Stabitha_Christie
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US and China temporarily lower tariffs to start trade negotiations
None of the targeted tariffs that China put in place prior to the trade war or since have been touched. They all remain as high as they ever were. So when you say things like "Some items had a 67% tariff." Those tariffs are still 67%. All the products China banned from being imported in the last few months are still banned from import. All the products China banned from being exported are still banned from being exported. So, China gave up very little. They dropped their base tariff rate to 10% and kept all the other higher tariffs and restrictions, many of which were not in place before this nonsense started. Dear Leader raised tariffs to 145%, panicked when his approval rating tanked and looked for the nearest exit and lowered tariffs by 115 points to slightly above where we were when this started. By far Dear Leader conceded almost 100% of what he had done and the Chinese didn't. Why? Because the Chinese played chess while Dear Leader was trying to figure out what day of the week Sunday falls on. Targeted tariffs and restrictions were the smart play and Dear Leader got outplayed.9secondkox2 said:
Um…Stabitha_Christie said:
The only way you can think this is a "deal" is if you didn't actually knew what the tariff rates were prior to the trade war. And since Cult member aren't exactly known for being informed, we can safely assume you have no clue where we were at trade wise prior to the trade war. I'll catch you up, Trump completely capitulated to China and U.S. companies and customers are stuck paying the bill. Our tariffs on China are higher and Chinese tariffs the didn't exist four months ago are still there. We literally got nothing but higher prices, and y'all think we won something. This is almost as embarrassing as when you made up a story about getting a pay raise to make a point about income tax only to announce the the world that you don't understand the U.S. tax code or how a progressive tax works.9secondkox2 said:Great first step.Look forward to seeing what’s to come.The fact that the usa gets 30% out of this whole China only gets 10% is quite the “art of the deal.”
you could kind of read the Chinese ministers faces exiting the negotiations thst it was something like this.People forget how powerful the United States really is.
will be interesting if progress is made on rare earth.Hopefully this means apple can breathe easier while continuing to diversify the supply chain and get serious about efforts at home.
let’s take last year.We charged Chinese exports 20%. Some tarriffs were 34%.China charged us 30%. Some items had a 67% tarriff.Now, we gain 10% and they lose 20% from the lowest set point.The USA loses only 4% from the highest and China loses 57%. That’s a fantastic deal for America. No matter if you are rooting for the usa or for China.It’s not just looking at the recent crazy hikes.It’s a great deal for the usa.And it sets the tone for a more even snd fair deal to come.The president talked with Tim Cook this morning.Did he reach any of his stated goals? He wanted to reduce the trade deficit, the trade deficit has gone up since his term started. He wanted to repatriate manufacturing, no new manufacturing announced and some U.S. companies had to halt manufacturing and lay off workers. Other bonuses, GDP is down, government spending has surpassed the previous administration at the same point in time, inflation has spiked, the market has crashed and hiring has slowed. When confronted with his disastrous policies, Dear Leader's response was to say that American kids need fewer dolls or put another way "Americans are greedy and have too much" meanwhile 50% of Americans are reporting that they have to use BNPL loans for essentials, with 30% having to use BNPL for groceries.Of course, what do we expect from an 80-year-old whose cognitive abilities have evaporated? Two weeks ago, he claimed he had made trade deals with 200 countries despite there not being 200 countries to make deals with. Last week, he was proudly boasting about his deal with the U.K. and how it was the first of many deals to come. Over the course of two weeks, he was confused by how many countries there are and wasn't sure if he had made 200 deals or one.Of course, you will mindlessly defend the guy. The lies don't matter. That economy is objectively worse doesn't matter. That people's lives are measurably worse doesn't matter. It's how you know you are in a cult; reality doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is defending Dear Leader.
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US and China temporarily lower tariffs to start trade negotiations
Not even the administration is saying there is a deal. They are saying they have 90 days to work on one. What you are calling a “win” is The U.S. and China temporarily lowering tariffs but neither lowered them to pre-trade war levels. So close consumers in both countries are still paying more than they otherwise would have. Progress on the administrations stated goals, reducing the trade deficit and repatriating manufacturing? None.Thatguy2 said:USA wins yet another trade deal, and this one where everyone said china would never cave. Now 90 days to make it permanent and help our farmers with more china purchases like last time. ImpressiveThat people see someone intentionally setting a house on fire and then putting out part of the fire as a “win” is why it’s a cult. Y’all can’t see anything beyond your idol worship.
