if China invaded Taiwan, the top minds there would just leave and go elsewhere? the machines they use are built in the Netherlands. I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I don't think it'd be the end of the world like people are saying. I think worse would be the precedent it would set.
        robocat 2y ago
- rat87 2y ago
  If the goal was to decouple from China then tarrifs would only be on China and we would encourage trade to move from China to other countries. The administrations actions have the opposite effect. It says the US is untrustworthy even to it's allies and maybe siding with China is not so bad. Note I don't like or trust the Chinese government and don't think other governments should try to get closer to them but Trump's actions make such moves much more likely
  - autoexec 2y ago
    At the very least any nation that depends on the US for goods should probably be looking to other sources where possible and increasing support for them since even if the US is useful for now, we're clearly unstable and incompetent which makes us unreliable and risky.
  - 8note 2y ago
    ir would be china, and also countries that route chinese goods into the US
- timeon 2y ago
  Isn't this bit naive? Because in order to decouple, one would expect that there would be policies to actually prepare for production inside US and then apply tariffs. Not other way around.
- threeseed 2y ago
  > In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on Tariffs were raised on Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada. It's asinine to say that you can trust these countries with your most secret intelligence (Five Eyes) but not enough to say treat them as allies.
  - defrost 2y ago
    As an Australian who has spent decades watching the trade and resources markets it was notable that Australia, NZ, UK, Canada, and much of the world started taking calls from China and meetings with ambassadors. The Trump plan to "decouple from China" was verging on dividing the world into the US and everybody else .. a large reason behind the partial rollback. Countries are now openly rejecting China's offer to join hands .. but still sitting on the possibility of further deals with China should the US tariff insanity continue.
  - smileysteve 2y ago
    Also, the amount of badmouthing of Japan, Korea, Germany... Especially car companies which have built plants in America.
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  "The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping." You literally made this up. There has been no announcement about this from the admin. Its all just speculation.
  - SirMaster 2y ago
    Isn't this what the press secretary said today?
    - wonderwonder 2y ago
      I'm honestly not sure, I kind of tuned out after I saw her lecturing the press on the art of the deal.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      Seeing as there is near total disconnect between what this admin says and what it demonstrably does (let alone the disconnect from reality entirely), why would anyone take anything they say at face value? There is zero signal coming from any of these folk's mouths.
- feyman_r 2y ago
  >>> US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right. Yes, they have the right, but it doesn’t mean this is the right way. Consumers don’t suddenly stop consuming, and factories in the world don’t immediately start producing. This is like a slow flywheel; had we been almost spinning and ready to jump, it would make sense. This is not that. Also, China is a super power which controls more than factories today. I agree they need to be checked, but sudden changes are not the way. I wish we did it by building trust with allies and then pushing China. Right now, even our allies are wary of us.
- defrost 2y ago
  > Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl China stopped selling unlicensed fentanyl to the USofA, it later stopped supplying fentanyl to both Mexico and Canada. The problem was that criminals in the USofA and Mexico purchased precursor chemicals in bulk and made their own fentanyl. Restricting precursors led to pre-precursors being purchased in bulk for drug labs to make their own precursors in order to make fentanyl. The fentanyl problem continued under Trump and rapidly grew in size during his first term. In 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and companies engaged in the illicit opioid trade. His Treasury Department put sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities, freezing entire networks of fentanyl suppliers and traffickers out of the international financial system. In 2023 and 2024 he identified China as a major illicit drug-producing country for its role in the synthetic opioid trade — a blow to the reputation of China’s chemical industry. Simultaneously, the Biden administration pushed U.S. law enforcement agencies to conduct aggressive investigations and build indictments against dozens of Chinese citizens and companies that were trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. [..] Biden secured a personal commitment from President Xi Jinping to restart counternarcotics cooperation in November 2023 [..] And we made progress. International fentanyl supply chains showed signs of disruption, forcing traffickers to change sources and tactics. Together with other diplomatic initiatives and an expansive public health campaign, the number of lethal fentanyl overdoses in the United States has dropped. In the 12 months ending September 2024, overdose deaths were down an estimated 24 percent from the year prior. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade... What has Trump done now he's back in office? Destroyed any cooperation with China on counternarcotics cooperation. Tariffs alone will not push China’s government to help reduce drug overdose deaths in the United States. In fact, with Beijing already imposing retaliatory tariffs and proclaiming that it’s “ready to fight till the end,” Mr. Trump’s blunt-force tactics might drive China to cooperate less on fentanyl, not more. With the stakes as high as they are, American communities cannot afford a miscalculation.
