[CountSessine]

I don't know about incompetent - there's plenty of smart people around Trump. The big problem seems to be that they all kind of disagree with each other and Trump ends up doing what the guy who talks to him most recently advises him to do.

The current "plan" seems to be to leave behind the largely-defunct WTO once and for all and build a selective free-trade alliance specifically excluding China, much like GATT was. I don't think this would really make the US "richer" (or any participant in the alliance) - in fact it would probably make us all a bit poorer. But it would make China much poorer which at this point is kind of the goal.

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

But that's just today. Next week someone else might get Trump's ear before he speaks to the press.

[zmmmmm]

Which "smart" person advised him to calculate tariffs based on trade imbalance for each country, including uninhabited islands? It's an utterly stupid idea that makes no sense at all.

[CountSessine]

If you read Miran's paper, the point of the tariffs is to bring US trade partners to the table to negotiate the alliance, so really they could be anything at all. It could have been 420% or 31.4159% or whatever, right across the board.

But the amounts are actually kind of clever and it reflects the fact that there's a more mature understand of trade barriers now vs when the WTO was negotiated.

How much do you know about trade barriers? Beyond tariffs, they're extraordinarily complicated and rely on regulations, trip-wires, and unequal application of rules.

Canada has "free trade" with dairy, but only on dairy imports up to a point, and after that heavy tariffs apply. But no one ever imports enough to incur those tariffs, so, that's free-trade, right? But actually, no one considers the Canadian dairy market worth the trouble without being able to import large amounts of dairy. So Canada can legitimately say that the trip-wire isn't applied, but it's a long ways from "free trade" because large importers are kept out.

China requires that foreign companies must partner with local companies to sell into the Chinese market. This effectively leads to a lot of technology transfers. It's not a tariff, but it's pretty clearly a "trade barrier" because companies that want to protect their IP are denied access.

In the 80's when US trade reps were negotiating with Japanese trade reps, the Americans would try to convince the Japanese that free trade was best for Japanese consumers. The Japanese reps would just respond, "how much do you want us to buy?"

The Japanese really didn't believe in free trade, and they were actively manipulating the value of the Yen at that point (it would be a few years still before the Plaza Accord), so they knew that just lowering tariffs wasn't going to make US goods sufficiently more competitive in Japan.

What's changed in 35 years is that the US doesn't really believe in "free trade" anymore either - not after all of the grief the WTO brought. The simple formulas are a no-bullshit approach to trade - the same ones that motivated those Japanese trade reps.

"I don't care how your trade barriers work - currency manipulation, tariffs, excess regulation, unequal rules - just fix your sh*t to reduce the trade imbalance."

[triceratops]

> just fix your sh*t to reduce the trade imbalance

But why does each individual country's trade need to be perfectly balanced with the US? What are the odds of that happening for every single country? What are the odds of it working for every possible pair of countries?

[CountSessine]

I agree with you, but I also think you have this idea that trade is currently governed by largely linear and symmetric rules in Ricardian harmony, and that just isn’t the case.

Every industrialized exporting country in the world has optimized for exporting to the US, and there’s plenty of govt policy involved. Trade barriers are the norm, not the exception. If other countries optimize their trade rules, regulations, and money supply to optimize for a sizeable trade surplus with the US, they can change their policy to reduce the surplus.

[LPisGood]

The word “optimize” is being used a lot here, and I think it’s covering up the clear lack of a plan.

The USA exports plenty of goods, and in cases where there are these nebulous “trade barriers” being imposed, they should be investigated, discovered, publicized, and negotiated. That work was clearly not done here.

[triceratops]

> I also think you have this idea that trade is currently governed by largely linear and symmetric rules

I didn't think that. Every country has tariffs and trade barriers to protect the industries they want to grow or protect. Even the US. Even before this administration or the last one, or the one before that. Sugar, for example.