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Apple supplier Pegatron says tariffs will mean third world-style shortages for US
Your comment was perfectly timed as we had to wait less than 24 hours. GDP numbers were announced today for the first quarter of the year and as such they are first indication of the impact of the tariffs. GDP dropped for the first time in years and our trade deficit grew. Literally the opposite of what Trump and the pro-tariff crowd promised. Trump is, per usual, blaming the former president and claiming the numbers were worse under Biden. So pretty much what the anti-tariff crowd has been saying. They won't work, they will crash the economy and Trump will simply lie about it like he does everything else.9secondkox2 said:
That’s all I’m saying. Just wait and see. As much as one side wants to believe trump is an evil bogeyman who can only do wrong, and the other side sees only positive qualities, reality will be what it will be.Wesley_Hilliard said:
We'll see what happens.9secondkox2 said:
Meanwhile China is removing some tarriffs snd msking exemptions.Wesley_Hilliard said:The economy is crashing. Ports are empty. Truck drivers have nothing to transport. Shelves will soon be empty of key goods. The dollar is dropping. Jobs are being lost. People aren't buying anything. There's no flow into the treasury. Our national debt is going up as a result of these tariffs as Americans do without. The global trade continues with the US removed unabated. We're the only ones harmed by this action. No one is negotiating anything.
So yeah, great plan all around so far.Like I said before, it’s too early. Less knee jerk reactions and more balanced analysis before we see the ultimate results.Nobody like a fight. But sometimes they’re necessary. And when you fight, you don’t do so just to fight. It’s to win. So far, we are seeing other countries wilting.
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Apple supplier Pegatron says tariffs will mean third world-style shortages for US
The “wait and see” approach is goofy. Some things are in fact knowable. You don’t push a car over a cliff so you can “wait and see” if it will hit the bottom. It’s going to hit the bottom. Similarly, you jump to a trade war to address (insert reason of the week for tariffs). And if anyone needs any further proof that the man leading this charge doesn’t have any clue what he is doing then look no further than his claim that he had made trade deals with 200 countries. There aren’t two hundred countries in the world. The sitting president of the United States doesn’t even know how many countries there are or how many countries there are, how many he has made “deals” with or how many he has placed tariffs on. Let that sink in.
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Trump blinks: Floats suggestion that Apple might get a tariff exemption
Well, you have completely ignored the substance of my comment.9secondkox2 said:
It’s common sense. Something a trump-hatred cult will never see.Stabitha_Christie said:
And the delusional cult continues on unabated, Dear Leader must not be questioned.9secondkox2 said:It’s not a “blink.” It has been mentioned a lot here on ai before the tariffs came on. Apple would get an exemption. I’ve personally posted this a few times.Smart people do smart things. It’s why cook preemptively met with the president prior to the election and why the admin is letting some of the fine tuning show now. It’s always shock and awe to rile up the immoveable players. Then settles into the details. It’s why you hear the phrase/torle “art of the deal” being so talked about lately.As I’ve BEEN saying, Apple willl be fine.
Meanwhile in reality Trump has shown how much of a lame duck president he is and U.S. is much weaker on the world stage than it was a week ago.
And because you pointed out in an other thread that you woefully uninformed on trade, let me help you out. What you and Trumpty Dumpty seem to be missing is Trump can't protect Apple or any other company from China. If China decides to start targeting U.S. companies like Apple or Tesla and just boots them from the country then they are absolutely screwed. The U.S. doesn't have the advanced manufacturing capabilities of China and that is something that would take at least a decade to build out. China does almost all of the world's refining of rare earth minerals. Replacing that capability will take a decade to do. China holds way more cards in this trade war than just tariffs. Turmpty Dumpty has brought a squirt gun to a gun fight.
Maybe, just maybe, ponder the potential consequences of Trumps actions rather than blindly cheerleading for himAnd I’ll take Donald trump and Bessent any day over some dude on the internet named “stabitha.”