- tail_exchange 2y ago
  > In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on Why on earth would you be on the side of a country like this? Why we should be an ally of the US right now, if Trump can't even uphold agreements he signed himself 5 years ago? What guarantees do we have that, as soon as we decouple from China, the US won't treat us as a vassal because we gave up our only alternative? The only rational choice is to either be neutral or ally with China.
  - Fade_Dance 2y ago
    It looks like the consensus response is other countries embracing more multilateralism. This is a huge opportunity for proponents and governments that promote multilateralism to take charge and make it happen. Ex: China has restricted trade with Aus since 2020 because they, essentially, insulted China/didn't restrict their speech in ways that China wanted. This provides an opportunity for this to be rolled back, which is economically win-win (as most free trade is). Expect to see this sort of thing many times over between many countries in the world. Of course this is rooted in the fact that having ex-US trading partners is no significantly more valuable. There is the second point to mention too though, which is that China is not exactly an exemplar of open markets and free trade, which is why you are not seeing many countries ally with China and form a united front against the US's trade rampage. Looking beyond the deranged policies, there are some truths in saying that China is a currency manipulator, has imbalanced trade to such a degree it causes problems in other economies, and even the somewhat more "far fetched" points about the unsustainability of a permanent trade deficit do have some truth on some level. That is why, yes, you are seeing the EU normalize trade relations with China, but there are important caveats, like discussions about China having an expert quota and even internally capping production numbers within their own economy are on the table front and center. This would have never happened before, because China's strategy was to peg a low currency, export, and extinguish industries ex-China. Wish to some level is part of free trade, but it is underpinned in China with state sponsorship to a higher degrees in most trading partners are comfortable with (which is of course countered by the allure of cheap goods). So another view would be that parties like the EU have new leverage against China that they can use to cut trade deals that strip out some of the abusive practices that made them uncomfortable in the past. If China is then willing to move on a bit from these approaches then the net outcome should be beneficial for the world of course. I think that many players see the dangers of taking binary sides now more than ever. And indeed, skilled negotiators should see the advantages of playing these forces against each other to get what is best for them. In the face of the recent outrageous events, I would expect a sudden outburst of pragmatism elsewhere.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  > And China has shown that agreement with them has no value Unfortunately they still have much more value than agreements with the US and Trump specifically. Which Canada and Mexico found out the hard way. Of course the probability that Trump actually forgot that he was the one who no signed USMCA and none of his “advisors” dared to tell him is not insignificant..
spacemadness 2y ago
People are so desperate for this to be rational. Which itself is entirely irrational given the information at hand.
- sneak 2y ago
  It could be a very straightforward dump and pump scam, as well. We know this admin isn’t above petty monetary graft. It seems to be the simplest possible explanation, too. Then again, never attribute to malice…
  - braebo 2y ago
    It’s scary to think that the reality is as simple as “Trump is just an idiot that is incapable of understanding even the fundamentals of global trade and has been obsessed with what he thinks tariffs are for 30+ years and is too stubborn to listen to non-stupid people”, while the rest is just hopeless attempts to rationalize his stupidity. But when you’re in a billionaire bubble isolated from reality, and a dumb grifter who rips off every party in every deal you’ve ever done, it makes sense to assume that global trade is just countries ripping each-other off. The people around him with zipped mouths who know better could very well be treating it as a pump and dump however.
  - beezlewax 2y ago
    It is very obviously this. These same people made meme coins. Shameful behaviour.
  - MajimasEyepatch 2y ago
