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I'm extremely leery about the potential short or medium term impacts here.
Yet, I find myself willing to see what happens, because the revelations of the past 6ish years is that the Experts WERE pushing buttons on the control panel, and were getting paid very handsomely to push the buttons, but weren't particularly motivated to push buttons that would benefit the people they nominally owed allegiance to. I'm not even talking strictly about NGOs and such, but that's a symptom of it. Hell, during Biden's term, we can't even be sure WHO was at the controls while Biden was half-cogent.
Lets push some buttons that will break some things in the short term, and then (hopefully) quickly build some replacements that are generally better for parties other than elites in the political class.
And I'm young enough I can wait to recover from any short or medium term losses before I'm forced to retire. I grew up during and in the aftermath of the '08 crash. Mentally I've been braced this sort of event for like 10 years. I do feel for those who are stuck in a position where their livelihood is reliant on stock prices, but if you're at or near retirement age you should be in safer assets anyway.
The (classical) Liberal World Order was premised on free trade and financial/industrial interconnections between various countries disincentivizing wars and conflicts and fostering greater cooperation. I sincerely believe that they do have this effect, but I can see and admit there are parts of this order that are causing major issues and yet are not being corrected. I'd point to mass immigration as one example, and collapsing global fertility as another. BOTH of these should in theory be addressable without attacking the foundations of the order itself... but we've not been allowed to even have the discussion.
I would suggest that we're in a particularly unfavorable equilibrium that could collapse into an even worse equilibrium in the nearish future. Whether this is due to irrational/malicious actors screwing with things, or due to inexorable historical forces is a good discussion. But taking a gamble that if you start wrenching on the controls now you can steer away from the iceberg and not crash into something else, well, that is not a thing to be done flippantly.
I can certainly understand people who would rather not have Trump and Co. be the ones at the helm, but the system itself wasn't going to let us have anyone better.
These tariffs are being imposed by executive order under a 1960s law where congress ceded this part of its power of the purse to the executive under the guise of vaguely defined national security interests. I’m curious as to how you’re defining long term, and if these tariffs at best survive 2029 when a new president takes office.
Particularly as social media has ushered in an era of anti-incumbency bias.
Ultimately, long term is 10+ years out, for me. But even 5 years is a pretty long time horizon given the massive pace of change going on in many sectors. We could have the beginnings of a Mars colony by then.
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Not only does immigration have nothing to do with free trade, but it's not even obvious how eliminating free trade reduces immigration. It's "burgers?" all over again.
I can see the argument that 'labor' as a class is somehow fungible and that it is best to allow labor to flow to where it is most needed/most cost effective, even across borders. If there's farm work that needs to be done in the U.S., and ample farm workers in Mexico, then you can acquire mutual gains through trade! So 'free trade' does, to some degree, imply free movement of laborers, which implies some level of immigration.
But the apparent reality is that the benefits of most immigration, particularly lower skilled, accrue primarily to the upper and political classes, while costs are borne by the relatively low classes and strains infrastructure for everyone. That time Desantis flew 50 migrants into Martha's Vineyard and the entire town basically declared a state of emergency to get them out ASAP really drove that home. The Migrant hotels in New York also bolstered the point, we don't even have to get into exaggerated stories of Haitians in Ohio to see the issue.
But this should still be easy-ish to fix within the rules of our system, just be willing to deport troublemakers, and shift some of the burdens/costs to the upper classes too so they internalize the cost of their policies and adjust them to make them more efficient. But like almost every other Liberal Shibboleth, it became a HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE that ISN'T SUBJECT TO DEBATE.
Labor though is by necessity at least somewhat bound to the land simply because you can not easily pick up and move even within a large country like the USA to say nothing of moving from country to country in search of work. The jobs may be more plentiful in Kenya, but there are a lot of reasons I won’t be moving there.
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No, it doesn't.
Have you ever seen anyone who used "free trade" to include immigration?
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A lot of this is basically because we're not handling economic immigration cynically enough. Especially not blue states and cities. The benefits of lower-skilled farm workers do not in fact accrue primarily to the upper and political classes; it makes food cheaper, which helps basically all consumers, and it helps the farm workers. But blue cities and states don't want to have migrants work; they put them on welfare instead, which is ridiculous. (and of course they work under the table anyway. Or commit crimes). And that there apparently isn't even any attempt to keep out violent criminals makes it worse.
I find it hard to believe Martha's Vinyard couldn't absorb 50 migrants if they were willing to put them to work (probably under the table)... what, the rich don't need gardeners and housekeepers any more? But That's Just Not Done (at least not when it would be seen).
