[hayst4ck]

Trump is only confusing if you think his policies are meant to benefit America.

If you don't believe that, then his policies are terrifyingly not confusing. If you believe his policies are primarily meant to benefit American oligarchs or Russia, his policies are even less confusing.

Withdrawing support for Ukraine and not putting tariffs on Russia, despite putting tariffs on uninhabited "Heard Island and McDonald Islands" is probably the least confused I've been since his inauguration. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump...

[Paradigma11]

I disagree on Russia. If that tariff madness goes on for more than a few months Russia is dead. Russia's economy is already completely unsustainable and on the brink. Brent is currently traded at 66USD and if oil prices fall a bit more and stay there that's it for Russia.

It will be fascinating to see what is going to happen with that purely mercenary army recruited from the poor when the money is worth nothing any more.

[ttyprintk]

I’ve been thinking about your second point. Some speculation:

Assuming that Trump, Musk, and Putin each need something from one of each other. Assuming that the siloviki want to quietly rule Russia.

A mercenary uprising would be convenient cover for Putin to endure exile in, say, the Caribbean. Security by FSB, siloviki split up their rule across Russia, etc. Operating from Guyana, Putin could deprive ESA of access to the French Guiana spaceport, handing it over to Musk.

The entire Caribbean fell into 10% tariffs except for two: Guyana (38%) and Cuba (0%).

[nprateem]

No. His policies are all aimed at fighting China.

- He wants to choke them with tariffs (and now has leverage to get the rest of the world to join in).

- They want Greenland to defend the North

- He wants to onshore manufacturing as a strategic wartime capability

Once you understand this, his policies make sense.

And the whole business of putting tariffs on everywhere is so countries can't export from them to evade the tariffs.

So because of this he seems to think effects on markets will be a one time correction that's worth the cost (not to mention is probably shorting it to pieces)

[watwut]

None of that makes sense as fighting China. Especially not the Greenland thing. He makes China looks good which is quite a feat.

> He wants to choke them with tariffs (and now has leverage to get the rest of the world to join in).

Like, how? You expect the countries to put tariff on Chine, risk to have tariffs put on them by both China and unpredictable USA? He is loosing leverage here rather then gaining it.

> They want Greenland to defend the North

Right now, Greenland sees America as the biggest threat to protect against. They even refused to talk to Vance on his visit.

> He wants to onshore manufacturing as a strategic wartime capability

That is inconsistent with tariffs on everything. If this was the goal, he would had targeted tariffs to ease manufacturing. It would exclude materials for example. It was NOT be calculated as ratio of trade deficit.

And this is also inconsistent with using tariffs as a leverage in negotiations which was your other point. This would require stability and companies being confident the policy wont change in the next few years. In reality, they dont know what will happen tomorrow.

[nprateem]

It's all here. This seems to be their playbook: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

They'll tie the defence umbrella to tariffs and good behaviour.

[watwut]

Who will be dumb enough to believe American security promises anymore? America won't defend anyone no matter what they promiss.

If they wanted to sell defense, threatening annexation of countries they are supposed to have current defensive arrangement with is inconsistent with that. Allying yourself with Russia is inconsistent with that too.

And above all, an attempt to use past help as a reason to make the other country your colony for materials extractions while trying to sell their parts to Russia ... makes you untrustworthy.

Greenland is not threatened by China right now, they are threatened by America.

[rsynnott]

I mean, if that were the case, then their previous behaviour on Ukraine seems baffling, as it has made the defence umbrella look, at a minimum, kinda tattered. Like, we are now in a world where Poland is talking to France about hosting French nuclear warheads. If you told someone in 2010 that that would be happening in 2025 they’d think you were completely insane.

[hayst4ck]

So why the tariff on Taiwan, and why alienate Canada? Is European support not strategically useful?

Who buys American weaponry to fund American military industry when countries don't trust us?

Why would he create the grounds for civil unrest here, which would make decisive military action much harder?

How can we have leverage when other countries are dealing with an O(1) problem while we are dealing with O(N) harm to our economy?

Why abandon Ukraine, a country in a very similar position to Taiwan?

Why talk about ethnically cleansing Gaza, ceding the human rights high ground?

[nprateem]

He wants to devalue the USD to make manufacturing more cost effective. For that he needs leverage. Plus tariffs raise money so can fund tax breaks. Read the essay I linked to in my other comment. It's all there.

[hayst4ck]

You completely avoided interacting with the concerns I have in good faith. I understand that's the marketing pitch, I even understand there is some truth to it, but can you try to see the bigger picture and zoom out of an individual policy to see overall strategy? At the absolute best this is incompetence.

Even if we figured out manufacturing, wars are frequently won with technology, and those researches that fled Germany to get away from oppression are now fleeing America because colleges are robbing them of their dignity in expression and attempting to exploit them by taking the fruits of their labor, without the experiencing the "cost" of their own person-hood and individual beliefs.

[aigen000]

If this was aimed at fighting China, Trump wouldn't be tariffing 99% of the rest of the world.

China has the upper hand because USA has turned against all its allies and countries will favor trade deals with the country which is not tariffing them. China will form stronger trade coalitions with the Japan/Korea/Europe and leave America to cannibalize itself.

[rsynnott]

I mean, Occam’s Razor says he’s just incompetent, honestly. And he’s had a bit of an obsession with tariffs for a _very_ long time. He’s been going on about them since before the fall of the Soviet Union, so unless you’re speculating some sort of secret Putinist rebel cell within the former Soviet Union influencing him 40 years ago, it’s probably just that he’s quite stupid.

Also, this kind of ignores how dependent Russia is on _China_. If this were actually at Russia’s behest, China would hardly even be bothering with mirroring tariffs; it would just call Putin to heel.