    That's not the simplest possible explanation. The simplest explanation is that he did this because he believes in it. Trump has been saying the exact same thing about tariffs since the 1980s—there's video of him talking to Larry King about it in 1987, using exactly the same phrasing and logic that he uses today. Donald Trump fundamentally believes that everything in life is a zero-sum game, and moreover that everyone is as crooked as him: either you're screwing someone else or you're getting screwed. That's why he's so obsessed with trade deficits specifically, because to him, that negative sign screams "you're getting ripped off." There are other benefits. By imposing the tariffs like this and wielding them through executive power, he can extort countries and corporations to give him what he wants in exchanging for releasing the hostages, so to speak. And I'm sure people in his orbit _also_ used this as a get-rich-quick scheme, because these people are all grifters. But that is all secondary to the fact that he has believed this for forty years and finally got a chance to do it.
ajross 2y ago
There is absolutely a Cultural Revolution feel to the communication by and around the president. See e.g. Bill Ackman's fully-prostrated worshipful response on Twitter this morning. The guy is a successful billionaire! And he needs to sound like a literal cult member in public lest he lose influence.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  Yes, project 2025[1] is our own cultural revolution/great leap forward. The authors said: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."[2] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-foundation-trump-revolution/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-...
  - covercash 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - BonoboIO 2y ago
    I'd pay serious money to jump 30 years into the future just to read what historians will write about our current time. Not for investment tips or anything practical - just to satisfy my curiosity about how this bizarre period will be analyzed and understood.
    - hayst4ck 2y ago
      When everyone feels this way instead of fighting for the future they want to make reality... There are journalists, protestors, entrepreneurs, unionists, billionaires, etc, all fighting for what those history books will say. Ukrainians are fighting for what they will say right now. I think a better question is what do you want them to say. Do you want them to say tyranny triumphed un-resisted?
    - AlecSchueler 2y ago
      Assuming it isn't the most sane period for a long time to come.
woooooo 2y ago
If we're going full Mao, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that their plan for industry during the cultural revolution was "the proletariat will own small smelting operations next to their house". It checks out ideologically, workers controlling the means of production.. it just didn't work in reality. Reminds me a lot of the thought process around having more manufacturing in the US by slapping tariffs around.
sfblah 2y ago
My opinion on this is that the damage has already been done. Successive administrations have already loaded up debt massively and participated in a Ponzi scheme with the Fed to pretend asset valuations in the US make sense. Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost, and valuation multiples in the US will come to resemble those that have existed throughout history, and those which exist in all other parts of the world currently. When this happens, there will be a big recession, and that is exactly the moment companies will start deploying AI in earnest to save money. This will create a downward spiral. Yes, the Trump administration is incompetent. But, if you insist on blaming an administration, I would propose Obama and Biden as more reasonable culprits. It was Obama who presided over the massive Fed intervention into markets that enabled unbridled government spending increases. It was Biden who presided over the most problematic parts of the Covid response. Trump is just an idiot. Obama and Biden are actually bad guys.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Trump 1 increased the debt more than Biden, and Trump 1 wasn't even mitigating a train wreck of COVID inaction left over from his predecessor.
  - sfblah 2y ago
    Yeah, I mean people love playing political games with this stuff. But the actual crime was what happened between 2009-2012. Trump is just a symptom. Yes, he's a bad guy, but what do you expect people to do?
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      I expect people to not vote for obviously bad guys. Obama too had to clean up a mortgage crisis from his predecessor's careless deregulation. Not an excuse for his own crimes, like say drone striking US citizens. But Trump is just openly corrupt, inept, praising autocrats and aspiring to be one.
      - 2y ago
j4dmebbe 2y ago
[dead]
boringg 2y ago
Correction. Mao is Mao like. And you could call Trump a Mao like person, not the other way around.
casey2 2y ago
Or this is like the long history of American tariffs which gave it world class industry. We are in the midst of a 4th industrial revolution and all this insane manufacturing tech being developed just gets shipped over to china because nobody in the US wants to touch it for fear of failing. For every four pests Mao had 100 successful projects that nobody talks about. Harm reduction is not an optimal strategy for any game.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine The Great Chinese Famine was a famine that occurred between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million). That's 3% to 10% of China's population starved to death at the time.
- lazide 2y ago
  Name a couple of those ‘100 successful projects’ eh?

