[cinbun8]

From an outsider’s perspective, it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists. One day it’s a 145% tariff on China. The next, it’s “Well, it’s still 145%, but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit.” Then comes a 90-day pause, adding to the confusion.

It’s not clear whether Jamieson Greer is actually steering this, or if any of it was thoroughly thought through.

[jonplackett]

This is the only explanation that has made sense to me so far. And it makes even more sense based on these exemptions.

https://www.instagram.com/share/_jW_V1hwM

This is Senator Chris Murphy explaining it’s not economic policy, it’s an attempt to blackmail corporations into submission by making a deal with him in return for sanctions relief.

Keep an eye out for what Apple and nvidia might have agreed to give.

[loudmax]

The term for this is extortion.

The last time tariffs were this high, it led to rampant corruption as companies would pay off customs officers. This was one of the reasons for switching to an income tax. For the current administration this possibility counts as a major opportunity to generate personal wealth.

But this isn't the only reason for the policy. For someone who is at heart a coward, bullying and brandishing raw power over others is its own reward. That reason enough for the policy, and damn the consequences for the nation.

[vishnugupta]

I guess for a change Americans will experience what Indians have been subjected to since forever.

Just about anything useful and high quality has been tariffed out of existence in India. It is done in the name of protecting our industry while they catch up with rest of the world.

Exactly backwards has happened. The cars we get here are so bad they are sometimes called tin cans on wheels. Without competitors from across the world Indian auto makers have absolutely no motivation to build world class cars. And it shows on the road.

[intended]

Heck yea.

I expect lower tariffs in India to cause harm while also forcing economic activity.

[IOT_Apprentice]

What about Tata Motors? They own jaguar & Range Rover as well? They have zero good cars? Perhaps Chinese EV will enter into India.

[vishnugupta]

Tata Motors have really good cars. But they suck big time at Quality Control and after sales service.

Yes they do own Jaguar and Range Rovers but it’s not meant for the Indian market. They do sell them here but not many takers.

[toss1]

There is also a reason tariffs only get raised on a multi-generational time scale, e.g., 1820s, 1890s, 1930s, 2020s.

The effects are so bad that nearly everyone who remembers the disaster must have died off for anyone to think it is a good idea.

At this point, it is obvious that there is no geo-political or geo-strategic plan of any type. The administration is just winging it, and Sen Murphy's explanation is the only one available.

It was also noted that the person occupying the president's chair said "they must be forced to negotiate". When someone is forced to negotiate, that is not a negotiation, that is extortion. Welcome to another nation run like a mob office.

[malcolmgreaves]

You are 100% spot on in this analysis. Thank you for summarizing it so well.

[unclebucknasty]

It's exactly what it is. And, the seemingly haphazard, unpredictable nature of it is a feature, serving as perfect cover:

"Why these exemptions?"

"Who knows? None of it makes sense."

But, of course, it does.

It's also consistent with other, publicly-wielded cudgels, like the law-firm extortions under threat of executive orders.

[sitkack]

People should be more alarmed of these law firms, they will be used as his private army.

[belter]

People should be more alarmed, the bar does not expel the lawyers at those firms from the profession. They must be breaking every misconduct rule.

"The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession" - https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2...

Rule 8.4: Misconduct: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...

[rotexo]

I think his private armies are going to be his private armies. Think Wagner group, to be deployed domestically and in central/South America.

[freeone3000]

As opposed to his public army, which he actually does control as President of the United States. I’m alarmed of that.

[fundad]

I’m sure the richest corporations are rushing to retain these firms in an attempt to be on the winning side.

[FabHK]

"Nice smartphone business you have here..."

[AnthonyMouse]

> This is Senator Chris Murphy explaining it’s not economic policy, it’s an attempt to blackmail corporations into submission by making a deal with him in return for sanctions relief.

Weirdly the same explanation works if you're being less uncharitable, i.e. Apple agreed to invest $500B in the US but everybody knows new factories aren't going to be built overnight, so they get a reprieve from the tariffs for now provided they continue to go through with the investment. Which in turn makes them immune from future tariffs once they're actually making iPhones in the US, while allowing the tariffs to be reinstituted against anyone who didn't do likewise.

[bruce511]

Apple can agree to invest 500B to build a factory, but they don't have to actually do it.

Building a factory takes years, and a big chunk of that happens long before you actually start work on site.

You gotta find a site, work with local govt to negotiate servicing, environmental report (there's a couple years, and potentially a couple go-arounds right there.)

So there can be lots of activity, lots of progress reports, lots of optimism, for a decade or more before any real money has to be spent.

Ultimately Apple et al can "agree" to anything, the president can have his "big win" and things can carry on just as before.

[IOT_Apprentice]

More likely they bought Trump’s crypto coin to increase Trump’s wealth.

[Braxton1980]

Why did he implement the tariffs in the first place?

The $500b was announced more than a month ago

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more...

[xnx]

> Why did he implement the tariffs in the first place

It's easy to forget that for a day or two they said it was because of fentanyl.

[chipsrafferty]

Isn't most fentanyl made in the US?

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

He's been talking about tariffs since before the election, so they likely were anticipating it.

[Braxton1980]

My comment is a reply to the parent implying he paused the tariffs due to Apple's investment

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

> Weirdly the same explanation works if you're being less uncharitable

Annoyingly, "assume the worst about people, especially those on the opposite side of the political spectrum" seems to be the norm these days.

[freejazz]

Well if Trump wants it to not seem back-handed to create a scheme to force companies to come to him to negotiate, he should be open about it then

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

I wasn't talking about Trump specifically, or even conservatives.

Everyone on both sides automatically thinks the worst about everyone on the other side these days, usually just to score some internet points.

It's a terrible way to go through life. We should show a little grace sometimes.

[jonplackett]

Just a good time to remember that the same guy who thinks tariffs are a good idea is the guy who stood at a podium during Covid next to the world’s leading expert and suggested injecting bleach into Covid patients was a good idea.

And was caught on mic saying he likes to grope women.

I would not say anyone is ‘automatically’ questioning Trump’s character or intelligence.

There is plenty of evidence he has neither.

[actualwitch]

This dumb bothsiderism take is exactly the reason for the shitstorm hitting US right now. People really need to stop sane washing everything he says and try to actually have an objective glance at him and take him for who he is: a con man. He made a majority of conservatives as goddamn fools, voting against their own best interests because he said he'll punish the right people. Spoiler alert: he instead concentrated power in his own hands, dismantled research and social nets and is well on his way to wrecking middle class and the rights of the workers. Until this simple fact is acknowledged, every Trump voter is complicit in making this happen.

