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The Trump White House literally cited the trade deficit as a "national emergency" in April 2025 to justify its actions on tariffs.¹ > I, DONALD J. TRUMP, Presi
by m-hodges 9mo ago
The Trump White House literally cited the trade deficit as a "national emergency" in April 2025 to justify its actions on tariffs.¹
> I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that underlying conditions, including a lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships, disparate tariff rates and non-tariff barriers, and U.S. trading partners’ economic policies that suppress domestic wages and consumption, as indicated by large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States. That threat has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States in the domestic economic policies of key trading partners and structural imbalances in the global trading system. I hereby declare a national emergency with respect to this threat.
Does not seem they've addressed their self-imposed "national emergency".
¹ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/regulating-imports-with-a-reciprocal-tariff-to-rectify-trade-practices-that-contribute-to-large-and-persistent-annual-united-states-goods-trade-deficits/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/regu...
- mekdoonggi 9mo agoSurely if we say we'll quadruple tariffs in two months and then walk it back in a month, the situation will improve?
- jamincan 9mo agoI suppose at a certain point, there wouldn't be any trade at all, which would mean Trump had finally eliminated the trade deficit.
- TrainedMonkey 9mo agoIf I was cynical I would assume that manufacturing emergencies was the whole point.