magicreadu 2y ago

Both you and OP are not looking at this from the right angle. The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping. US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right. And China has shown that agreement with them has no value. Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl, in part to slow trumps tariff down. They did neither of those things. Trump hasn’t forgotten that.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throw16180339 2y ago
[flagged]
- permo-w 2y ago
  has no one considered that it could be simple market manipulation? have Trump's friends and allies been buying stocks in the last week or so?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - boyanlevchev 2y ago
    Did you see this? Unusually good timing… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gutsy-traders-make-1-5-billion-triple-leveraged-bet-tqqq-on-nasdaq-100 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gutsy-tra...
    - permo-w 2y ago
      to be fair, I also made quite a lot of profit in stocks in the last few days without any inside knowledge of the whitehouse. it was a fairly safe bet that these tariffs were not going to last forever, and even if they were, there'd be reprieves
  - margana 2y ago
    Why not both?
  - arandomusername 2y ago
    Easier to just promote a shitcoin like he did already.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MVissers 2y ago
Decoupling from China will lead to China annex Taiwan sooner. China will have the USA and the world by the balls then, so not sure we want that to happen quicker. And I don't think anyone is calling themselves allies of the USA right now. The whole world is looking to decouple from the USA. Europe is completely over the USA, they can't rely on them for leadership, protection or for trade. From a tech perspective, expect Europe to decouple from the USA from an economic and cultural perspective in the next decade. Smartest thing Europe can do is to create alternatives to US services, build its own defense industry and stop looking at the USA for any leadership.
- permo-w 2y ago
  is TSMC not currently building a plant in the US? and ASML are Dutch, so they're not at risk. I’m not saying that China taking Taiwan wouldn't be a massive strategic boon, but I don't think it would be "having the world by the balls" by any means
  - robocat 2y ago
    A knowledge economy depends on information. TSMC will keep key knowledge within Taiwan as part of their Silicon Shield[1]. Look closely at a business you know well and notice how much the profits depend upon information in people's heads. Everything runs on a combination of money (capitalist profits) and non-money gains (other gains that people really care about). [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tsmc+silicon+shield https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tsmc+silicon+shield
    - permo-w 2y ago
      do you not think that if China invaded Taiwan, the top minds there would just leave and go elsewhere? the machines they use are built in the Netherlands. I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I don't think it'd be the end of the world like people are saying. I think worse would be the precedent it would set.
      - robocat 2y ago
rat87 2y ago
If the goal was to decouple from China then tarrifs would only be on China and we would encourage trade to move from China to other countries. The administrations actions have the opposite effect. It says the US is untrustworthy even to it's allies and maybe siding with China is not so bad. Note I don't like or trust the Chinese government and don't think other governments should try to get closer to them but Trump's actions make such moves much more likely
- autoexec 2y ago
  At the very least any nation that depends on the US for goods should probably be looking to other sources where possible and increasing support for them since even if the US is useful for now, we're clearly unstable and incompetent which makes us unreliable and risky.
- 8note 2y ago
  ir would be china, and also countries that route chinese goods into the US
timeon 2y ago
Isn't this bit naive? Because in order to decouple, one would expect that there would be policies to actually prepare for production inside US and then apply tariffs. Not other way around.
threeseed 2y ago
> In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on Tariffs were raised on Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada. It's asinine to say that you can trust these countries with your most secret intelligence (Five Eyes) but not enough to say treat them as allies.
- defrost 2y ago
  As an Australian who has spent decades watching the trade and resources markets it was notable that Australia, NZ, UK, Canada, and much of the world started taking calls from China and meetings with ambassadors. The Trump plan to "decouple from China" was verging on dividing the world into the US and everybody else .. a large reason behind the partial rollback. Countries are now openly rejecting China's offer to join hands .. but still sitting on the possibility of further deals with China should the US tariff insanity continue.
- smileysteve 2y ago
  Also, the amount of badmouthing of Japan, Korea, Germany... Especially car companies which have built plants in America.
wonderwonder 2y ago
"The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping." You literally made this up. There has been no announcement about this from the admin. Its all just speculation.
- SirMaster 2y ago
  Isn't this what the press secretary said today?
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    I'm honestly not sure, I kind of tuned out after I saw her lecturing the press on the art of the deal.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Seeing as there is near total disconnect between what this admin says and what it demonstrably does (let alone the disconnect from reality entirely), why would anyone take anything they say at face value? There is zero signal coming from any of these folk's mouths.
feyman_r 2y ago