[bigfatkitten]

It's not like they're building an iPhone factory, anyway.

The $500b investment is going towards a bunch of things, including a factory to build servers for their AI services.

[EliRivers]

provided they continue to go through with the investment

I recall the Foxconn Wisconsin situation, and I have no doubt Apple et al are well aware of it. String out a pretense of building factories in the US for the next three and a half years? Easy peasy. President Trump will soon get bored of this game anyway and move on to the next one; he already looks like he's bored of it and it didn't bring him universal acclaim and admiration.

[scarface_74]

Apple will not be making iPhones in the US. Labor costs would be too high, the supply chain for the raw materials and the parts is non existent, etc.

It’s a sop to Trump just like when Cook did the dog and pony show and bragged about making the 10 Mac Pros that they ship in a year in the US.

[zzzeek]

co-sign, it's the King's Tax (as Murphy had explained in a different video I watched of his). it's that simple. also it was a giant elephant to make everyone forget that they just exposed an entire military action over Signal in a completely illegal and extremely incompetent way.

[jonplackett]

I’m British so not that knowledgeable about us politics beyond the big players.

How well known is Murphy? I’d never heard of him until I saw this video but he seems very impressive and much more electable than Biden or harris.

[anigbrowl]

About as well known as a politically active Lord would be in the UK. The general public probably doesn't recognize his name, anyone interested in politics does.

[ImJamal]

Murphy isn't well known.

[alabastervlog]

He's getting more well known pretty fast, over all this. His explainer videos of what's going on and why it's so dangerous are often kinda boring and basic if you're a politics nerd–but that's great, because we don't need to be told, it's the folks who aren't politics nerds who need to be educated on this stuff.

[ImJamal]

This happens in politics all the time. In a couple weeks nobody remembers the politican or anything they said or did.

[zzzeek]

he's a US Senator. Senators are very important here

[jonplackett]

Yeah I get that he’s a senator! I mean how much in the public eye is he. Would a random person know who he is?

We have hundreds of Members of Parliament here in the UK, but probably only 10 that most people could name.

I wondered how big his public profile is.

[jraines]

Most Senators are not well known nationally (sadly) unless they’ve either:

- done a non-negligible Presidential campaign

- been born from a famous family

- the press either love them or love to hate them

- have a leadership position and/or are conspicuously ancient

Relentless self-promotors are a superset of 3, the ones who succeed

Unfortunately being sensible, cooperative, or good with policy isn’t on the list

It can occasionally work for state Governors

[poink]

I think Bernie Sanders is the only current senator I'd expect a random American to know. Murphy might make the top 5 highest profile senators but you wouldn't know him if you don't pay attention to politics at all.

[busyant]

> How well known is Murphy?

He's the senator from the state I live in, so I know him and think he's excellent.

> much more electable than Biden or harris.

He represents a northeast blue state. It's difficult for those types of Democrats to carry non-coastal states in a presidential election, no matter how good they may be.

I suspect Bill Clinton tacked rightward to carry some southern states in 1992 and 1996, which led to his election.

Christ, Al Gore (2000 election) couldn't even carry his home state of Tennessee, so you can see how difficult it is to elect a Democrat to the presidency.

John Kerry (Dem from a northeast blue state) got smoked by George Bush in 2004.

I'm still trying to understand how Obama won twice, but I think it boils down to the fact that he invigorated the African-American vote in some key southern states.

tldr: Chris Murphy is great--unfortunately, he's the kind of Democratic presidential candidate who'd probably lose outside of the coastal states.

* edit: I would have been 'happy' with either outcome in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. McCain and Romney are/were decent and serious people. In fact, Romney was roundly mocked by the Dems in 2012 for saying that Russia was the US's greatest external threat. In retrospect ...

[belter]

> Keep an eye out for what Apple and nvidia might have agreed to give.

Well we know Nvidia did give a million dollars already:

"A $1M-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago is how you get AI chips to China" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43652504

[prng2021]

I keep seeing these explanations of “4D chess”. It’s Donald Trump. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing when it comes to economic policies. Unless you believe he can see into the future of how other world leaders would react and consistently outsmart everyone else, there’s no 4D chess being played.

[rescripting]

This isn’t advanced negotiation tactics, it’s mafia style negotiation tactics, which are 100% in character. See the law firms now providing him with 100s of millions in pro bono work to avoid punitive executive orders.

[enaaem]

Imagine a mob trying to extort you while also stabbing himself and having a beef with the whole city at the same time.

[imbnwa]

Trump didn’t learn like he should’ve when he was under the thumb of Sammy the Bull

[spwa4]

They never mentioned if they are providing "him" - as in the US government, or "him" as in Donald Trump, 100s of millions in pro Bono work ...

[pseudalopex]

Articles said causes supported by Trump.

[netsharc]

I learned that "4D chess" just means, "I see the 3 dimensions, I can't explain what's happening, but I guess they can, because they have that extra dimension.".

At this point it's something like 100D chess, because 99 levels of "Why?" have been explained by "because they're morons" but the defenders keep believing there's an extra dimension...

[unclebucknasty]

No, it's not 4D chess, and neither is extorting companies with tariffs, extorting law firms with threats of executive orders, or hammering universities by withholding funds.

It's all blunt-force checkers that any simpleton with power can easily understand.

[derefr]

What about believing that he's a particularly-easily-manipulated patse (esp. when it comes to things he doesn't care about), and so this is someone else playing 4D chess through him?

For all the accusations of fascism, nobody seems to remember that a key feature of fascism is a corporate-cabal shadow government that legitimizes its activities/policies by puppeteering the "real" government to both execute and justify them.

[whatshisface]

That's what German industrialists were hoping to achieve through Hitler, but they didn't end up with anything like it.

[timeon]

Apart from what happened after war, some of them did as they got lot of slave labor during holocaust.

[Terr_]

Such as Elon Musk repeating the path and mistakes of Alfred Hugenberg.

[loudmax]

That was more or less the case during Trump's first administration. I think a lot of normie Republicans were hoping for a repeat of that. The ones that aren't in denial are being gravely disappointed.

[belter]

How can somebody even entertain the idea is able the hold the concept of Chess, much less 4D, while at the same time being aware he nominated Matt Gaetz for Attorney General...Let that sink in for a while...

"In 2020, Gaetz was accused of child sex trafficking and statutory rape. After an investigation, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) decided not to charge him. In December 2024, the House Ethics Committee released a report which found evidence that Gaetz paid for sex—including with a 17-year-old—and abused illegal drugs during his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives."

[goatlover]

What matters is loyalty. The chess being played is for full unitary executive power, essentially making Trump an autocrat. Everyone bends the knee to him, or is too powerless or afraid to oppose. Like what has happened with Putin in Russia.

