Some updating to the last couple of posts — yesterday Trump held a rally in Pittsburgh and announced he is raising tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50 percent. He says this will be good for the steel industry.
Some media outlets are trying to understand why he is doing this. Like there’s a reason. From Time:
Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, argues that the Trump Administration has yet to fully explain the exact math behind the number for the steel and aluminum tariffs.
“They’ve never given any justification why 25% is the right number, let alone why 50% is,” Winegarden says. “It was just doubled.”
Numbers shmumbers. Steel and aluminum were not affected by last week’s trade court decision. Instead of taking authority from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which the court said he couldn’t do, he had placed tariffs on steel and aluminum by virtue of Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. And so far, no court has said he couldn’t do that. He raised the tariffs on steel and aluminum because he could. He gets off on messing with tariffs and making big headlines about it. Back to Time:
The back-and-forth on tariff dates and rates has left many businesses in limbo, though Felix Tintelnot, professor of economics at Duke University, says that with steel and aluminum, the Administration has generally followed through on the timings they’ve announced.
The question, he says, is how long the 50% will stand, as he’s seen the rates “flip-flopping all the time.” Tintelnot argues that the resulting uncertainty is causing real harm to U.S. businesses and thus, in turn, impacting workers, despite Trump’s claims that the tariffs will bring large amounts of money to the U.S. steel industry.
“We’re talking about expansion of capacity of heavy industry that comes with significant upfront investments, and no business leader should take heavy upfront investments if they don’t believe that the same policy [will be] there two, three, or four years from now,” Tintelnot says. “Regardless of whether you’re in favor [of] or against these tariffs, you don’t want the President to just set tax rates arbitrarily, sort of by Executive Order all the time.”
All you need to know about anything Trump does is that he gets off on playing god-king.
Trump can’t grasp anything more complex than a Happy Meal toy. But he really, really gets off on throwing tariff numbers around. He doesn’t understand what the numbers indicate, but bigger numbers get more attention. And that gives him the ego fix he incessantly craves.
Any chance donnie became financially involved in US Steel?
That wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Maurene Dowd labeled his oval office decor as Las Vegas gift shop. Yesterday at his Elon sendoff he was critical of New Jersey Air Traffic Control for trying to connect "wire to copper". He claimed it was impossible.
1. Most electrical wire is made of copper.
2. Connecting copper wire is not only possible it is a common skill.
3. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact he was uttering total nonsense.
4. True he needs to stick to Happy Meal toy level tech. Otherwise, the phrase Great Mis communicator seems apt.
I had to go straight to the remote as the cognitive dissonance was unbearable.
A better description of the new WH is Regional Car Dealership Rococo:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/mcmansionization-126873692
Take a look, super awesome.
It all boils down to a consensus that his artistic license needs revoking.
Dictator Chic.
Musk was definitely being incoherent – probably drug addled – but he may have been trying to articulate the difference between everything old as being hard-wired, vs digital switching over optical fiber. Airplanes now use "fly by wire" instead of mechanical linkages, as an example.
Your sane washer seems to be defective.
Trump is putting a hit on Canada. The reality show that is the Trump WH keeps shifting the plot. If tariffs are removed as a plot element, then ramp up the assimilation of Canada. But keep the plebes entertained. They have a short attention span, fortunately.
"he is a tariff otaku. He has a Smoot-Hawley waifu pillow" — @aelkus.bsky.social
A distraction from allowing the sale Biden forbid of US Steel to a Japanese conglomerate
In this case I'd say the "distraction" is more outrageous than the sale. The U.S. Steel deal comes with pros and cons, but in itself it's not that outrageous. It may end up being good for steel production in the U.S. Even steelworkers have mixed opinions. And normally Trump doesn't shy away from proclaiming that he's reversed something Biden did. So I'm not buying the "distraction" theory.
"And that gives him the ego fix he incessantly craves."
Exactly! I really think he announced the tariff increase at the rally for only one reason: he wanted to hear the applause, he needed his ego fix. Many steelworkers are not thrilled about the Nippon takeover but most of them have convinced themselves that the tariffs will lead to more work in the short time. Stump just wanted to hear the applause that is the only reason he decided to fuck with the global steel trade! All he does is run his fucking mouth.
From an Econ framework, setting tariffs on specific materials (metals) makes more sense than setting them on Countries (that's more political than economic). OTOH, as Maha points out, the numbers Trump threw out are big, beautiful round numbers plucked from the same orifice where he gets all his 'facts'.
I'm all in favor of rebuilding the US industrial base, but Trump's maniacal 'policies' aren't gonna get us there. It's not a short-term thing; I'm not even sure it is possible even in the medium term (a generation or so).
Biden's approach – starting with Infrastructure – was much more likely to work, but Biden was just too old to do the Bully Pulpit thing well enough to get blue-collar workers on board. And as long as Wall Street can suck more profit from investments in 'off-shoring' than building factories here, they will continue to rent enough politicians to keep that money flowing.