But seriously. There are so many ways to look at this. It definitely exposes predispositions. If you already hate Tru p, you’ll work to find the pessimistic angle. If you already like him, you’ll work to find the positive angle. And if you’re just a simple common sense guy, you’ll work to can appreciate what he’s trying to do while retaining the ability to see where it may go wrong - but also retain tje ability to see where it may go right. So far, for common sense folks, tje goal is admirable, results are mixed with the short time in action, and the pivot seems to preserve both the American tech company as well as the inherits of the action to begin with. The downside of all of it is of course the “short term pain” of stock volatility and posdible higher prices. But that was always a known quantity. Not some surprise. But the long term gain of fair trade is what the goal is. And it’s certainly at the very least worth the attempt. If it wasn’t trump, it would be someone else. The status quo is not sustainable without ceding our economy and leading status in the world. As one of the few truly free places in the world, this matters. We are all her for all things apple. They’re a great company. Another reason they're great is that they stand for human rights, privacy, security, etc. on top of making the best stuff on earth. But take away the foundation of freedom upon which they operate and things go south. We see a microcosm in the EU and China. Hopefully, with the bold moves being made on the big stage, that’s as far as it goes.Let's take a step back and start at the beginning, as there is a lot we agree on. So let's look at how the U.S. got into this situation.If you go back to the boom years of the 1940s-1960s, the U.S. was a manufacturing economy, and it served us well. We had a lot of upward mobility. Along the way, we chose to move toward a more services-based economy. We embraced free trade capitalism and let the markets figure it out. And when I say we, I mean our collective decision-making via the democratic process. No individual or party really owns the decisions; the country collectively decided to do these things. During that time, China decided to become a manufacturing economy. To do that, the Chinese government invested in infrastructure and education. It helped companies set up manufacturing in exchange for manufacturing technology. It was playing the long game, but it worked. It is also far easier for an autocratic government to do this because there is no need for consensus. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the transition to services served us well. We saw wealth explode, and we became the world's richest country. Unfortunately, this move left people behind. The areas that lost manufacturing work weren't always able to join in on the services economy explosion. Towns and smaller cities got hit particularly hard. But it is important to know that the U.S. isn't the victim of another country. This was our own decision-making, and China didn't become a manufacturing powerhouse because of tariffs. They did it via investment. And we lost manufacturing through a lack of investment. We opted for tax cuts instead.So where do we as a country want to go? I think most of us can agree that we would like to see a return of manufacturing to the U.S. We would like to see a return to upward mobility for the people left behind. We would like the economic growth that would come with it. There is an argument for national security and self-reliance. No matter your political stripes, I think we all agree those are good things. Trump has stated these things as his goals, and I don't think many people are objecting to the goals. What people are objecting to is how he is trying to achieve those goals.The U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure nor the skilled labor to do manufacturing at a large scale. Building that skill set and infrastructure needs to be done, and it is a long process. China didn't do it overnight. Tariffs have their place in repatriating manufacturing, but they aren't the primary tool in making it happen, and they won't do it alone. It needs to be a comprehensive plan, and everyone needs to be on board with it. It needs to include investments in infrastructure and education. Private capital will have its place, but the movement needs to step up and lead the effort. The U.S. government has more resources than any entity on the planet and is able to do incredible things. Private capital has never been able to make the monumental shifts the government has done. Private equity didn't do rural electrification. Commercial space travel only happened because of the work NASA did. The entirety of the internet economy exists because of the government's ARPANET project. What we need is to start doing investment in education and infrastructure, and as our manufacturing capacity expands, then we offer incentives for companies to start repatriating and investing in manufacturing. Lastly, and this is where tariffs come in, we need to have a stick for when the incentives don't work. Due to the amount of time it is going to take, the plan also needs to be bipartisan; it will need to be continued over multiple presidential administrations and multiple congressional election cycles. Without commitment from both parties, it will just die on the vine as soon as power shifts.This brings up the Trump administration. They have not offered a comprehensive plan. All they have offered is a stick. They have offered no solution for how companies are going to repatriate manufacturing. They haven't even explained what they are going to do with the money they make from the tariffs. So, let's say Apple or any other tech company wants to repatriate its manufacturing immediately. It literally cannot do it. There is nowhere to move it to and there is no skilled workforce to do it. They are 100% on the hook for trying to build out the infrastructure and solve educating the workforce. At a bare minimum, the tariffs needed to be phased in to give companies an opportunity to solve the challenges related to bringing manufacturing back. You can certainly point to exceptions being made, but those just remove the incentive to do anything, and since Trump is in his second term, the best bet is to just ride out the four years and wait for the next guy to come along and just undo all of this. So, the solution requires a long-term plan, investments in education, investments in infrastructure, and it needs to be bipartisan. What Trump is doing is more tax cuts, gutting the Department of Education, gutting the government as a whole, random tariffs that may or may not be happening, and a lack of bipartisanship. Not only is his approach lacking bipartisan support, people in his own party are so against what he is doing that they want to introduce legislation to limit his ability to implement tariffs. The result has been needless economic upheaval, damaging the reputation of the U.S., and the majority of the population being pissed at him. Again, it's not the goals that are the issue; it is the how that is the issue. The how makes no sense and will not accomplish the goals.A good example of how things should work is the CHIPS Act. Through incentives, the government was able to stimulate processor fabrication in the U.S. The whole thing was inciting enough that TSCM is interested in moving fabrication here. It is bipartisan, so companies aren't worried about the incentives being here one day and disappearing the next. That leads to long-term commitments. Was it perfect? No. But it is a good blueprint on how to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and it does so without crashing markets or chaos in general. This is the kind of thing we should be urging our politicians to do.
TLDR; Trade wars are stupid and accomplish nothing. They shouldn't be our go to. We need to stop acting like we are victim of other countries because we won't acknowledge our own mistakes. Let's just roll up our sleeves and do the hard work needed to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