[furyofantares]

The worse they are, the worse their other prospects are, and so the less power they have that wasn't granted by Donald Trump. It looks to me like this is about loyalty, which is about Donald Trump gaining more personal power.

[AnimalMuppet]

Classic supervillain mistake - hiring incompetent minions. Sure, they're loyal. But they don't work.

[hackernewds]

hard to attribute to competence what you can attribute to malice. just as law firms are being squeezed for $600 million of services through extortion, this is Mafia mentality as well where first something is held hostage and then negotiated for. given the parties involved, I would even assume that there is personal benefits staked in this, and lots of insider trading of course

[joak]

Completely agree no 4D chess here. Just a guy that wants to keep the attention on him, one day is kissing Russia's ass, the next day when "peace" is failing, it's tariffs, etc etc no strategy at all, just a show to stay on first page day after day.

[goatlover]

It's more than that. What you say is true about his character, but there is also a playbook to keep power. The autocrats copy one another. And he has people like Steven Bannon who are strategizing how he can serve a third term.

[fundad]

Yeah he’s obviously in no state to decide on policy. We don’t know who is running things but it’s not him, a number of factions moving the direction a little bit in their favor whenever they get the opportunity. And of course there is massive insider trading going on too.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

Genuinely curious what your take is on Biden's competency during his presidency.

[watwut]

Waay better.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

Interesting. Even with Biden seemingly confused on stage so often and slurring his words?

I'll have to look closer at Trump's public appearances.

[fundad]

My take is Biden sounds old. The sitting president sounds brain-damaged and unquestionably is in no condition to be making such impactful decisions. The wavering we see right now is because the different factions making the decisions are struggling against each other.

[aswanson]

Occams razor. It's Donald Trump, I've known he was a joke since the late 80s. In middle school. Baffling to see millions of people think reality TV is real and give him nuke codes.

[lttlrck]

I knew he was a joke in the lates eighties at middle school - in the UK. Baffling indeed. I am US citizen now - equally baffling on some days...

[stevenwoo]

It's infuriating to rational thought but watching videos of Trump supporters talking about why they support Trump in spite of him hurting them makes it clear where his support comes from - it's a rainbow coalition of the discontented. Obviously the editors will pick the most provocative videos/sound bites but it's a pretty consistent picture.

[1659447091]

> It’s Donald Trump. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing

He knows exactly what he is doing[0], and the rest is designed to distract voters from noticing

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661680

[0] https://www.dataandpolitics.net/70-million-in-60-seconds-how...

[jonplackett]

Exactly but this is NOT economic policy

[lo_zamoyski]

Trump is determined to be remembered by history for his bold moves and "greatness". There is no 4D chess here. There is no such thing as 4D chess.

At best, he's using these tariffs as a temporary means to exert pressure and watching how others respond to them, almost like acting like the crazy man with a gun to make people a little more willing to negotiate terms more favorable for the gunman. At least as a matter of intent, anyway. The actual effect is another matter.

[jpster]

What I don’t understand is why Scott Bessent is going along with these harebrained schemes. He supposedly was the big brain genius who devised the trading scheme that George Soros used to break the pound. Surely he anticipated the outcome of Trump’s plan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

[spaceman_2020]

If I was charitable to Trump, I would think that he genuinely wants to move manufacturing back to the US, and is likely being supported by the military faction of the government. There is a decent chance of a hot war with China in the future, and you really can’t win wars if you can’t build stuff at home quickly. As things currently stand, China can vastly out produce America in the event of a war

[jliptzin]

A war with China would be over in about 15 min with both sides utterly destroyed

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Tracking-free link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIALTQjMKma

[emsign]

Instead of coming to Trump for pledges of political loyalty those companies should instead come to Europe to be able to make business again freely.

[tirant]

I wouldn’t count Europe as a reference of a free market at all. Regulations and bureaucracy are rampant.

[alextingle]

A free market requires regulations in order to operate. Regulations require a bureaucracy in order to be effective.

[wahern]

> Regulations require a bureaucracy in order to be effective.

That's a very European point of view (though not uniquely European, it's also shared across many other cultures, e.g. in East Asia). The US has done pretty well with private rights of action. In fact, because our culture is so conservative and anti-authoritarian, centralized bureaucracies are rather quickly defanged or grossly underfunded. The most recent example is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more quietly the FTC. Democrats would have done much better to roll back judicial expansion of the Federal Arbitration Act and devolve "regulation" back to states and private class actions, rather than to create the CFPB and elsewhere double-down on anemic, extremely inconsistent, and often highly partisan agency regulators.

Where private rights of action tend to fail is when they concern inchoate or non-individualized harms, like you often see in environmental protection law. Then what you get is complete paralysis, such as with real estate development; largely because its the process, not the end-state determination of rights, that private actors weaponize. But when they're firmly anchored to property rights, personal injury or loss (including fraud), etc, they seem to do as well as centralized regulation. And in the US, they arguably do better, because of our political dynamics.

[watwut]

USA is not anti authoritarian. It is pro-authoritarian and consistently so.

Conservatives are dismantling environmental protection, but it has nothing tondo with freedom or being anto authoritarian. They just dont care about consequences as long as their donors can earn more money in the short term.

Yet also, US seems to be crumbling and rhe source of instability. They may succeed in exporting their dysfunction to Europe, but it did not happened yet.

[fakedang]

> That's a very European point of view (though not uniquely European, it's also shared across many other cultures, e.g. in East Asia).

No, that's a very Smithian Economics point of view, an economic philosophy which underpinned most of American capitalism's history.

[inglor_cz]

True, but everything should be done in moderation. We could definitely do without ESG mandates and such, and even the European Commission has publicly recognized the need to debloat the European Union a bit.

[scarface_74]

If you don’t want to deal with a capricious regulatory environment, Europe is not the place you want to go.

[tonyarkles]

> Europe to be able to make business again freely.

I mean… Europe isn’t particularly well-known for being particularly business friendly. There’s a lot of good there for sure but there’s also a lot of barriers. And I say this as a Canadian who is also disappointed by the overall business environment at home.

[GenerocUsername]

These companies could choose to invest in the US instead and not have to worry about any of this.

Tariffs are only usable as extortion if the companies have outsourced the manufacturing that gutted our middle-class.

Externalizing variables comes with risk. This risk should be factored into planning in the future. Just because a politician in the 90s promised cheap labor through globalization, a president 30 years later can flip the script

[bruce511]

I'm not downvoting you, because I think you make an argument that many would make.

"Tariffs apply to imports, so produce locally instead".