>>> US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right. Yes, they have the right, but it doesn’t mean this is the right way. Consumers don’t suddenly stop consuming, and factories in the world don’t immediately start producing. This is like a slow flywheel; had we been almost spinning and ready to jump, it would make sense. This is not that. Also, China is a super power which controls more than factories today. I agree they need to be checked, but sudden changes are not the way. I wish we did it by building trust with allies and then pushing China. Right now, even our allies are wary of us.
defrost 2y ago
> Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl China stopped selling unlicensed fentanyl to the USofA, it later stopped supplying fentanyl to both Mexico and Canada. The problem was that criminals in the USofA and Mexico purchased precursor chemicals in bulk and made their own fentanyl. Restricting precursors led to pre-precursors being purchased in bulk for drug labs to make their own precursors in order to make fentanyl. The fentanyl problem continued under Trump and rapidly grew in size during his first term. In 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and companies engaged in the illicit opioid trade. His Treasury Department put sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities, freezing entire networks of fentanyl suppliers and traffickers out of the international financial system. In 2023 and 2024 he identified China as a major illicit drug-producing country for its role in the synthetic opioid trade — a blow to the reputation of China’s chemical industry. Simultaneously, the Biden administration pushed U.S. law enforcement agencies to conduct aggressive investigations and build indictments against dozens of Chinese citizens and companies that were trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. [..] Biden secured a personal commitment from President Xi Jinping to restart counternarcotics cooperation in November 2023 [..] And we made progress. International fentanyl supply chains showed signs of disruption, forcing traffickers to change sources and tactics. Together with other diplomatic initiatives and an expansive public health campaign, the number of lethal fentanyl overdoses in the United States has dropped. In the 12 months ending September 2024, overdose deaths were down an estimated 24 percent from the year prior. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade... What has Trump done now he's back in office? Destroyed any cooperation with China on counternarcotics cooperation. Tariffs alone will not push China’s government to help reduce drug overdose deaths in the United States. In fact, with Beijing already imposing retaliatory tariffs and proclaiming that it’s “ready to fight till the end,” Mr. Trump’s blunt-force tactics might drive China to cooperate less on fentanyl, not more. With the stakes as high as they are, American communities cannot afford a miscalculation.
tail_exchange 2y ago
> In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on Why on earth would you be on the side of a country like this? Why we should be an ally of the US right now, if Trump can't even uphold agreements he signed himself 5 years ago? What guarantees do we have that, as soon as we decouple from China, the US won't treat us as a vassal because we gave up our only alternative? The only rational choice is to either be neutral or ally with China.
- Fade_Dance 2y ago
  It looks like the consensus response is other countries embracing more multilateralism. This is a huge opportunity for proponents and governments that promote multilateralism to take charge and make it happen. Ex: China has restricted trade with Aus since 2020 because they, essentially, insulted China/didn't restrict their speech in ways that China wanted. This provides an opportunity for this to be rolled back, which is economically win-win (as most free trade is). Expect to see this sort of thing many times over between many countries in the world. Of course this is rooted in the fact that having ex-US trading partners is no significantly more valuable. There is the second point to mention too though, which is that China is not exactly an exemplar of open markets and free trade, which is why you are not seeing many countries ally with China and form a united front against the US's trade rampage. Looking beyond the deranged policies, there are some truths in saying that China is a currency manipulator, has imbalanced trade to such a degree it causes problems in other economies, and even the somewhat more "far fetched" points about the unsustainability of a permanent trade deficit do have some truth on some level. That is why, yes, you are seeing the EU normalize trade relations with China, but there are important caveats, like discussions about China having an expert quota and even internally capping production numbers within their own economy are on the table front and center. This would have never happened before, because China's strategy was to peg a low currency, export, and extinguish industries ex-China. Wish to some level is part of free trade, but it is underpinned in China with state sponsorship to a higher degrees in most trading partners are comfortable with (which is of course countered by the allure of cheap goods). So another view would be that parties like the EU have new leverage against China that they can use to cut trade deals that strip out some of the abusive practices that made them uncomfortable in the past. If China is then willing to move on a bit from these approaches then the net outcome should be beneficial for the world of course. I think that many players see the dangers of taking binary sides now more than ever. And indeed, skilled negotiators should see the advantages of playing these forces against each other to get what is best for them. In the face of the recent outrageous events, I would expect a sudden outburst of pragmatism elsewhere.
wqaatwt 2y ago
> And China has shown that agreement with them has no value Unfortunately they still have much more value than agreements with the US and Trump specifically. Which Canada and Mexico found out the hard way. Of course the probability that Trump actually forgot that he was the one who no signed USMCA and none of his “advisors” dared to tell him is not insignificant..

