[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.