O/T:- Trump Presidency 2.0 [hic sunt dracones]

[M0ufMk3]

Or he might just decide on a war to distract everyone - that would be the next thing on the aspiring authoritarian checklist.

The Dominican Republic needs to watch out. They paid the price for the poor away form shown in Vietnam so it could be their turn again.

Has anyone actually told the American public that the reason goods can be made cheaper elsewhere is that many of them are paid far far more than their counterparts in the rest of the world. And, whilst there are some fantastically clever people in the US, there are a huge number who find critical thinking (a key to improvement) nigh on impossible.

[the_anticlough]

I want to know the 'concessions' they'll be asking from the 50 nations who they say wish to negotiate.

The US will reduce the tariff if Country X does.....

Whatever it is, it's likely to be pitting countries against each other or compromising their sovereignty in some way. We're seeing gangster tactics play-out at the very highest level. What's needed in response is solidarity of nations around the world and courageous, honest leadership. The US is banking on both of these being absent.

[SwalePie]

I want to know the 'concessions' they'll be asking from the 50 nations who they say wish to negotiate.

The US will reduce the tariff if Country X does.....

Whatever it is, it's likely to be pitting countries against each other or compromising their sovereignty in some way. We're seeing gangster tactics play-out at the very highest level. What's needed in response is solidarity of nations around the world and courageous, honest leadership. The US is banking on both of these being absent.

Spot on.

[the_anticlough]

Another obvious question to ask is what will Treasury Secretary Bessent do with the estimated 6 trillion of tariff revenues?

He's a Trump man appointed for a reason. Remember when he asked Georgia to 'find' him the extra votes he needed to win? He'd ask anything of anybody. Even commentators on the right say we've entered the Golden Age of Corruption. Those revenues won't all be offset by tax cuts.

The tariffs will fill the Treasury's coffers to the brim and it will be ordinary people paying that through the higher prices passed on.

[Jampie]

Looks like Britain's Prime Minister is onboard.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/05/keir-starmer-orders-uk-economic-reset-amid-donald-trumps-tariff-mayhem

Is he the first to face reality and talk sense? You know what, I'm beginning to warm to Starmer. For a Labour PM, he is actually a pragmatist and not a dreamer, like many of the ideologists around him.

When all the Drama Queens and Chicken Little-ists (or Henny Penny-ist for some) have been moved to their comfortable, padded cells and the grown ups are back in charge again, we'll all see that the world isn't coming to an end.

Y2K won't make planes crash and world infrastructure break down.
Saddam Hussein won't have weapons of mass destruction
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008, won't bring down the world's economy
ISIS won't take over the developed world
Brexit won't lead to abstract poverty in the UK, while the EU's economy goes stratospheric
Covid won't kill everybody in the world
Global warming (which not everybody believes in), sorry Climate Change (which everybody believes in) won't wipe out humanity - this may take a little longer to prove and the final proof probably won't happen until long after we've all died of old age
And the US 2025 tariffs won't lead to the end of life as we know it.

Our desire for 24-7 news has turned many into wobbling piles of jelly, who break out into acts of 'the sky is falling in' everytime they are fed reactive propaganda by their preferred media outlets.

No serious analyst ever said planes would fall out of the sky with Y2k. Yes, the press blew it out of proportion. But guess who was calling it a hoax already by end of January 2000? Yeah, the same press. Meanwhile those of us who worked in IT 1999 spent many months actually fixing the problem. IIRC it cost many billions to fix, globally. The reason nobody noticed anything serious is that all the high impact systems were patched in time.

Hussein had WMD. He used them on his own civilians (this is well documented) and there was a genuine fear during gulf war one that he would use them on both Israel and the allied troops. By 2003 he had destroyed them all.

The GFC caused huge damage to the global economy. I don't think any serious analyst said it would lead to a permanent collapse?

Who said ISIS would take over the developed world? Where do you get this BS from?

Brexit has hurt the UK economy as every economist said it would.

Covid had a calculated fatality rate never higher than 2% in the worst-case analyses I saw in the early days with extremely poor data coming out of China. This ultimately dropped to something more like 0.5% of unvaccinated with the early strains once we actually had reliable data.

Climate change is unlikely to wipe out humanity, but if we don't slow it down a lot it is definitely a risk factor for civilisation which is a lot more fragile than the survival of our species. More fragile still are our economies, and generally people regard economic catastrophe as a bad thing.