spacemadness 2y ago

People are so desperate for this to be rational. Which itself is entirely irrational given the information at hand.

sneak 2y ago
It could be a very straightforward dump and pump scam, as well. We know this admin isn’t above petty monetary graft. It seems to be the simplest possible explanation, too. Then again, never attribute to malice…
- braebo 2y ago
  It’s scary to think that the reality is as simple as “Trump is just an idiot that is incapable of understanding even the fundamentals of global trade and has been obsessed with what he thinks tariffs are for 30+ years and is too stubborn to listen to non-stupid people”, while the rest is just hopeless attempts to rationalize his stupidity. But when you’re in a billionaire bubble isolated from reality, and a dumb grifter who rips off every party in every deal you’ve ever done, it makes sense to assume that global trade is just countries ripping each-other off. The people around him with zipped mouths who know better could very well be treating it as a pump and dump however.
- beezlewax 2y ago
  It is very obviously this. These same people made meme coins. Shameful behaviour.
- MajimasEyepatch 2y ago
  That's not the simplest possible explanation. The simplest explanation is that he did this because he believes in it. Trump has been saying the exact same thing about tariffs since the 1980s—there's video of him talking to Larry King about it in 1987, using exactly the same phrasing and logic that he uses today. Donald Trump fundamentally believes that everything in life is a zero-sum game, and moreover that everyone is as crooked as him: either you're screwing someone else or you're getting screwed. That's why he's so obsessed with trade deficits specifically, because to him, that negative sign screams "you're getting ripped off." There are other benefits. By imposing the tariffs like this and wielding them through executive power, he can extort countries and corporations to give him what he wants in exchanging for releasing the hostages, so to speak. And I'm sure people in his orbit _also_ used this as a get-rich-quick scheme, because these people are all grifters. But that is all secondary to the fact that he has believed this for forty years and finally got a chance to do it.

ajross 2y ago

There is absolutely a Cultural Revolution feel to the communication by and around the president. See e.g. Bill Ackman's fully-prostrated worshipful response on Twitter this morning. The guy is a successful billionaire! And he needs to sound like a literal cult member in public lest he lose influence.

hayst4ck 2y ago
Yes, project 2025[1] is our own cultural revolution/great leap forward. The authors said: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."[2] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-foundation-trump-revolution/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-...
- covercash 2y ago
  [flagged]
- BonoboIO 2y ago
  I'd pay serious money to jump 30 years into the future just to read what historians will write about our current time. Not for investment tips or anything practical - just to satisfy my curiosity about how this bizarre period will be analyzed and understood.
  - hayst4ck 2y ago
    When everyone feels this way instead of fighting for the future they want to make reality... There are journalists, protestors, entrepreneurs, unionists, billionaires, etc, all fighting for what those history books will say. Ukrainians are fighting for what they will say right now. I think a better question is what do you want them to say. Do you want them to say tyranny triumphed un-resisted?
  - AlecSchueler 2y ago
    Assuming it isn't the most sane period for a long time to come.

woooooo 2y ago

If we're going full Mao, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that their plan for industry during the cultural revolution was "the proletariat will own small smelting operations next to their house". It checks out ideologically, workers controlling the means of production.. it just didn't work in reality. Reminds me a lot of the thought process around having more manufacturing in the US by slapping tariffs around.

sfblah 2y ago

My opinion on this is that the damage has already been done. Successive administrations have already loaded up debt massively and participated in a Ponzi scheme with the Fed to pretend asset valuations in the US make sense. Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost, and valuation multiples in the US will come to resemble those that have existed throughout history, and those which exist in all other parts of the world currently. When this happens, there will be a big recession, and that is exactly the moment companies will start deploying AI in earnest to save money. This will create a downward spiral. Yes, the Trump administration is incompetent. But, if you insist on blaming an administration, I would propose Obama and Biden as more reasonable culprits. It was Obama who presided over the massive Fed intervention into markets that enabled unbridled government spending increases. It was Biden who presided over the most problematic parts of the Covid response. Trump is just an idiot. Obama and Biden are actually bad guys.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Trump 1 increased the debt more than Biden, and Trump 1 wasn't even mitigating a train wreck of COVID inaction left over from his predecessor.
- sfblah 2y ago
  Yeah, I mean people love playing political games with this stuff. But the actual crime was what happened between 2009-2012. Trump is just a symptom. Yes, he's a bad guy, but what do you expect people to do?
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    I expect people to not vote for obviously bad guys. Obama too had to clean up a mortgage crisis from his predecessor's careless deregulation. Not an excuse for his own crimes, like say drone striking US citizens. But Trump is just openly corrupt, inept, praising autocrats and aspiring to be one.
    - 2y ago

j4dmebbe 2y ago

[dead]

boringg 2y ago

Correction. Mao is Mao like. And you could call Trump a Mao like person, not the other way around.

casey2 2y ago

Or this is like the long history of American tariffs which gave it world class industry. We are in the midst of a 4th industrial revolution and all this insane manufacturing tech being developed just gets shipped over to china because nobody in the US wants to touch it for fear of failing. For every four pests Mao had 100 successful projects that nobody talks about. Harm reduction is not an optimal strategy for any game.

hayst4ck 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine The Great Chinese Famine was a famine that occurred between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million). That's 3% to 10% of China's population starved to death at the time.
lazide 2y ago
Name a couple of those ‘100 successful projects’ eh?