What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Zoupa]

Can't wait for the market's response tomorrow lol.

[Sophie Scholl]

-857 for the DOW and -651 for the NASDAQ as of right now (12_10 AM EST). 

[Valmy]

Can't wait for the market's response tomorrow lol.

Yeah. Our 401ks are going to love it.

[Zanza]

This just renders the US unreliable as a trade partner and non American businesses will invest elsewhere from now on rather than risk being in the US.

I doubt that this will have a uniform impact on investment decisions. The United States is such a big market that investing there just for local business often makes sense. But some industries with global supply chains criss-crossing borders may not be viable, especially intermediate steps.

I know that auto industry best and there the tariffs will have the effect Trump wants: more local production and localized supply chains. But that production will be less efficient, so the locally made cars will be more expensive than the (partially) imported cars now. But he already stated he does not care about that and repatriation of jobs is paramount.

[Zanza]

The EU tariffs are lower than those of Canada, Mexico, China, Korea, Japan etc. so while the competitive position vis-a-vis US competitors erodes, it improves versus international competitors.

[Syt]

Can't wait for the market's response tomorrow lol.

My investment funds (green energies, emerging markets, fighting/mitigating climate change, biotech and similar) have been doing quite ok so far. Except for the one managed by the World Wildlife Fund, which used to be one of the strongest positions in my portfolio but has been crashing to the point where I would now sell at over 30% loss and dragging the overall portfolio down.

But I have faith line will go up again.

[dist]

North Korea and Russia are both absent from the list. 

Apparently the formula for the tariffs seems to be... identify trade deficit, then the tariff rate will be (trade deficit / total imports) * 100.

US exports $50bn to country X and imports $80bn.  Trade deficit is $30bn.  Then (30bn / 80bn) * 100 = 37.5%.  There is your tariff for country X.

Yep. It has been confirmed that it's how they calculated the tarrif. Trade deficit divided by imports and then divided by two for "kindness". How moronic is that? It's primary school level mathematics applied to complex realities. It's so stupid that it made me laugh.

An explanation of the calculations later posted on the office of the US trade representative appeared to confirm that the administration had used trade deficits divided by imports.

Mike O'Rourke, chief marketing strategist at Jones Trading, was quoted by CNN as saying:

While these new tariff measures have been framed as 'reciprocal' tariffs, it turns out the policy is actually one of surplus targeting ...

There does not appear to have been any tariffs used in the calculation of the rate. The Trump administration is specifically targeting nations with large trade surpluses with the United States relative to their exports to the United States.

[Josquius]

Tariffs being imposed on penguins

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump-tariffs-antarctica-uninhabited-heard-mcdonald-islands


The US seems to be trying to become Brazil.
If console wars were still a thing xbox would be winning the next gen.

My investment funds (green energies, emerging markets, fighting/mitigating climate change, biotech and similar) have been doing quite ok so far.

My green energy stuff has died a death. Really dragged me down to a level where I should have just put my money in a box.

[dist]

As always, I appreciate the Cox Richardson's wrap up of the day as she mentions newsbits and reactions I had otherwise missed. It was posted an hour ago.

April 2, 2025 (Wednesday)

Just five months ago, on October 19, 2024, The Economist ran a special report on America's economy. That economy was, the magazine said, "the envy of the world." Today, stock market futures plummeted after President Donald J. Trump announced that he will impose a 10% tariff on all imports to the United States, with higher rates on about 60 countries he claims engage in unfair trade practices, including China, Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea, as well as the European Union.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost more than 1,000 points upon the news, falling by 2.5%; the S&P 500 dropped 3.6%.

Trump's erratic approach to the economy had already rattled markets, which dropped significantly in the first quarter of this year, and consumer confidence, which recently hit a twelve-year low. Trump waited until the stock market had closed today before he announced the new tariffs. Then, in a speech in the White House Rose Garden, he said: "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. But it is not going to happen anymore." Instead, he said, tariffs would create "the golden age of America."

"Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much," former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers posted. "The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now [close] to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four." "The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history," posted former vice president Mike Pence.

Trump claims he is imposing "reciprocal tariffs" and says they are about half of what other countries levy on U.S. goods. In fact, the numbers he is using for his claim that other countries are imposing high tariffs on U.S. goods are bonkers. Economist Paul Krugman points out that the European Union places tariffs of less than 3% on average on U.S. goods, while Trump maintained its tariffs are 39%.

Krugman said he had no idea where that number had come from, but financial journalist James Surowiecki figured out that the White House "just took our trade deficit with [each] country and divided it by the country's exports to us." He called it "extraordinary nonsense." Washington Post economic writer Catherine Rampell posted that she was reluctant to amplify Surowiecki's theory that the tariff rates were based on such a "dumb calculation," but then the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative confirmed it.