Yeah, the 24 hour news cycle blows stuff out of proportion. Like every robot is terrified of transgender people now, and bangs on about DEI as though these are the critical issues of our time. But that doesn't mean that genuine crises don't exist.

Which brings us back to the Trump "presidency"... As a matter of fact collapsing international trade and causing stock market crashes globally is, in fact, a crisis. As is deleting all of the USA's soft power and betraying all of its principles and alliances. "It can't be bad if Trump does it" has no basis in fact or logic.

[Jampie]

As to the UK PM being "onboard" clearly you didn't even read the article you linked. Could you point out where it even remotely implies that he or his government approves of any of this?

[BigFatPie]

Quote Originally Posted by BigFatPie View Post
I know we are in midst of a promotion battle, but I cannot help thinking that if a left leaning politicians policy had led directly to *trillions* being wiped off the global stock market there would have been a few comments.


This is how narrow minded you are - the reason behind the tariffs, we are being told, is for a reset in the world economy which has partly been down to it's mis-management BY left-wing governments.

Unless you know of another reason and you can PROVE it, we have to go with the explanation from the US government, why they have put the tariffs in place.

What Trump is doing is a left-wing policy. Many unions in the US are behind him - but you're so blinded by hatred to see or accept that.

Glad to see youve found your big boy pants and are now bwave enough to read my posts.

Ive read about 10 different explanations for why Trump is doing what he is doing. The very last one I would believe is the *official explanation*

The most plausible to me is that he is doing what he is doing because he can. Someone in his inner circle at some point said to him that the president had the power to impose all sorts of tariffs on all sorts of countries without the need for congressional approval.

It appeals to his vanity that he thinks leaders from all over the world will be knocking on his door begging for a few presidential favours. Market turmoil and economic chaos are just collateral damage.

[the_anticlough]

It's too easily forgotten that it's a convicted criminal we're dealing with here - all of his actions should be viewed through this prism.

USA has transitioned from a democracy to a kleptocracy

[Old_pie]

Glad to see youve found your big boy pants and are now bwave enough to read my posts.

Ive read about 10 different explanations for why Trump is doing what he is doing. The very last one I would believe is the *official explanation*

The most plausible to me is that he is doing what he is doing because he can. Someone in his inner circle at some point said to him that the president had the power to impose all sorts of tariffs on all sorts of countries without the need for congressional approval.

It appeals to his vanity that he thinks leaders from all over the world will be knocking on his door begging for a few presidential favours. Market turmoil and economic chaos are just collateral damage.

FWIW, my theories, underlined by Project2025 which I may have missed seeing cited in this thread and wish I had understood a bit better before I have been forced to watch my retirement pension/investments crash.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/

Firstly he sees what Putin can do and wants to be a big boy too. For me the jury is out on whether Putin and Trump are in some sort of plan to bring down the Western world.

Secondly he thinks he's clever. I'm not sure even if he has an IQ in which case there are some people behind him who are going to make a fortune by this maniac's actions

He a narcissist. As you say the whole world is talking about him. Headline TV and news, countries trying to react to his actions. I'd love the world to just say "up yours" and leave him out on a limb. Might mean forging stronger ties with China but it has to be remembered that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Now, how on earth am I perceiving the USA to be the 'enemy', and is NATO now a dead duck?

There is already talk of Musk not retaining the front-line role he enjoyed a month ago. Perhaps he (Musk) will be encouraged to take a trip to Mars and tell us what is there when he gets back. Mind you he could take Trump with him (wishful thinking).

One thing is for sure in my mind and that is that American voters are stupid. They've been like turkeys voting for Christmas. MAGA - make america go away.

[Lullapie]

Pretty smart from Trump really.

He brings more income into the US, strengthens the US's balance of trade with Europe and weakens Putin in the process as well as reduces Europe's reliance on Russia.

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-says-eu-must-buy-350b-of-us-energy-to-get-tariff-relief/

Many fortunately forgot that Trump predicted that by buying all Russia's cheap gas would be detrimental to Europe.

Here in case you forgot from the anti-Trump Reuters media outlet in 2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/currencies/trump-lashes-germany-over-gas-pipeline-deal-calls-it-russias-captive-idUSKBN1K10VH/

Only the French got it right by being dependent on nuclear energy. Mind you Sir Keir sees the benefit in that now too.