I also makes nannies cheaper, house cleaners, delivery drivers, etc. etc., but those services are definitely more keyed for the upper classes.
And it also places upward pressure on housing prices in specifically the areas where lower/middle class homebuyers would be looking. And if its true that migrants get more financial assistance to find housing than average citizens, they can actually outcompete those native citizens!
Migrants aren't buying large mansions in upscale areas, by and large, they're going for the same single-family homes that your average twenty-something couple might want, too. So they place upward pressure specifically on the housing that would be accessible to middle class and down, not the top quarter of the economic stack, who can afford to live in communities far from migrant populations.
Of course, they provide labor to build more housing, so I'm willing to accept that it might be a wash in that regard.
They presumably wanted to avoid any APPEARANCE that migrants would be welcome to move in there, lest it attract a larger crowd. I agree they probably have tons of them employed in the area, maybe some that even live in it, but that state of affairs persists only if they can control the flow.
I think there's a lot more farm workers than nannies and house cleaners put together. Delivery drivers, like farm workers, are pretty broad-based in their benefit -- even poor people order stuff nowadays. Cheap day laborers are pretty broad-based in their benefit, though my impression is that group is more likely to contain bad eggs than the others. (or maybe the bad egg farm workers mostly affect other migrants)
Housing prices have mostly gotten ridiculous in the upscale areas, though.
Yeah, that's important. The US can (or could before the tariff crap) make good use of a LOT of migrants, provided you make some attempt to keep criminals and people here to milk the system out, but not an unlimited amount.
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If you crash your country's economy, you eliminate economic immigrants.
As 2rafa suggested, you only eliminate the marginally best economic immigrants. If you're swiss, maybe you'll stay in Switzerland if American opportunities aren't what they used to be. If you're from Haiti, well, there's a long way to go until it's better to stay in Haiti.
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Even a crashed American economy would be better than life in Guatemala or Haiti.
I know Haiti is Haiti, but how bad are things on the ground in Guatemala?
It's the worst out of Central America except possibly for Nicaragua. 'Roughly on par with India' is possibly quite true.
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1/3 of Guatemalans live like Americans in the 90s (in a good way, better than modern America). 2/3 live like rural Appalachia. Prices are very high, 3-5x more than in Central Mexico (central Mexico is about 1/2 old America, 1/2 Texas truck stop) (indeed, higher than LCOL US.) Surprisingly to me, it's rather rainy and cold.
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Bad news: there aren't any. Cash-equivalents will get eaten by inflation, everything else is going to get wrecked too.
Is this finally the hour for metals stackers?
No. Less trade means less stuff is available that people want, period. Everything is worth less because there are less things to buy (except food I guess).
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Remains to be seen, the one interesting thing is that Tariffs are just paper barriers to trade. A 'social construct,' if you will.
We haven't physically built a wall or blown up any bridges.
If countries are willing to play ball and lower all (their) paper barriers to trade, then goods can 'instantly' start flowing again, and possibly under better overall terms. Like, just last week Trump committed to bombing the Houthis in hopes of restoring safe access to the Suez for global shipping. He clearly WANTS goods to flow smoothly.
I will precommit now, that if other countries actively take steps to reduce tariffs and otherwise appease Trump's demands and Trump is too temperamental to accept these offers in good faith and we still have most of these Tarriffs in place at the same levels come May 2nd 2025 (unless real deals are pending come that date), it is a bad thing and we will be in for some rough times. I will criticize/condemn Trump and Co. in no uncertain terms.
If other countries DON'T take active steps to reduce tariffs or otherwise negotiate, I will have to admit that my model of the world is drastically misinformed.
So my full expectation is that there will be a couple weeks of rapidfire and rough negotiations with some touch-and-go moments, but ultimately other nations will do the needful and come the end of April Trump will make a YUUUGE fanfare about signing Tariff reductions and trade agreements with those countries that capitulated, and markets will 'correct course.'
Trump has given himself a lot of runway to try and land this plane relatively smoothly, but there's going to be a lot of turbulence on the way in, that seems certain.
I'll also grant that this causes substantial uncertainty for American investors and entrepreneurs which is 'bad.' But, uhhh, what other country could they find that is inherently more stable and inviting for investment?
Say you‘re the median trade partner with the US, you have a trade surplus towards it, and about a 5% tariff on US goods. Out comes trump with a 20% tariff, with a 10 % minimum, and not based on anything you actually do (or whether you are friend or foe), just balance of trade. And you think they will cancel their own tariffs and offer mineral concessions ?
From the POV of the rest of the world, this is extremely high 'trade aggression'. If you answer this with concessions, you are the most spineless weakling that ever noodled.