Certain observers in business had apparently persuaded themselves that Trump didn't really intend to raise tariffs very much and that his many vows to do so were simply rhetoric, since economists agree that tariffs are a tax on consumers and will raise inflation and slow down growth. Today's tariffs are higher than expected, and business leaders are alarmed.

JPMorgan tonight said that they "view the full implementation of these policies as a substantial macro economic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts" and that "these policies, if sustained, would likely push the US and global economy into recession this year."

Economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations agreed. He told David J. Lynch and Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "In the short run, the effect is probably a recession. It's going to raise the price of so many goods that can't be made in the United States.... In the long run, it's a vision of the U.S. that is very isolated from the world."

But not from every other country. While Trump imposed tariffs on Australia's remote Heard and McDonald Islands, which are uninhabited except by wildlife like seals and penguins, it did not put tariffs on Russia. A different financial shift lifted sanctions against senior Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, to permit him to travel to Washington, D.C., today to meet with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff for what Alex Marquardt, Jennifer Hansler, and Alayna Treene of CNN refer to as "talks on strengthening relations between the two countries as they seek to end the war in Ukraine."
 
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted tonight that the tariffs make no economic sense because "They aren't designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool." Murphy suggests they are a way to make private industry dependent on the president the same way he has tried to make law firms and universities dependent on him. Industries and companies "will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief."

Murphy warns that "the tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship... so that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it's a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears."

There is also Trump's apparent fascination with President William McKinley, who held office from 1897 to 1901, at a time when high tariffs concentrated wealth in the hands of industrialists while workers and farmers, as well as their families, faced injury, hunger, and homelessness from dangerous working conditions, low wages and commodity prices, and seasonal factory closings.

Trump has frequently claimed those years were the nation's wealthiest, and today he helped to explain his focus on that era when he referred to the 1913 Revenue Act, a law that has angered the right wing for decades. That act began the process of replacing the high tariffs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with an income tax, thus shifting the burden of funding the treasury from ordinary Americans through tariffs to wealthier Americans through the income tax. At least some of Trump's tariff plans seem tied to his enthusiasm for tax cuts on wealthy individuals and corporations.

But in trying to reestablish the financial patterns of the late nineteenth century—patterns that led to profound economic instability in the U.S., including economic crashes—Trump is undermining the system of global trade that has fostered international cooperation since World War II. CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar told CNN's John Vause: "This is Trump saying...I am going to overturn globalization as we've known it." She added: "I'm hoping it doesn't push the U.S. and the world into recession."

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo makes the important point that "Presidents have no inherent power over tariffs whatsoever." The Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs. But the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to impose tariffs if he declares a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which Trump did today, declaring a "national emergency to increase our competitive edge, protect our sovereignty, and strengthen our national and economic security."

That same law allows Congress to end such a declaration of emergency, but so far, Republicans have declined to do so. Today the Senate rebuked Trump by passing a resolution to block his tariffs on Canadian products, with four Republicans—Susan Collins (ME), Mitch McConnell (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Rand Paul (KY)—joining Democrats to pass the resolution. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is unlikely to take the measure up.

[viper37]

They have a trade surplus because they are a poor country.

They have a trade surplus because they have a capital account surplus.

Many rich countries have a trade surplus.

I would disagree with your assumption that Heard and McDonald Islands is a rich country.

[Grey Fox]

We also have tariffs on uninhabited Arctic and Antarctic islands, in case penguins or polar bears try something.

The largest tariff handed out was to...St. Pierre and Miquelon. No more selling fish to the United States you bastards!

I am kind of baffled why they would have a different tariff than France itself. Do the islands have an independent trade policy or something? They use the Euro, why wouldn't they just get the blanket EU tariff?

They are not part of the EU. They are their own economic zone.

[crazy canuck]

Markets around the world tumbled on Thursday after President Trump announced across-the-board tariffs on America's main trading partners, including the European Union and Japan.

Futures on the S&P 500, which allow investors to trade the index outside normal trading hours, slumped more than 3 percent. Asian and European stock markets fell sharply, with benchmark indexes dropping more than 3 percent in Japan, and nearly 2 percent in Hong Kong, South Korea, Germany and France.

The value of the U.S. dollar against a basket of other major currencies dropped more than 1 percent.

As of 6:22 EST

[mongers]

For better or worse, a lot of American consumers are going to have to get use to 'make do and mend'; the days of cheapjack Asian made stuff bought from Walmart et al are ending.

[Admiral Yi]

I would disagree with your assumption that Heard and McDonald Islands is a rich country.

I would disagree with your reading comprehension.

[HVC]

What happened to needing imminent threats to impose tariffs? That fig lead just get thrown away with a shrug?