The argument unfortunately has 2 flaws;

A) local production is expensive (which is why manufacturers fled decades ago.) If it is reintroduced here those goods remain expensive.

B) most things are not made in one place. Steel comes from here, electronics from there, energy from somewhere else, and so on. Even farmers use imported fertilizer, machinery and so on. Since the Tariffs are on "everything" (not just finished goods) they drive up the cost of local manufacturing even more.

A long-term strategy to increase local production makes sense. But it has to be done in a targeted way so as not to harm everything else. Typically it starts with finished goods, then slowly working down the food chain to improve the supply of parts making up those goods.

Exemptions on finished goods (like electronics) kills any gain. He might have, for example, exempted electronic parts. Which would then incentivize assembly to be local. Once you have local assembly you could look at say packaging, and so on.

The approach taken though doesn't lead to the outcomes being touted. Tariffs at country level are dumb. Excempting finished goods is dumb. Tariffs on things that can't be made locally (like coffee) is dumb.

That's before we talk about stability and certainty. For Tariffs to work you need both, and neither are in play here.

[proggy]

What’s interesting to me is that in this horribly corrupt state of affairs we find ourselves in, there are thousands upon thousands of smaller businesses that are not able to seek redress the way a megacorp like Apple or Nvidia can. Your run-of-the-mill office furniture importer doesn’t have the same ability to book up a dinner and pay the requisite multi-million dollar lobbying fee as a Silicon Valley magnate. In the before times, these folks would form interest groups and lobby Congress as a unified front, but at the moment it seems as though that doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t take imagination to see a highly noncompetitive, post-capitalist future where only the goods from megacorps are exempted, and the goods from medium sized businesses are taxed to oblivion, destroying any semblance of free markets.

[dataviz1000]

Mid-cap stocks peaked two days after the election and have been free falling every since. [0]

[0]https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/IWM/

[scarface_74]

Most of small businesses supported Trump.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/small-business-owners-voted...

They are getting exactly what they voted for. I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for anyone who is being hurt by Trump who voted for him.

[standardUser]

If this is an attempt at blackmail it appears to be failing. It's only been a few days and Trump has already unilaterally capitulated on several major positions. Unless he's blackmailing himself, the 'plan' is backfiring.

[belter]

"Trump to investors: My policies will never change" - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-investors-my-policies...

[zzzeek]

You don't know what capitulations are happening behind the scenes

[standardUser]

No, so far we only see the very public capitulations coming from the Trump administration. We're also seeing a lot of signaling, also very public, from every other major economy that they are prepared to move on without the US.

[pfannkuchen]

If we translate this into negotiating at a used car dealership, I don’t think it would look that different. Of course everyone is going to project strength in public communications. Doing otherwise would put them in a worse negotiating position. You have to make your opponent think you’ll do something drastic, or else they won’t budge. So you have everyone yelling about how they’re doing something drastic. Just like the first salvos at a used car dealership - dealer sets a ridiculous price, buyer declares they are going to walk away.

By the way I don’t think this is 4D chess. More like basic classical international relations. It just looks more like the 1800s than the 2020s, which makes people confused. It doesn’t take any particular cleverness to enact basic negotiating strategies. It just takes a lack of caring about collateral damage.

[timeon]

> more like the 1800s than the 2020s

No need to go that far. 1970s would suffice.

[riffraff]

Given Trump's persona would you expect him to be hush hush about capitulations to him?

I would expect him to post "Tim Apple came to kiss my ass great guy I will allow him to make great computers in America!"

[Terr_]

Some of it maybe straight up bribes, aided by Trump's crypto-stuff.

What worries me more is a promise of cooperation helping Trump identify people to put into concentration camps.

[csomar]

There could have been deals/agreements behind the scenes. This is not a republican "first". The democrats did the same to get Facebook and other social media to censor news. Trump is literally playing their book but with his style.

[toss1]

Anyone who can not see the obvious difference in substance, intent, scope, and scale is either willfully ignorant or seriously lacking in reading comprehension and reasoning skills.

Requesting curbs on rampant disinformation is not even close to the same thing as crashing the economy to extort our closest allies and major business and industry players.

Yikes

[qmr]

Censorship is censorship.

Who are you to decide what is or isn't disinformation?

Who is anyone?

I prefer to do my own critical thinking.

It is also well documented that Meta's rampant censorship extends far beyond "disinformation".

https://web.archive.org/web/20250411170102/https://www.drops...

[redczar]

Who are you to decide what is or isn't disinformation?

You can ask this question about any belief or position on a topic. We each decide for ourselves the answer and society decides this through its elected leaders and the judiciary. All societies regulate speech.

[toss1]

A request to not amplify disinformation is NOT censorship. A threat of legal or military action is.

Of course there are edge cases, but blatant and hard-debunked falsehoods such as "The earth is flat", "Contrails are chemical spraying", Russia did not attack Ukraine", "Vaccines cause autism", "Auschwitz and Dachau were not concentration camps where people were killed" are all disinformation, and they are disseminated for the very specific purpose of undermining trust and the capability of western societies to survive, for the purpose of implementing authoritarianism.

If you evidently expect a society to unilaterally disarm and do nothing, you are part of the problem.

[pcthrowaway]

I think it's good to consider what the implications are if Hanlon's razor fails... but I'm not giving up hope that this is all just a result of the incompetence of Trump and his administration either.

[grues-dinner]

Hanlon's Razor is worse than useless if the target is aware of the principle. Then they can be malicious and play it off as incompetence. Which works especially well when they are also surrounded by genuine incompetents. They can also be, and often are, malicious and incompetent.

It's like saying "if it's white, fluffy and has four legs, never assume it is anything but a sheep". If the wolf knows you're applying that logic, what happens next?

[Qwertious]

Hanlon's razor is a great counterbalance to peoples' natural inclination of assuming people aren't dumb. The problem is when people divorce it from that context and assume it applies in general.

[vFunct]

Which didn't really work since what exactly are US tech companies giving Trump in exchange for eliminating tariffs?

And are only large corporations expected to play? I import shopping bags from Chinese manufacturers from my store, like millions of other small businesses do. What exactly are we supposed to offer Trump?

[blitzar]

Buy a meal at Mar-A-Lago, $5mil a plate.

[mindslight]

The second worst part is the actual food on the plate is just a dumped out bag from McDonalds.

[alabastervlog]

> And are only large corporations expected to play? I import shopping bags from Chinese manufacturers from my store, like millions of other small businesses do. What exactly are we supposed to offer Trump?

You'll eventually be buying them, for more than you pay now but less than the imported price, from a large US company that bribed whoever Dear Leader is at the time, for exemptions.