[SwalePie]

Pretty smart from Trump really.

He brings more income into the US, strengthens the US's balance of trade with Europe and weakens Putin in the process as well as reduces Europe's reliance on Russia.

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-says-eu-must-buy-350b-of-us-energy-to-get-tariff-relief/

Many fortunately forgot that Trump predicted that by buying all Russia's cheap gas would be detrimental to Europe.

Here in case you forgot from the anti-Trump Reuters media outlet in 2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/currencies/trump-lashes-germany-over-gas-pipeline-deal-calls-it-russias-captive-idUSKBN1K10VH/

Only the French got it right by being dependent on nuclear energy. Mind you Sir Keir sees the benefit in that now too.

Reuters is one of the world's oldest and most trusted news agencies and is considered centre/neutral in pretty much every media bias rating there is. There's a huge difference between being 'anti-Trump' and not being 'pro-Trump'.

[drillerpie]

FWIW, my theories, underlined by Project2025 which I may have missed seeing cited in this thread and wish I had understood a bit better before I have been forced to watch my retirement pension/investments crash.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/

Firstly he sees what Putin can do and wants to be a big boy too. For me the jury is out on whether Putin and Trump are in some sort of plan to bring down the Western world.

Secondly he thinks he's clever. I'm not sure even if he has an IQ in which case there are some people behind him who are going to make a fortune by this maniac's actions

He a narcissist. As you say the whole world is talking about him. Headline TV and news, countries trying to react to his actions. I'd love the world to just say "up yours" and leave him out on a limb. Might mean forging stronger ties with China but it has to be remembered that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Now, how on earth am I perceiving the USA to be the 'enemy', and is NATO now a dead duck?

There is already talk of Musk not retaining the front-line role he enjoyed a month ago. Perhaps he (Musk) will be encouraged to take a trip to Mars and tell us what is there when he gets back. Mind you he could take Trump with him (wishful thinking).

One thing is for sure in my mind and that is that American voters are stupid. They've been like turkeys voting for Christmas. MAGA - make america go away.

I went to read it but it was too long and I lost interest. I probably should read it.

I don't know what he's up to but if it were a plot to completely break the post 1945 world order it's difficult to see what he would do differently. But how would he take payment from foreign governments? He would have to set up some kind of shady slush fund like an otherwise worthless meme coin - Oh.

My personal favourite conspiracy theory is that he will crash everyone's savings and make products unavailable or too expensive in order to create civil unrest, then he will use some archaic law to declare himself permanent God-King of the USA. That's what he meant when he said you will only have to vote for me once then you won't need to vote again.

[slack_pie]

I'm genuinely surprised by Trump's disregard for the stock market. As a businessman, I assumed he'd see the stock market as the ultimate metric for success during his presidency. And while it's par for the course for governments to screw over younger generations, I've never seen a leader simply not care (at least in the short term) about trashing baby boomer retirement funds. I thought they were pretty much untouchable.

That said, the stock market will probably bounce back. Global liquidity is on the rise, the Federal Reserve will be forced to cut rates, and something will have to give on the tariff front eventually. Just complete carnage in the meantime. It's just a completely new paradigm now, with the president trying to reshape the US and world with a sledgehammer. Virtually impossible to predict outcomes as he's so unpredictable and capricious.

[i961pie]

I'm genuinely surprised by Trump's disregard for the stock market. As a businessman, I assumed he'd see the stock market as the ultimate metric for success during his presidency. And while it's par for the course for governments to screw over younger generations, I've never seen a leader simply not care (at least in the short term) about trashing baby boomer retirement funds. I thought they were pretty much untouchable.

That said, the stock market will probably bounce back. Global liquidity is on the rise, the Federal Reserve will be forced to cut rates, and something will have to give on the tariff front eventually. Just complete carnage in the meantime. It's just a completely new paradigm now, with the president trying to reshape the US and world with a sledgehammer. Virtually impossible to predict outcomes as he's so unpredictable and capricious.

Trump might have disregard for it but many of his wealthy friends and supporters might be looking over their shoulders. All eyes on China now.

[drillerpie]

Long term US bonds being dumped as we speak. Could be China dumping as retaliation or could be investors losing confidence in US as a safe haven. US Govt Borrowing getting bigly more expensive by the minute.