[corry]

There are two different questions here: (1) is Trump's strategy a good one to accomplish his goals? and (2) what are other good ideas to do so?

Just because there aren't many ideas in bucket #2 doesn't mean you should do #1.

For a trivial example, consider steel and aluminum tariffs (Larry Summers gave this example on Bloomberg yesterday):

There are 60x more jobs in industries that rely on steel/aluminum inputs than there are in the US steel/aluminium producers. 60x!

Steel/aluminum tariffs increase the cost of inputs to the companies that employ those 60x more people; their businesses suffer; those jobs are more at risk.

Meanwhile, it will take a decade for steel/aluminum production to be fully done within the US, and even then it will be a higher cost (i.e. the reason the US imports a big share of aluminium from Canada is that Canada uses cheap hydro energy to produce it - something that the US can't do).

Through that decade, every single item that uses imported steel/aluminum as an input will be more expensive for average Americans.

So you risk 60x the jobs, for a slow and ultimately non-competitive local industry rebuild, and meanwhile average Americans pay higher costs.

Now multiply that across every category of good in the economy?

#1 is bad. I don't have a great idea for #2, but #1 is bad.

[cryptonector]

Look at it from Trump's perspective for a moment. The only tool he has is tariffs, and the people he's negotiating with are not just foreign governments but also Congress. Because he has this authority he can use it to try to bring any of those to the table and negotiate alternative approaches. Not saying that's what he's doing. Just saying that's a possibility.

[kristjansson]

He's got the entire congress! He's got the entire universe of industrial policy to advance whatever domestic improvements he wants to pursue. Clearly they even have the political capital and appetite to do a massive tax increase!

[cryptonector]

The Republicans in Congress don't all want the same things, and they have very narrow majorities, so yes, he does have to negotiate with them.

[rat87]

Actually doing positive things is hard. Good presidents like Biden can pass stuff like IRA.

Wrecking shit when you don't care much about who suffers is much easier

[cryptonector]

The tone of discourse on HN has gotten quite negative lately. It can be possible for Trump to believe that what he's doing is good even if what he's doing proves bad. He seems sincere in thinking that yesterday's tariffs will do good for the U.S. Who knows, tariffs might yet do good (or not), and Democrats used to advocate roughly the same thing:

  - Bernie, 2008: https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1907883583228051964
  - Nancy Pelosi, 1996: https://x.com/ThomasSowell/status/1907875133638705646
  - Roger Moore's films

Clearly they changed their minds. It would be interesting to see why they changed their minds.

[kristjansson]

I'd like some repairs made to my car, but I'd object to someone making them with a hammer (without a stronger argument in favor than "trust me").

[rat87]

The tone of HN is something. For instance there always seems to be someone partisan enough to defend Trump no matter how ridiculous and terrible his actions are.

It true that there are democrats who are more skeptical on free trade and I would disagree with some of their views although adding workers rights and minimum wages into trade agreements are things which might have some merit but none of them would try something as ridiculous and economically suicidal as this. They're literally putting tarrifs on an island with a bunch of Penguins.

That's because he's lazy and doesn't really care to learn about policy or listen to the vast majority of economists including conservative economists tell him he's blowing up the economy and he doesn't care much about the damage he causes. He might remotely care about the stock market going down or losing political power and being tried for some of his many crimes but he doesn't really care much if his supporters (much less the half of the country that voted for someone sane) suffer, starve or die from a preventable disease.