[mcmcmc]

Bribes

[vel0city]

Bribes. Obvious bribes. Over and over. How many millions do you spend on your Mar-a-Lago memberships? How many nights do you pay for empty rooms in Trump hotels?

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

[throw310822]

Sorry, but what would have been the consequences of the tariffs on Chinese imports? Do you imagine American citizens having to pay twice or more for an iPhone (or not getting one at all) because of Trump? Not being able to afford a new laptop, because of Trump? Not being able to buy all the cheap consumer electronics, because of Trump? The "blackmail" (except it's simply the consequences of his own actions) goes two ways here- see also the TikTok debacle: or how to explain to hundreds of millions of enraged Americans that they cannot use their favourite social network because of Trump.

[forinti]

I think the most probable outcome is that Trump causes enough trouble to incite the whole country against him.

I don't see him completing his term. He's going to be impeached.

[baby_souffle]

If he's impeached, it will be after midterms change the composition of the house. He will be acquitted in the Senate though

[YZF]

It's theoretically possible that the Republicans will also want him removed from office. Right now it feels unlikely. If he had kept the random crazy tariffs high and that resulted in some financial disaster that was more likely. But he changed his mind and the markets seem to be recovering (so much for we lost trust and it'll never be the same again).

[gscott]

The rich have always blamed others for the growing wealth gap.

Americans often point to outside forces instead of holding the government accountable.

Years of messaging have trained people to support tariffs, spending cuts, and even anti-immigrant policies—despite the need for labor.

The real issue isn't spending, it's taxation. And we've let China ignore WTO rules for too long. Trump should've targeted tariffs at China alone—but he is the president, not me.

[pbhjpbhj]

Specifically, what WTO rules are your saying China has ignored?

[gscott]

I am just going to go with Google AI on that one

China's WTO compliance record is often criticized for several reasons, including violations of market orientation principles, state-led industrial planning, excessive subsidies, and non-transparency regarding subsidies. Furthermore, China's policies on forced technology transfers, intellectual property protection, and governmental procurement have also faced scrutiny. Here's a more detailed look at the specific WTO rules China has been criticized for ignoring:

Market Orientation and State-Led Industrial Policies: China's approach to economic development, characterized by state-led industrial planning, is seen as inconsistent with the WTO's principles of market orientation and non-discrimination.

Subsidies and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs): China's extensive use of subsidies for domestic industries, including SOEs, and its failure to make timely and transparent notifications of these subsidies, are major points of contention.

Forced Technology Transfers and Joint Venture Requirements: China has been criticized for requiring foreign companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms as a condition for market access, which violates WTO principles of fair trade and market competition.

Intellectual Property Protection: China's record on protecting foreign intellectual property rights, including trade secrets, has been a long-standing issue, with concerns about theft and lack of enforcement.

Discriminatory Trade Practices: China's policies on governmental procurement, discriminatory standards for technology, and restrictions on market access in services sectors have been criticized for hindering fair competition and market access for foreign companies.

Failure to Reciprocally Open Government Procurement: China has been criticized for not fully reciprocating the government procurement concessions it pledged as part of its WTO accession agreement. Retaliatory Use of Trade Remedies:

China's use of trade remedies, such as anti-dumping and safeguard measures, has sometimes been seen as retaliatory and inconsistent with WTO princip

(They were also supposed to let Visa and Mastercard in)

Also Capital Controls are a big one. You can't get your money out and I have read several times people are forced to spend more money in China to get part of their money out.

More Google AI

China maintains strict capital controls, limiting the flow of money in and out of the country. These controls affect both individuals and companies, with restrictions on repatriating profits and capital. While there are annual limits for individuals, businesses also face specific procedures and conditions before they can repatriate profits, according to INS Global Consulting. Elaboration: For Individuals:

    Annual Limits:
    Chinese residents have an annual limit of $50,000 USD equivalent for transferring money out of the country, says Wise. 

Currency Exchange: RMB cannot be transferred directly; it must be converted to foreign currency, notes INS Global Consulting. Work Permit: Individuals must have a work permit and be employed in China to be eligible for repatriation, according to INS Global Consulting. Required Documents: Applications for repatriation require documents like passports, employment contracts, and tax bills, says INS Global Consulting. Exchanges and Fees: Individuals can use banks or exchange agencies (like Western Union and MoneyGram), but fees will vary, says INS Global Consulting.

For Companies (FIEs - Foreign Invested Enterprises):

    Capital Account Regulations:
    China's "closed" capital account means companies must comply with strict rules when moving money in or out, according to CNN. 

Profits Repatriation: Companies can only repatriate profits after specific conditions are met, including tax compliance and a company's annual audit. Surplus Reserve Fund: Companies must allocate a portion of their after-tax profits to a mandatory surplus reserve fund, which can impact the amount available for repatriation, notes China Briefing. Withholding Tax: Dividends repatriated to foreign investors are subject to a 10% withholding tax, says China Briefing. State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE): The SAFE regulates capital account transactions and requires foreign investors to open separate accounts for current and capital accounts, notes China Briefing. New Controls: Increased government oversight and security measures have been introduced to scrutinize outbound investments, according to China Briefing.

In Summary: China's capital controls are a complex system that limits both individual and corporate capital movements. While there are some recent efforts to relax controls, they remain a significant factor for businesses and individuals operating in China, requiring careful planning and compliance with regulations before any money can be moved out of the country.

https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/chinas-use-unoff...

[asimpletune]

Targeted tariffs don’t have an effect because products are reimported from china via other countries like Mexico.

[stevage]

He was impeached twice already with zero impact. No one is forcing him to leave office.

[scarface_74]

About 30-40% of the country will stand behind the cult of Trump no matter what he does. With that power, almost every single Republican politician is afraid of getting primaried. Trump has already been impeached twice and it went nowhere.

[pbhjpbhj]

It's crazy that the election hinged on such small proportions of the population, that the result for Trump was prison or wealth (through further lawlessness) and the result for USA was a chance for middle-of-the-road socialism vs a rapid descent into being a fascist regime.

Crazy knife edge.

[InitialLastName]

You're kidding yourself (or you've been misled) if you think there was a chance of anything approaching socialism from a Harris administration. Even granting the benefit of the doubt that "middle-of-the-road socialism" was what she meant by "opportunity economy", there still stands the fact that construction is complex, and takes coordination between interests at scale where destruction is simple and can be done (apparently) unilaterally.

Per Churchill, “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.” .

[scarface_74]

So exactly what “socialist” policies would you have gotten under Kamala?

[gbil]

This assumes that he has more power than the tech companies on the everyday life and I wonder if that is really the case. As I'm not located in the states, I'm very much interested to hear from a US resident if that is really the case.

