[ethbr1]

Because the EU tariffing Chinese exports will be one of the asks for an EU-US trade deal.

The ability of tariffed countries to sell their output elsewhere is understood by the people doing this.

A better way to look at this is the first salvo to economically re-partition the world into spheres of influence. (i.e. circa 1960s)

The principals have all written about how they see political-economic-military alliances as being inherently tied together.

So their intent is to make this a US-dollar-NATO choice, rather than any of those in isolation.

(Agree or disagree with their premise, feasibility, and/or morality, as one might)

[mindslight]

So the goal is to rely on NATO as allies right after they threatened individual members of NATO and generally telegraphed that the alliance shouldn't be relied upon?

Please, just stop steelmanning these actions as anything coherent that would possibly benefit the United States. In the best case, Trump is a demented has-been that only understands the world in terms of bullying. So sure, maybe the "plan" is to keep bullying Europe until they're joyfully professing that Trump's diapers smell just like roses and asking how high he'd like them to jump. But that just doesn't seem very in touch with reality.

[stevenwoo]

That Peter Navarro item resurfacing on news today (he is the chief advisor to Trump on tariffs) explains a lot. He made up at least one of the experts he quotes on trade in his non fiction books using an anagram of his own name. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771396016/white-house-adviser... If something looks entirely stupid one the surface, it is exactly what it looks like, there's no 4-D chess with any of these guys except exploiting inaction of Congress to do things it could, like revoke the law that gave Trump these wide powers to tariff given for the "war on terrorism".

[mindslight]

It takes two thirds of the Senate and two thirds of the House to pass legislation. It takes two thirds of the Senate and only one half of the House to impeach and convict. And deposing this anti-American fuck would carry much more weight internationally for starting to repair the damage done to our relationships with our allies. Just sayin'.

[stevenwoo]

For non Americans, a slight clarification, passing a bill to revoke would only requiring half, but to override the presidential veto would require a 2/3 vote.

[sudosysgen]

For the tarrifs specifically it wasn't the case as they were under an emergency powers bill which could be cancelled using a privileged resolution without veto, but that was until the Continuing Resolution which took away that safeguard.

[ethbr1]

You can be angry, or not.

You can be curious, or not.

But you shouldn't let the fact that you're angry force you to be incurious.

[mindslight]

Being tired has made me incurious.

But I'm not even that incurious. Rather I think the problem is that their claimed plans rhyme with reality, while being utterly preposterous upon deeper analysis. We need to avoid implying there might be any merit to them lest other people read our comments and, not having been as diligent to separate fantasy from reality, get sucked into the fictional universe where Trump is some master negotiator who is going to bring other countries to heel with pure drunk-uncle-on-the-recliner force of will. And if we do analyze their delusions to figure out what destructive thing they might do next, we should be using the same disclaimers as doctors at a mental hospital.

[ethbr1]

It doesn't matter if you think their plans will work and/or are a terrible idea. I don't waste words on the latter, because I assume stringing together insults on the internet isn't going to change anyone's mind.

Instead and more interestingly:

- Do you think they'll have any outcomes?

- If so, what do you think those outcomes will be?

Hint: there's plenty of academic literature on the topic

[mindslight]

I don't think there needs to be this hard distinction between saying a given thing won't work, and proposing specifically what I think will happen instead. On this topic I generally avoid saying what I think the overarching dynamics are, because being specific generally gets written off as a crazy-sounding straw man.

My initial point is that you answered someone's "why EU would tariff China just because they need export" with saying that the US would "ask" the EU to do this - implying that the EU would want to cooperate or is otherwise beholden to the US. That's thinking from within the fictional universe, which is what I called out.

Since you asked, what specifically I think will actually happen is that Trump will continue to alienate our allies, keeping them at the realization they have to go their own way rather than being able to rely on our military backstopping them. To the extent there is leverage Trump can force Europe to put tariffs on China, Europe will only do that as much and as long is required to decrease that leverage. About the only saving grace here is that the EU isn't the type of place that will agree to something de jure and then de facto allow those rules to be skirted.

I think a different administration that was open and friendly to Europe and other allies, reassured our commitment to NATO, increased support for Ukraine rather than turning tail, etc, might have been able to make the case for coordinated international action being necessary to maintain the military advantage enjoyed by the US and its allies. But a savvy administration wouldn't have started with the ham-fisted unilateral blanket tariffs either.

[ashoeafoot]

So you want a tradeblock of democratic countries? Like NATOASEA? Could have had that but you sabotaged both ?

[spwa4]

You forget what has already happened. Canada has escalated the trade war ... that cannot be explained by your reasoning. And the flaw is this: yes, Canada cannot seriously hope to defend against Russia without the US, and needs a US alliance, but they also see the US has no choice but to defend any Russian attack. Either that, or face Russian nukes in Ottawa. So, Canada escalates.

Plus, I get that it makes sense for you to think about it this way. But given the choice to get fucked militarily BUT get a few more euros now, I guarantee every EU government will choose to get fucked militarily. 95% of the EU countries only have to "sacrifice" in that OTHER countries get fucked militarily, so it's not a hard choice.

And that is before you factor in that Russia is not in any shape to attack any European nation of importance right now, not even Poland. In other words: the politicians choosing to act on the military problem or choose a quick buck ... will be out of office by the time their military decision matters!

And, lastly, I put forward the history of the UN. The great forum for international cooperation and making compromises in shared interests. The first 3 things the UN was going to solve with this cooperation-not-obstinate-refusal-to-accept-reality was the "Arab Issue" (now better known as Israel-Palestine), Kashmir (which under UN guidance has lead to such "successes" as the Partition wars, which when combined made more victims than WW2 according to some sources), and the Congo-Rwanda issue (which has raged on, with no-one actually caring after colonialism ended, and is now at risk of turning into a pan-African war involving every country from Morocco to South Africa). I'm glad they got all those issues solved to everyone's satisfaction before they were going to try forcing the US, EU and ... to cooperate because otherwise absolutely no-one would believe they have any chance whatsoever.

Besides: your hope that foreign governments will act in the interests of "the citizens of the world" (when the vast majority won't even act in the interest of their own citizens) ... what exactly is that idea based on? 12% of the world are free democracies and mostly do that. What about the rest?

[ethbr1]

That is a lot of response to a pretty tightly framed comment.

Especially considering most of the consequential decisions and impacts will play out over the next 6+ months.

Maybe people/governments will act one way; maybe another.

[skinnymuch]

Classic western mindset. Western liberal democracies aren’t real/free democracies.

[ashoeafoot]

If Russia fakes it and cannot make it, nobody can. Ignore the stark difference in behaviour before trump and after trump, because if trump is pure real politics then the before had to be idealistic and well meaning.

You are monsters and the world knows. The thing from the swamp, that is your civilization . A gross, locust like beast, glueing stolen gold and shiny things to its great conquests. Needing war, because western advanced tech saved you from china and the others taking all back. Delenda Moscovia!

[spwa4]

It was the Soviets, Russia, that needed war so much they fed the whole world weapons. Russia still does that. The west simply gave some people better weapons to defend themselves.