The only question being debated right now from brussels to peking and tokyo to london is how much to retaliate. The most extreme pro-american, pro-free trade position being to ignore it and wait for his tantrum, or his presidency, to end.
You‘re very lucky empirically because your theory has been tested and disproved within 24 hours. China has retaliated with a 34% tariff on US goods.
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But what is it countries are supposed to do? It doesn't seem to be about tariffs themselves but trade deficits. Simply buying large amounts of American goods could be an option for them to get these numbers down but it's not in the power of most of the worst affected countries.
Offer access to your country's natural resources, like was proposed with Ukraine?
Make direct investments into American manufacturing like Taiwan?
I expect that the deals reached by each country will look different, with the outcomes being the result of some creative horse-trading.
Now, I'm also concerned that this will result in an overly complex patchwork of trade deals and potentially contradictory obligations between various countries, when the simplest outcome would just be everyone drops tariffs to some agreed-upon maximum and signs on to a treaty to keep them there.
But this is not some historically unprecedented diplomatic endeavor.
But neither of these deals actually change the trade deficit, which is about goods flow not investment. My point is that the new tariffs should be based on something countries can correct rather than something orthogonal to what the US's problem with them is.
Ya know, I'd actually agree it would be nice to have clarity as to how these countries can respond to quickly get the tariffs dropped, the attempt at opacity seems odd.
But I ascribe that to the mix of goals Trump is pursuing, which is to say he needs flexibility so tying himself to an algorithm means he can't maneuver much.
That's maybe the concerning part, aside from Trump's temperament. He is trying to optimize along a few different dimensions instead of merely seeking one blunt policy outcome.
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They don't have the money to do that. About all they can do is stop exporting.
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The tariffs aren't reciprocal - the "tariffs charged to the USA" column on the poster he held up is a measure of the bilateral trade deficit and has nothing to do with what tariffs are charged on US exports. Vietnam and Israel both cut tariffs on the US, and still got hit. Trump isn't asking Vietnam to cut tariffs, he is asking Vietnam to stop exporting manufactured goods.
Trump may reverse the tariffs in exchange for kayfabe concessions and falsely claim a yuge win (as he did with the first round of Mexico/Canada tariffs), but he hasn't articulated any demands for real concessions that other countries are in a position to make.
At the risk of speculating TOO much, its what you might expect from a "Door in the Face" negotiation tactic.
Which Trump absolutely has employed in the past.
As I said if he's too temperamental to actually negotiate, articulate demands, make some concessions, and reach a deal then yeah, we're in trouble.
We'll probably be getting the first whispers of offers and counteroffers over the weekends. The administration has been much more leak-proof (Issues with Signal chat notwithstanding) and moving much more quickly this time around, indeed the details of the tariffs didn't leak in advance, hence it catching many by surprise! It's absurd to assume there's not a lot of active discussion happening behind closed doors already.
But I think that a guy who knows he's only got about 3 years to impose as much of a policy impact as possible (probably less than 2 if the midterms don't go well) is going to be more aggressive up front.
On this basis literally anything Trump does can be explained as a brilliant negotiating tactic. If your aim is just to induce lower tariffs from foreign nations, why not actually base your tariffs on the real rates of other nations and not this balance of trade nonsense? There are plenty of countries with lower average tariff rates than the US who have nevertheless been hit - what precisely is Trump trying to achieve there if his aim is reciprocal reductions?
Gunboat diplomacy is brilliant negotiating tactic if you have gunboats and the other side don't. Now I think it is stupid for trump to try and fight so many economic blocs at once. He should have chosen EU or China for destruction and let Vance finish the other in 4 years. Not both at once.
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Yes.
He wrote a book on this. To the extent you believe the words on the page, you can use it to make insights into his mind and his preferred strategies. He's not some completely mysterious, inscrutable chaos demon, but when people react to his actions with such alarm, its easy for him to build a reputation as one.
We can make judgments based on his behavior during his first term, which so many people seem to treat like ancient forgotten history.
I AGREE that you can't pretend every Trump move is a 4-D chess move that will inevitably result in whatever his desired outcome is. I prefer to model him as a shark, with finely-honed instincts for survival in his cutthroat environment.
But it would be stupid to assume he does things without some goal or strategy in mind, after all he's successfully outmaneuvered many experienced political actors and avoided a multi-pronged attempt to send him to prison to win a national election. Twice. (maybe three times, but that argument isn't worth rehashing). Other than him just being the favorite of the Gods, the best explanation is he is more canny than his opponents want to give him credit for, or his opponents are genuinely that incompetent.