[dtquad]

>This assumes that he has more power than the tech companies

lol

Even the San Francisco city council is bullying American tech companies and tech executives.

The power of US tech companies is vastly overstated.

[bluedevilzn]

The biggest mistake tech companies have done over the past 2 decades is not spending enough money lobbying. Every other industry manages to stay under the radar by continuing to pay both sides. Tech industry never got involved in politics so they were easy targets for politicians on minor issues.

[CharlesW]

> The biggest mistake tech companies have done over the past 2 decades is not spending enough money lobbying.

What does "enough" look like?

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/Ldiwf/

[csomar]

I mean given that they are in tech, the biggest mistake was being located in a city or state. I can understand that they have to deal with the US government (any company anywhere in the world have to deal with it) but they don't have to deal with San Francisco/California. They choose that position and they don't deserve sympathy for being passive about it.

[JustExAWS]

A tech company can’t shoot me with impunity under “qualified immunity”. Put me in jail, harass me because I don’t look like a belong in my own neighborhood, take my property under civil forfeiture without a trial…

[disqard]

You're right about these most serious adverse outcomes, but don't forget what could happen if you (say) randomly get your Big Tech account locked/suspended/banned for some reason that was ultimately erroneously flagged by an AI, and then cheerfully executed at scale.

The examples you provided are more fundamental and I won't trivialize them, but making you lose your "keys to your own digital space" is a very real power they have over you.

[JustExAWS]

Okay? I lose my Google account and lose my Google Photos, they are also backed up to iCloud and One Drive and vice versa. All the music I bought back in the day from iTunes is DRM free and has been since 2009.

I lose my Amazon account, so what?

[hedora]

They can permanently ban you from the economy though.

[JustExAWS]

There is no company that would ruin me if I lost an account.

[pseudalopex]

> This assumes that he has more power than the tech companies on the everyday life

How?

[gbil]

From the perspective of a citizen’s everyday life who sees that their life is getting more expensive and consumes information from a curated essentially list - eg. Instagram, fb etc - from the operator of that platform. I don’t think that the average person in the states - like in my European country - watches tv or buys a newspaper. In this context is the PR and hence effect from the government more than that of the tech companies ?

[TheSwordsman]

As an American, I regret to inform you that you're trying to use logic to understand a situation where it seems like logic wasn't used (in terms of the economic impact). These are the same fuckwits that tried to claim a trade deficit is the same as a tariff.

[dkrich]

There is no plan. Talk tough, reverse under pressure, rinse repeat. Anyone surprised must not have watched season one which aired in 2019.

[steveBK123]

The "smart trumpers" I know have already staked out the entire range of possible outcomes:

1) He is completely restructuring global trade and decoupling us from China which is tough but necessary medicine because our biggest geopolitical adversary cannot be our largest trading partner

2) You can't believe half of what he says, he's all bluster, he's addicted to deals and will sign some fake deals to score a domestic win and we will resume status quo

Like yeah - sounds smart, but which is it?

[rat87]

2 ignores all the damage caused in the meanwhile

1 is wrong because if he wanted to decouple us from China he'd lower tarrifs on other countries especially close allies

[steveBK123]

Right so nothing he is doing is smart or makes sense, and the "smart" people who try to put intellectual scaffolding around his actions get repeatedly disproven by his subsequent actions...

[netsharc]

Thinking the status quo will return so easily is like Putin pulling out of Ukraine and saying "So we're back to 23rd January (Edit/Correction: February) 2022, right, friends?".

The trust in the US (dollar) hegemony has now been eroded, and will probably continue until a purge of the regime of idiots (not just the oust of one idiot...).

[steveBK123]

Well yes, either position was dismissibly stupid.

No president is going to ride out a self-imposed multi-year global trade reconfiguration triggering inflation, shortages and unemployment.

Nor is putting the genie back in the bottle possible now and so even if you return to status quo trade policy, you've now spooked the world re: reliability of US as partners, US dollar, US debt, etc.

Worst of both worlds really. Incredible self owns over and over.

[kowabungalow]

The goals are petty profit, some extortion, some illegal trading. Destroying 80% of the value of the US isn't meaningful if he gets to own a lot more of the remainder. Everything is profit for the broke real estate conman of 2015.

[Applejinx]

Neither. They're unwilling to concede he's run out of the Kremlin and the chaos and damage is the only purpose. The only reason he backs down on any of it is because he can't afford not to, so he's doing the usual brinksmanship, instructed by whoever's telling him to axe those obscure aviation safety committees (someone has detailed info), and probably hoping he can flee to Moscow at some point.

I don't think he'll be let off the hook, though. He's tasked to ruin us well below 'status quo', even for people diligently not paying attention.

[Terr_]

3) It's a plan for him to (unconstitutionally without Congress) create such enormous Import Taxes on the American people that they replace the eeeevilll federal Income Tax. This situation will magically persist indefinitely as people continue to buy and produce in the same pattern as before for no reason.

[hackingonempty]

He has a plan, it is called Project 2025. Trump appointed the authors of the Project 2025 plan and they are executing it. Here is the chapter on trade and tariffs, authored by Peter Navarro who is currently Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...

[BeFlatXIII]

If Trump is America's Napoleon III, who is the world's modern Otto von Bismark?

[crq-yml]

I'd nominate Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. As authoritarian "president for life" since 1986, he's demonstrated some savvy statecrafting amid Africa's resource wars and ethnic violence, making the country a point of stability and economic growth on the continent.

(Of course, he's got plenty of negatives on the record too. But I think in the game of "Great Man History", he's already left a big legacy.)

[vdupras]

I'm curious as to why you chose Napoleon III. The context under which he rose to power seem quite different from Trump's. America isn't in the middle of a 60-years long revolution/counter-revolution cycle. What are the similarities?

[BeFlatXIII]

Thin-skinned, seeks popular acclaim as a substitute for respect from the old money he despises, erratic and contradictory policy strategies.

[Spooky23]

Conservatives think so.

[mongol]

Hate to say it, but perhaps it is Putin. Not a perfect parallel but he seems to be playing Trump skillfully.

[yareally]

Probably Putin.

[theropost]

Million dollar "dinners' seem to help.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

[stefan_]

Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff

Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff

Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff

Truly this will bring back American manufacturing!

[tobias3]

The factories will be disassembling the laptops, taking out the batteries. Then the empty laptops will be sent back to China. That will increase exports to China as well.

[Spooky23]

That's another patronage angle. When the feds buy Lenovo laptops, they have to comply with TAA. So they ship the laptops to Texas, "materially transform" them, package and ship to the customer.

You can be sure some crony owns the company that screws the display and puts stickers on the laptop with minimum wage workers.

