• vvilld@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    36·
    2 days ago

    You seem to be operating under the misplaced assumption that Trump’s goal with the tariffs was to actually bring manufacturing back to the US or improve the US economy in any way. It’s understandable if you haven’t paid very close attention to Trump over the past 9 years. But whenever thinking about him or his policies, you have to keep one thing top of mind: Trump is a habitual liar who only cares about his own personal wealth and power.

    He’s not trying to bring manufacturing back to the US or improve the US economy. He’s doing market manipulation to increase his wealth and that of those who helped get him into power. He doesn’t give a shit about you or me or any of the rest of us. He couldn’t care less if the US crumbled into dust tomorrow, so long as he’s still on top.

  • db2@lemmy.world
    118·
    3 days ago

    His goal is to enrich himself and hurt others while getting praised like a toddler that just shit on the toilet for the first time.

  • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
    14·
    2 days ago

    Yes but you, like everyone I seem to talk to these days, is under the false impression that Trump isn’t a complete idiot who literally thinks tariffs are the solution to all problems. It’s more comforting to think there’s some massive conspiracy by Russia or that it’s a ploy to make money off the stock market, but I truly believe that Trump actually thinks tariffs will magically fix the economy and his reactions to the backlash are legitimate shock that so many people and the markets don’t agree. Yes Russia does stand to gain from this, but they don’t need to pull the strings when the guy in charge is innovating economic policy so stupid that a smart person would have trouble even imagining it.

    Trump decisions make more sense when you realize he is actually stupid as fuck and there’s no hidden chess moves or anyone pulling the strings from the shadows. There is nobody at the wheel who is actually competent even if they’re evil. This is all just the whims of a complete moron who is probably also going a bit senile as well.

  • salacious_coaster@infosec.pubEnglish
    37·
    2 days ago

    Look. He had the stupid tariff idea. He liked it because he likes the thought of getting his way by punishing people who defy him. That’s how he sees tariffs. It wasn’t a good idea. People told him that. So, being a stubborn narcissist, he wanted to do it more. Now here we are.

  • kmartburrito@lemmy.world
    25·
    3 days ago

    Yeah, certainly if he were a normal President. But he’s a textbook narcissist who only gives a shit about himself and capitulating to the ultra elite. Throw some performance goals set up by his boss Vladimir Putin, and what do you get?

    Absolute fucking chaos alongside fleecing the lower 99.99% for anything you can get and manufacturing a crash in the stock market so you and your elite friends can, you guessed it, profit from it tremendously.

    A rational president, you bet. This dude is not that.

  • BigFig@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    3 days ago

    The goal is not to better the country or the economy. The goal is to make money, for his friends and connections to make money, and leave everything else destroyed while they laugh.

    The tariffs not making sense is expected.

    • Thavron@lemmy.ca
      6·
      2 days ago

      IMO this is the major flaw. Tariffs could work in practice, but you’d have to announce them way ahead of time to give local businesses time to fill in the gap. Otherwise you’ll get what happens now.

      • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
        3·
        2 days ago

        The first flaw is not discussing things with the people in charge of tariffs such as the secretary of treasury.

  • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 days ago

    And giving more tax breaks to companies that stay and sell in the US?

    that’s technically what tariffs do. topologically, it’s the same thing: using policy to give a price advantage to domestic producers.

    talk about shopping locally and so forth.

    talk gets one only so far. when those numbers start to chomp into the household budget, everyone forsakes the “made in…” label in favour of the price tag.

  • eestileib
    15·
    3 days ago

    He’s not trying to act in the interest of the United States.

    He works for Putin.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    4·
    2 days ago

    There’s a thousand better ways to handle both tariffs and free trade. We fucked up the latter with NAFTA (and CAFTA), where the EU got it right. Bringing jobs home with tariffs isn’t something you just snap your fingers and do, shit takes a long time to re-align, it would’ve made a lot more sense to have it go through the legislature and say “hey, we’re starting out at a 10% tariff on this stuff we want to bring home, and we’re going to ratchet it up +2% every year until Congress doesn’t pass the law again.” Instead, we’ve got the most volatile president in history implementing tariffs by fiat: 10% 20% actually none actually 10% actually 125% for real this time. Yeah, in this situation, the best play is to just try and wait dumbass out, because there’s a non-zero chance he wakes up tomorrow and declares tariffs woke.