> Every industrialized exporting country in the world has optimized for exporting to the US

Or maybe, more accurately, to earn US dollars. Possibly because of petroleum, which every country needs? I don't really know, I'm not an expert.

[alfiedotwtf]

There is a surplus trade between the US and Australia and, yet our beef industry was called out as being imbalanced towards US beef.

… it was never about imbalances but protectionism and racketeering

[CountSessine]

Read the Miran paper. It’s not about imbalances. It’s about negotiating leverage. Australia in particular is going to be the most interesting case in the world.

Strategically, Australia is more sympathetic to the US, but your trade with China is many multiples of your trade with the US. If you join the US you’ll have to raise tariffs against China and if you don’t you’ll naturally fall into China's orbit. Interesting times!

[alfiedotwtf]

The thing that I still don't understand is:

  - These tariffs are permanent to rebalance trade
  - These tariffs are temporary to use for negotiations

If they're permanent:

  - US companies build factories
  - Manufacturing comes back to the US
  - China is left manufacturing what the US can't do locally
  - China will dramatically up cost of resources US can't source elsewhere
  - Nobody wins

If they're temporary:

  - China waits out the storm
  - Prices revert back to the mean
  - Nobody wins

So either way:

  - Countries have divested US exports
  - US has lost long term income
  - US has lost soft power (and eventual hegemony)
  - There's now a lot of pissed off people

Even looking at what's happening to Las Vegas, the number of pissed off people will likely go up even if tariffs went back to before or brand new trade deals were signed across all trade paths let alone even a handful.

I'd be keen to know your thoughts. And thanks - I just added the Miran paper to my Kindle, so thanks for the reference!

[rstuart4133]

> Strategically, Australia is more sympathetic to the US, but your trade with China is many multiples of your trade with the US. If you join the US you’ll have to raise tariffs against China and if you don’t you’ll naturally fall into China's orbit. Interesting times!

As an Australian, I'd put the odds of Australia imposing strong tariffs on anyone at very close to zero.

After we gave up on tariffs about 20 years ago we've seen only growth. We are one of the few (only) western economy to have not had a recession in that time. It's not something we are likely to give up on easily. Both the major political parties have firmly re-iterated a "no tariffs" policy.

As for "moving towards China" - I don't see much evidence of that. Australia is firmly rooted in the West. But there has been a change. Right now, I think it's true to say Australia is wondering if Trump's USA is as firmed root in the West as rest of the OECD is. I guess it's possible Australia may drift away from the USA as a consequence, but it won't be towards China. And it won't happen in the short term as Trump's USA is viewed as a temporary thing that will end with Trump.

None of this has much to do with the topic the paper is discussing. Australia has also been on the receiving end of China's industrialisation, so I imagine most Australian's would look on with interest and sympathy at the USA's attempt to undo the worst effects.

[LPisGood]

The thought that there should be bilateral trade balance is ridiculous on the face of it. Vietnam and the USA _should_ have a trade imbalance.

That’s why all this talk of “forcing them to the negotiating table” is absurd.

[CountSessine]

Give up your whole notion of “should”. There is no “should”. The formula is for aligning incentives. It’s no longer enough for other govts to claim compliance with abstract requirements while clandestinely working against them - they need to be committed to helping importers succeed.

[LPisGood]

There is absolutely a “should.”

The only world where USA has a trade balance with Vietnam is one where USA isn’t importing as much as they “should” from Vietnam.

[this_user]

Negotiate about what? There isn't even a clear ask from the US side when they base everything on trade imbalances. Attempting to bring those to zero makes no sense and would do more harm than good. A country like Vietnam is not able to able enough expensive US goods to offset their exports to the US. Trying to squeeze these countries serves no purpose, and the absolute trade volumes with a lot of the smaller countries are so small that it's not even worth putting in the effort to attempt to negotiate anything.