Here's a question: can you point out any actions he took in the foreign relations arena, from his first term, where he straight up 'lost?' i.e. where he capitulated with absolutely nothing to show for it or maybe even gave something up?
Because he racked up some actual wins. People said moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would trigger chaos and reprisals from the Muslim world. Instead it went smoothly, and many Arab countries lined up shortly thereafter to improve diplomacy with the U.S. and Isreal!
I mean, the Middle East did eventually fall back into increased chaos... during Biden's term.
Oh, and remember when he Went to North Korea, the FIRST President to do so, and got them to at least verbally agree to denuclearization talks?, and NK has been substantially less uppity since then?
Apparently that's still their stated intention!
Look man, I'm trying my best to disentangle my feeling about Trump's persona and actually look at his actions and their outcomes, and end of the day, the guy usually brings home some kind of bacon when he's locked in, no matter how distasteful you find his tactics.
So we could just pretend that THIS time he's acting completely out of pocket and flailing around randomly or see where it actually goes. Yes, there's some cause for concern! Trump can be temperamental! But I'm also modelling the other countries in this situation, and it seems obvious they almost all have good reasons to reach some kind of deal in the very near future, and failure to even try to do so would be irrational on their part! I don't think they're irrational, so I think the pressure from Trump will get them to the table, at least.
No he didn't. The man who wrote the book has admitted his share of fault in building the myth that the man who bankrupted multiple casinos and has to give personal guarantees on commercial mortgages because his credit is shot is a successful businessman.
He surrendered to the Taliban. The surrender agreement was timed to go into effect after the election, meaning that he got to blame Biden, but it was Trump's deal.
Has North Korea actually taken any steps towards denuclearisation, or did they just offer Trump a photo op? Trump has a demonstrated pattern of kayfabe gunboat diplomacy where he threatens to harm another country and then doesn't do so because they announce something that doesn't cost them anything or deliver any actual benefit to the US - for example the first round of Canada tariffs which were dropped in exchange for Trudeau reannouncing a border security package he had already announced in November, or 1st term Trump relaxing tariffs on China in exchange for a non-binding promise to buy more American soybeans.
Did you read your helpfully provided Wiki link? DITF is about making a big ask which you know is going to be rejected in order to anchor the following smaller ask as reasonable. Trump hasn't made an ask - the tariffs are not, in fact, reciprocal, and the countries they are being imposed on know this even if the US public don't. If we are using feet and doors as our preferred metaphor, Trump's tactics here are banging the door down with a battering ram while shouting "Make me an offer, motherfuckers!" There isn't a name for that particular approach to negotiating, because it is retarded.
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There's nothing to negotiate, though. If he'd cited other countries' actual tariffs and trade barriers, including a bunch of dubious ones, there's be something to discuss. But he's citing the actual balance of trade, and, especially with the poorer countries like Vietnam, there's nothing good to do about that. You can only increase US imports (which the E.U. might be able to do but won't, but e.g. Vietnam practically cannot because they're too poor), or decrease exports to the US (which is the bad outcome)
Or potentially agree to grant access to your country's natural resources, or make investments directly in American manufacturing.
Like Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-suggests-temporary-administration-ukraine-end-war-2025-03-28/
https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-us-tsmc-chips-investment-71d3aeb2bc403a92ce8eccdd8c51c0c8)
Now I actually would NOT like an overly complex patchwork of trade deals.
I'd prefer the world where everyone drops tariffs to some agreed-upon maximum and signs on to a treaty to keep them there.
As I intimated upthread, if these countries do NOT come to the table to attempt negotiation, I will have to seriously rethink my model of the world at large.
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And! Vietnam had already made recent cuts to tariffs on U.S. goods (liquefied natural gas cut from 5 percent to 2 percent, automobiles from a range of 45-64 percent to 32 percent, and on ethanol from 10 percent to 5 percent). The carrot they got from this effort? A 46-percent tariff on their goods.
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GP said:
Safer not safe. Bonds will continue to grow in nominal dollars, where stocks could drop 50%+.
As much as I hate the tariffs, this is surely unlikely because if this looked like happening at all enough Congressional Republicans would turn on Trump to step in. I mean that would be 1932 levels of political disaster for the Republican party if this actually happened.
I sure hope so, but that's about the size of the 2000 and 2008 crashes, so it's not inconceivable.
Yeah but there was nothing anyone could do to stop those once it became clear what was happening, whereas if there's a recession now it will be blindingly obvious what is going on.
That sounds reasonable, but the market often isn't. In fairness, my portfolio composition is still the 100% VFFSX it's always been, and I just chunked my whole bonus into it, so \shrug.
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