[raffael_de]

Most people's thinking here seems to be clouded by political ideologies and anger over their stocks being down. Game theoretically Trump has a long history of basically playing the perfect strategy of extreme unpredictability, willingness to take a loss for the purpose of making a point, but sufficient reliability if a deal is agreed upon that he benefits from the most. He's the one who'll brake the last in a game of racing to the edge of a cliff - always. That's why he will succeed and the US will keep the upper hand geopolitically and economically. But the world will change also - that's actually why he's playing so tough. The cake is being divided anew and China _will_ get a much larger portion. His goal is not to prevent this - because he can't - his goal is to secure an as large as possible piece for himself and the US.

The tariffs are for forcing the entire world to renegotiate anything that he is interested in. And that plan will work. They will ALL negotiate, with him holding the upper hand.

PS: Many of the replies suggest that countries can achieve independence of US companies and the US Dollar. While that is possible they forget a key weakness of democracies. Politicians are elected based on short-term benefits and avoidance of suffering. All those required actions to reach independence require serious long-term efforts that detrimentally impact the comfort of the respective voting population at least short-term. That's why those adjustments probably won't happen. Trump knows that and takes advantage of it. Countries not governed by a democratic system are usually led by an elite who'll be indifferent of pretty much anything we are debating here - they just want to obtain more power and wealth. And they'll be achieving this easier when they cooperate with who is factually the most powerful man on the planet.

[herval]

Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product.

Trump’s ship of fools is tossing the US to the sidelines of the global trade, in particular due to his inability to work with anyone else. EU is rearming, they won’t need “america’s protection”. Latin America (with the only exception being Argentina) is stronger than ever as a trade block, and getting courted by EU and China. Africa is aligning with China for a decade. India is going up the ladder, from US’s cheap labor center to a country producing goods for their own consumption. Even Israel seems completely uninterested in joining the “green list”.

Everyone will find more reliable trade partners, and the American people will be left hanging with this supposed “upper hand” trump supporters dream he has

[raffael_de]

> Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product.

Okay, let's have a look ... well, this statistic doesn't back up your claim:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports/china

> Trump’s ship of fools

Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, threats and actions. Then he can play the good cop when it makes sense and just fire the fool. That is basically applied game theory on a meta- and psychological level.

> Everyone will find more reliable trade partners

No, they won't and everybody knows that.

[herval]

Here u go: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2024/02/the-united-states-... Plenty of data on the damage he’s done to the US exports. Plenty of data on how Brazil replaced it.

For someone who wants to sound smart citing “game theory”, you surely don’t sound very capable of seeing reality

[owebmaster]

Spouting "game theory" to everything does not mean he will win these bets, tho.

> No, they won't and everybody knows that.

That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

[raffael_de]

Since you were so kind to change "shouting" to "spouting" I'll compliment you a reply.

> That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

How about Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google, Nvidia, 3M, Pfizer etc.?

[owebmaster]

> How about Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google, Nvidia, 3M, Pfizer etc.?

If all of them leave to be replaced by the alternatives, local or european/chinese, that would definitely be net positive.

[herval]

Most of these companies can simply move their business to a different country too. The only reason they stay in the US is due to the dollar dominance, which created stability to run a business for decades. If that goes away, what’s the point?

[ttyprintk]

> Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, threats and actions. Then he can play the good cop when it makes sense and just fire the fool. That is basically applied game theory on a meta- and psychological level.

Firings that support this: Flynn, McCabe, Esper, Bolton

Firings that support Trump’s Razor: Comey, Sessions, Tillerson, Nielsen, Krebs

“The dumbest explanation is often the correct one.” tells us that the increase in information from those moves is uselessly low for both him and us. Nevertheless, if Trump is able to influence the rules, the accumulation of side effects of high strategic value gives his advisers something to work with.

[tyleo]

Or people won’t want to deal with him, route around the US, and let us drive off the cliff alone.

[raffael_de]

Who is people and why wouldn't they want to deal with him when they'll at least short term benefit from it?

All those supposed "people" are like your celebrities who promised to leave the country if Trump gets elected. Nobody left.

This is also a good example of a bad strategy from a game theoretic perspective.

They want X and threaten: if I don't get X then I'll do Y which is going to be bad for you and me. They don't get X and think: well, what's the point of sticking to my threat if I lost anyway. And that's a bluff. Trump would do X nonetheless and by that prove he's willing to suffer himself just to make you suffer as well. This is going to be remembered next time he makes a threat.

[herval]

Plenty of celebrities & other rich people left. Just because you didn’t read it on Fox News, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You can easily google and see.

Trump already backpedaled on his tariffs a handful of times. I agree his strategy is bad, from a game theoretical perspective. He’s eroding trust with partners for nothing at all. Just like he ran all his businesses.

[ttyprintk]

This is thoroughly studied. He’s grim trigger but fairly good at choosing close to optimal moves when we believe Trump’s Razor.

[raffael_de]

The trick is that he'll bring his competitors and even partners in a position where they are threatened with suffering at a level of X. Then he'll offer you a deal that makes you suffer Y with Y < X but also Y > 0.

[ttyprintk]

Yet playing a mixed strategy means that—-to maintain unpredictability—-these deals to avoid venal retribution are not always offered. I predict less than 30% of the time; almost all his Pareto-optimal deals are very obscure. The biggest example is USMCA, which he wrote and negotiated. Yet, today he says it was signed by a fool. “The dumbest explanation is usually the correct one.”