So, what do they want? It is pretty clear by now that they don't even know. They started a massive trade war without a clear plan or way out, and now they are progressively walking it back and attempting to negotiate some quick, face saving deals like the UK one that barely does anything.

And if they really are worried about China, then they need allies to be able to isolate the Chinese and put enough pressure on them. Except, they have just alienated everyone who could have helped with that.

These are not the actions of some master strategist, but of someone who is in way over his head.

[jiggawatts]

You're being downvoted because you're repeating trivially disproven, clear nonsense... which is unfortunately the official position of the whitehouse.

> "I don't care how your trade barriers work - currency manipulation, tariffs, excess regulation, unequal rules - just fix your sh*t to reduce the trade imbalance."

Except that that is NOT what is going on. Trump has been screaming something to this effect for weeks, but when it comes to actually negotiating something he tells world leaders that the tariffs are there to stay! He just did this with the Japanese PM, mere days ago.

Not to mention that many countries have actual, effective tariffs or "trade barriers" on the order of 1% with the US, which means that he can't possible negotiate anything that will improve things more than that.

Trump has no actual strategy. He can't possibly, because his stated list of goals are mutually incompatible. He also wants to eliminate income tax and pay for this with tariffs! He can't do that and return tariffs to 0% after countries capitulate.

He also keeps talking about bringing manufacturing back to the US (note that it never left, it just got more high-tech), but he's tariffing industrial machinery and robots imported from Germany!

This "policy" makes about as much sense as a first-year student's homework essay thrown together the night before it is due.

Anyone engaging in good faith debates is missing the point entirely. There is nothing of substance to engage with, as multiple world leaders are discovered.

PS: Trump apparently made 200 deals, more than the number of countries in the world, then 17, and now just 1 with the UK, where he reduced tariffs from 1% to 0.8%. Wooo! Winning!

[alfiedotwtf]

Why did he tare up his own trade agreements that he signed himself during his first term?

[CountSessine]

Because Trump himself isn’t really that smart?

Like I said, he takes the advice of the last person who talks to him. He’s very suggestible. The best parts of his presidency, so far, have been when he follows the plan in project 2025, which you may not agree with, but is at least sane and coherent. The worst bits are when he adlibs, like the stupid tariff escalation with China.

Ultimately the biggest problem with Miran’s plan is that now that Trump is tearing up these trade agreements, no one has any reason to believe that the new one is worth the paper it’s printed on. He has no integrity and no one signs agreements with people who have no integrity.

[alfiedotwtf]

> he takes the advice of the last person who talks to him

> Ultimately the biggest problem with Miran’s plan is that now that Trump is tearing up these trade agreements, no one has any reason to believe that the new one is worth the paper it’s printed on

And to apocryphally quote Game of Thrones:

> A Trump never pays his debt

Yep. Political opinions aside, these combined are his hamartia and so it will be interesting to see in the near future if he's able to maintain his reality distortion field over the GOP or we'll ever see Vance stab him in the back.

[CountSessine]

For the record, I'm not really sure how I feel about this plan. Free trade with China uplifted 700 million people (in China) from poverty.

OTOH, if you believe that China is basically Germany circa 1938 (and indeed, China in 2025 is the largest and most successful fascist state in all of history), then kneecapping China's economy makes plenty of strategic sense.

But we could always just keep buying Hitler's Volkswagens - that's the direction our incentive gradient points in. The US doesn't need to be the global police - we could always just let China have Taiwan, the Senkakus, the Ryukyus, etc...

[LPisGood]

I think what a lot of people miss when they talk about America being the “global police” is that almost always the law (so to speak) that the “global police” are enforcing is enforcing is the advancement of American interests.

[CountSessine]

And yet the near-term interest is to keep buying Volkswagens from Hitler.

[LPisGood]

If Trump’s anti-trade policies were targeted at China and China alone, this analogy would be applicable.

[CountSessine]

Read Miran’s paper.

[LPisGood]

I have read it, albeit not every single word.