[pkulak]

The plan is to make every country and CEO grovel at the feet of the boss to be exempted from the tariffs. I’d say it’s corruption, but it’s more like a protection racket.

I wonder what these companies had to offer?

[rchaud]

It's far from the only place the policy is incoherent. They fired the top ranking officer at the US base in Greenland for having the temerity to tell their host nation "I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by Vice-President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/creq99l218do

[Terr_]

> the policy

The evidence is "incoherent" because the hypothesis is wrong. A policy for America isn't there.

In contrast, everything becomes exceptionally coherent if you instead ask what the policy is for Trump's personal goals: punishing disagreement, amassing wealth, rewarding apparatchiks, and always being in a room full of flattery.

[vFunct]

There is no planned strategy. Planning requires learning about entire systems, and Trump isn't smart enough to do that. He can only act on things placed before him. If he sees foreigners making money by selling into the US, he has to raise tariffs on it. There is no second order, third order, or any deeper level of understanding of what's going on. It's purely superficial action, on things Trumps eyes sees, not what his brain sees. There is no brain in there that can predict what would happen if tariffs were raised. He can only raise tariffs.

To be smart is to have systemic understanding, and Trump & the Republicans are incapable of that.

It's exactly what happened in his first term, when he got rid of the nation's pandemic preparedness because why would anyone ever need that, right?

[ArinaS]

> "assuming one even exists"

I actually doubt it does. Everyting is just too chaotic to be a strategy.

[FabHK]

Agreed. I think at this point we can discard the assumption of 4D chess.

(This is not to say that there aren't some Project 2025 plans in the background that parts of the administration are aiming to push through.)

[rpgbr]

The plan: What if we ran the richest, more powerful country on history as if it were a giant meme stock geared to benefit those in charge?

[throwaway48476]

Every company that wants an exemption has to pay. It's a personal tax system.

[jppope]

> it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists

Not sure why there is a presumption that one exists or that its coherent. With even the slightest critical eye its easy enough to discern that this isn't about economic policy or trade and that the proposed "policy" doesn't make any sense. The guy in charge of this stuff is either seeing what he can get away with, fucking with people, or building a narrative...

that is to say what you are watching isn't "real".

[raffraffraff]

It feels like we just hired a recent graduate, who is an egotistical know-nothing, to manage our databases. And he just decided to migrate all of the DBs to the cloud in the middle of the day without testing it, or checking any metrics. Now he wants to fail some of them back and thinks that should be "a cinch" but doesn't actually understand how anything works under the hood.

[jmull]

> assuming one even exists

Why would you assume that?

I don't know why people keep expecting Trump to be different than what he has consistently shown us for all these years. There's no subtle plan. There's no long-term plan. He's cranking the levers immediately available to him for the drama, as he has always done.

People around him may have ideas and plans. They can sometimes get him to agree to one of these, but it never lasts long.

[ToucanLoucan]

I mean, his rich friends made 340 billion in the stock market chaos. So I suspect there is at least a vague plan, but it has nothing to do with anyone but himself and those who support him getting richer. But that's the only plan I think Trump has ever had in his entire life, or will ever have.

Like he's just not that deep. He's an incredibly shallow, inexperienced, dim, incurious old man who has never worked a job in his life, never built anything, never did anything. He arrived on top and his greatest achievement in life was managing to not lose it, in a country where it is specifically very hard to do that.

And hearing his supporters talk about how strong he is is just objectively hilarious. Man looks like 4 steepish flights of stairs would kill him stone dead.

[badc0ffee]

I don't like him either, but it's not like accomplished nothing: https://www.cnbc.com/2010/11/09/Donald-Trumps-Best-and-Worst...

There are some failures in there but also some wins, like buying air rights for. Heap and making effective use of them.

[jmull]

You found a puff piece from 2010 to extoll Trump?

(It appears to be a promotional piece for a "CNBC Titans" episode featuring Trump.)

I try to assume good intent, which includes not writing off the odd things people post as bot-generated, but in this case, attributing this to a bot is quite a positive spin.

[badc0ffee]

Maybe it's a puff piece, but it contains examples of what he did with his life and businesses. You couldn't write an article like that after 2015 or so without it being influenced by his disaster of a political career.

My point is, he didn't just sit on daddy's money, he actually pulled off a couple of savvy moves. There are plenty of other things to criticize him for.

[latency-guy2]

> his disaster of a political career.

45th and 47th president of the USA as a disaster seems to be setting the bar unbelievably high for failure.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Why would you want an article on someone that excludes context from their most impactful and most visible decade? It's true that an author today, who knows about his 2024 conviction for fraudulently overstating the value of his properties, would bring a much more skeptical eye to claims about what a success they were. Did he seem to be making better deals in 2010 because he was better at it then, or because nobody was looking as closely at whether they were really good?

[TZubiri]

“Well, it’s still 145%, but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit.”

That's a massive misread. You are confusing the direction of influence between secondary public stock markets and federal executive orders.

The tariffs are supposed to strengthen self sufficiency, and discourage imports of stuff the US can do on their own.

Chip manufacturing, (which by the way is often only the manufacturing and not the design or IP of the chips), is an exception for whatever reason, may be labour costs, but it may also be that chips are a mineral heavy and diverse product, so it's one of the few products where autarky isn't feasible or very rewarding.

And there would be situations without exemptions where the US may have been incentivized to import the raw materials and rebuild megachip factories, of which there are only like a dozen in the world, creating a huge output inefficiency due to political reasons on two fronts.

Exceptions are reasonable.

[insaneirish]

> Exceptions are reasonable.

If there were an actual strategy, exceptions would have been clear from the start.

[ranger207]

It's vibe governing, just like any other populist government

[andreygrehov]

When it comes to global impact, can you even confidently say you're being strategic? It almost feels like staying tactical is the only viable strategy - there are simply too many variables. The chances are high that any strategy you come up with is doomed to fail.

[Glyptodon]

I'd say it's clear that none of it was thoroughly thought through at the least.

[jayd16]

I think its crystal clear there is no actual plan.

[ineedaj0b]

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

[riffraff]

Did you link this implying "this is the plan?"

Cause this talks of a gradual implementation of tariff to avoid scaring the markets, which is as far from what happened as it's possible.

[rchaud]

Much like Russia's overnight transition to a market economy in 1991, which opened the door to oligarch pillaging of national resources, 2 successive economic crises and a bond default, and 2 brutal wars in Chechnya.

Something tells me Trump's top economic advisers aren't based in the US, just as Yeltsin's strings weren't being pulled from Moscow.

[jayd16]

Many people in trump's circle might have one or more plans but that is not the same thing as trump having or there being "a plan."

[coliveira]

That's how corruption works in a banana republic. Good things for my friends, hell for everyone else. It is the furthest you can be from free trading capitalism that the US was preaching while it was good for them.

[reaperducer]

it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists

The strategy is to keep everyone unsure what might come next.

It's like in boxing. When you hit your opponent and leave them confused and uncertain what you might do next, you use that to your advantage and keep on hitting. It's how you "win."

As if there are any winners here.

[Flip-per]

He isn't really hitting an opponent though, he is mainly hitting the U.S.

[grey-area]

The US is what needs beaten into submission so he can rule over the ruins.

[rchaud]

If Trump has learned anything, it is that the US is a lot easier to bully than others. He is convicted of a felony, he talks down to his own voters, abandons his biggest promises (repealing ACA and building a wall) and they still let him lead the country!

[Qwertious]

>The strategy is to keep everyone unsure what might come next.

If the goal is to encourage investment into US manufacturing, then that's the exact opposite to the strategy he needs - investment requires stability and confidence that the N-year investment will eventually pay off. Nobody will invest due to tariffs if the tariffs might disappear tomorrow.

[lonelyasacloud]

His goal is to create confusion; to "flood the zone".

Him and his cronies know when that flood is coming and can profit from it.

It's only confusing if there is any expectation that he is working for the good of anyone else.

[ineedaj0b]

they thought it up and published a report back on it in nov 2024.

here's the plan, you can use it to advise your investments:

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

the media is garbage and they can't cover anything well enough to inform. but i bet clicks are up!

[tdb7893]

So firstly if this is the theoretical underpinning the White House should be messaging that instead of what they've been saying. Also I've read that report before (this and some other reports have been referenced in media I have listened to) and I wouldn't say they are following it closely, if this was their plan it's already gone well off the rails laid out here.

Edit: to be more specific it literally talks about the potential pitfalls of unilateral tariffs, suggests imposing them over time, etc. There's a lot of stuff in there the US did so but also a lot that they did not follow (and also there's just stuff that is outside the scope of this fairly short document). I think part of the reason the tariffs caught people so flat footed is even well informed people assumed this would be how they were implemented and got the rug pulled out from under them on "Liberation Day"

[csomar]

It makes sense if you understand how Trump became president. He'll test something (through a tweet) to his audience and then amplify or kill it based on the response. It worked great with 50% of the US population or so; it doesn't seem to be working at all with the Chinese political elite.

[rchaud]

Things like threatening Canada and Greenland's sovereignty, unilaterally tanking stock markets and levying huge tariffs on western trading partners are not popular with his voters.

What they want doesn't matter anymore, these moves are about splitting the western economic and military alliances, a goal Russia has had since the 1960s.

[davesque]

As a thoughtful person, you've got to learn to curb your instinct to make sense out of things like this. It's a waste of calories.

[foogazi]

> but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit

They already took a hit - which they monetized by both ways

[sagarpatil]

Feels like they are just winging it based on public response.

[joe_the_user]

To understand this, I think you have to neither overestimate or underestimate Trump and Musk.

Both Trump and Musk seem be to essentially ideologues, visionary tough-talkers, who have actually succeed (or appeared to succeed) to various endeavors through having underling who work to shape their bluffs into coherent plans. This works well for various as long as the delicate balance of competent handlers and loud-mouthed visionaries is maintained.

The problem is the process of Trump winning, losing and then winning again all him to craft an organization and legal framework to put forth he vision uncorrected, unbalanced and lacking all guardrails.

And that's where we are.

[Animats]

> It’s not clear whether Jamieson Greer is actually steering this, or if any of it was thoroughly thought through.

We know for sure that Greer isn't steering this. Greer was testifying before a congressional committee when Trump announced huge changes to tariffs on China. Greer hadn't even been told.

[_Algernon_]

If there is a strategy it is probably dominating the news cycle with this chaotic bullshit, while they navigate towards the real goal in the shadows.

[alabastervlog]

It's not in the shadows, they're breaking everything that can oppose them to try to make the US an autocracy. It's right out in the open.

[whalesalad]

chaos is the strategy

[csomar]

Chaos is a strategy but in this case it's just chaos.

[goatlover]

No, other autocrats have instituted chaos to grab power before. Too many people underestimate Trump and his allies. They are going to grab as much power as they can for as long as they can.

[Henchman21]

Destruction is the goal.

[voisin]

The strategy is to sow fear and uncertainty to drive capital from stocks to government bonds and drive down the bond yield. Bessant is pretty clear about this. Once they get the bond yields down and refinance a lot of the short term debt into longer term debt they free up operating budget. Combine with Elon’s DOGE cutting costs and Lutnick raising some capital from tariffs, and it is a pretty good strategy. I don’t agree with Trump’s policies generally nor am I American, but this is a good short term strategy.

[alabastervlog]

It's not a good short term strategy at all. If that's really the goal, their left and right hands need to have a chat because one of them's going to make the deficit way worse, so if the other's goal is to "free up operating budget" by reducing debt service they really ought to get on the same page, because anything "freed up" is going to be eaten by the other bullshit they're doing.

Besides, this is a wildly expensive way to go about it. The harm to receipts from the economic uncertainty will blow a hole in the federal budget and leave states reeling (to say nothing of the "other hand" making cuts at the IRS, which will also be a net cost)

[ojbyrne]

Great strategy, except its not working. Bond yields are up (probably because foreigners and foreign countries are selling US bonds). DOGE cost cuts are insignificant. Raising capital from tariffs doesn't seem to be working because they're really taxes, and Americans don't like taxes.

[stafferxrr]

This is exactly the strategy but it is failing miserably.

The reason for the pivot was because the 10-30 year yields didn't come down, the price on the 30 year got crushed. The 30 year almost went back to the lows.

There was literally no flight to safety. Completely the opposite.

[voisin]

It seems like there was a flight to safety but then China started dumping bonds. I think we are witnessing the ‘war’ in trade war!

[deng]

> I don’t agree with Trump’s policies generally nor am I American, but this is a good short term strategy.

This strategy has failed spectacularly, as bond yields are still up and treasuries are sold like crazy. US treasuries are no longer seen as safe havens. People rather invest in gold or treasuries from other countries which are not led by a corrupt government. Buying US treasuries is now seen as "lending Trump money", and since Trump runs the US economy exactly like he ran his companies, where IIRC he defaulted on debt at least six times, US treasuries are now a rather risky investment.

[codedokode]

Can we use Occam's Razor and assume that nobody knows what would be the optimal tariff rates and if you don't have a reliable mathematical model the only choice you are left with is experimentation and A/B tests.