changegonnacome

+1....things just got exponentially more dangerous.......the JCPOA had Iran's military nuclear capability "on ice"....JCPAO v2.0 was the answer here.........suspect now they will race towards a bomb.........the options to stop them are all horrible and where success (actually stopping them getting the bomb) is uncertain. This is not good risk management from Trump......as President events will throw enough sand in the gears of your agenda and what your trying to achieve........self-generating 'events' & crisis that can derail your administration goals are a mortal sin in Presidential politics.....Trump just self-generated a massive headache for his administration in the Middle East....I wish him luck with it, its going to be beauty.

For sure.....and so this whole thing has a kind of inevitability to it.....Trump's international relations naivety has been on show for the last six months as he thought Putin was his friend......the greatest naivety of all will be that he thought the B-2 operation a few weeks ago was some kind of one and done deal.....far from it.....a bit like you I'm convinced its set of a chain of events that will draw the US deeper and deeper into the Iran-Israel big muddy. Will give that podcast a listen. Thanks.

Cash money $20bn......military equipment of value deemed surplus to requirements cant remember the technical terms is in the billions......humatiriann aid for Gaza and various NGOs required to keep the people alive there as the Gaza strip is demolished by Israel runs to billions......then all the operational costs of moving tankers and military equipment to the ME.....the costs of putting an iron dome over Israel's Iron dome is potentially hundreds of millions during the two big missile attack episodes. If you find a figure which encapsulates it all Id be interested to hear it - but its significant when you think about the cuts to say medicaid that we're in the BBB to save $800bn over 10yrs and that they just had to be done cause we dont have the money here in the US. American first was about prioritizing American's over foreigners.....in this instance I find myself uncomfortably aligned with Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. The real cost however I consider to be is the loss of focus on East Asia inherent in getting bogged down in the Middle East & Ukraine for that matter.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/7k547fv7c "The Israeli government is expected to exceed its own deficit ceiling for the third consecutive year. According to estimates from capital markets both in Israel and abroad, the budget deficit in 2025 could surpass 6% of GDP, significantly higher than the 4.9% ceiling set by the government." We are now three years into the various conflicts: Deficit - 2023 - 5.1% 2024 - 8.3% 2025 - ~6.5% (E)...I'll take the over on this I point all this out - only to say the following - Israel's deficit, if history is a lesson, ends up as foreign aid issued from Congress in D.C..its been this way for decades...it is also to say that those who think Israel can fight Iran and fund the costs of it over a long sustained period of time (as great as Israel is) without DEEP DEEP financial and military assistance from the United States are naive. Again i say all these as risk factors for the US for getting entrenched in this situation....yes we are not at trillions.....but over a 10yr period of 12 day war-lite like hostilities between Iran and Israel..... the US could easily find itself on the hook for hundreds of billions of direct costs (aid, weapons etc.) and if Iran decided to pull the Strait of Hormuz lever one could see hundred of billions more in damage to the global economy. When you get down to it........Planet Earth + the United States has a vested interest in shutting down this conflict and freezing it.......except Bibi doesn't for the reasons I gave you abouve......and in an upside down world......the Bibi tail is wagging the United States dog.....all while we should have tripled down on East Asia by now.

Never said that.... I said 6% referring to 2025 deficit....and that 6% israeli estimate is before the 12 day country wide shutdown due to the 12 day war + the cost of re-building damaged buildings etc. From Haaretz: "Chilling Maps Show: Iran's Missiles Obliterated Israeli Neighborhoods From Tamra to Tel Aviv and further south, Israeli engineers' maps show how a shock wave from Iran's ballistic missiles can be as ruinous as a direct hit The Israel Tax Authority has received applications for financial assistance for nearly 33,000 damaged structures" https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-30/ty-article-magazine/.premium/chilling-maps-show-irans-missiles-obliterated-israeli-neighborhoods/00000197-c0b4-dddf-a7ff-c6be957d0000

I have been to Israel many times, up thread you will have seen me say it is remarkable country and what they have done there in 70yrs+ years is just an astounding achievement However they are a small country of 9.5m people........they are running ~6% fiscal deficits and this was before their whole economy was shut down for half a month and who knows how many billions of property/infrastructure damage done by Iran.....Israel is remarkable place but they not the global reserve currency, they are not large superpower with infinite resources....a war of attrition with Iran a country of 95m people would not work out well for Israel even with US support......Bibi's escalation strategy with Iran has been and is predicated on US involvement..his bet has so far has worked out.... However the American public is fickle and by extension so is US political support...........indeed one can see the demographic divide in Congress and in the public regarding support for Israel....for boomers infinite US support for Israel is unquestioned, it is dogma.....below and for an increasing number of young people they have no idea why so much support is given to a country 5,500 miles......Bibi understand this, he is a political genius who can see around corners......he is making a run at Iran (to which you can add Gaza, West Bank, Houthis, Hezbollah, Lebanon) now not because he thinks Israel can somehow defeat Iran on their own....he is making a run at Iran as the 2020's may the last decade where an Israeli Prime Minister could count on unequivocal US support for any action.....this IMO is leading to reckless decision making by Bibi and his war cabinet to which you can layer on his own legal problems waiting for him if/when he leaves office. So putting aside discrete US interests.....it is not IMO in the interest of Israel to pursue escalation so aggressively with Iran .....Bibi's everything all at once approach here is a go for broke strategy that could get Israel wrecked in the process (while I admit that like in every situation it has a probability of working out magically for Israel where with US help Israel could see Iran hobbled for decades and the regime in Tehran overthrown).....so I dont discount that at all (would love to see it in fact in a perfect world but the world isnt perfect, your enemy fights back, unexpected things happen).....but probabilistically when I weigh things up...... most especially after seeing Iranian ballistic missile capabilities during the 12-day war (read: the Iron Dome is not invincible) I think Bibi (genius though he is) has misjudged this one. So you know I know folks love to put people in boxes these days....anti-Israel, TDS.....its a lazy out to avoid cognitive dissonance to closely held views.....though I will admit that I do see TDS on the left the whole time so it is a real phenomenon.

You've missed my point - they did have answer....one you keep ignoring and acting like Israel suffered no consequences for its attack....Iran with aerial bombardment shut down Israel completely and utterly for 12 days straight.....with the Iron Dome interceptor missiles 'in-stock' they we're unable to stop Iran doing significant damage to their cities and ports.....and came perilously close to running out of interceptor missiles after only twelve days....so you know if Iran was doing serious damage to Israeli cities with a functioning Iron Dome you might explain to me what Israeli cities would look like if the Iron Dome stopped functioning? We've had many discussions re:Ukraine and the outrageous costs that the US taxpayer has underwritten in that conflict.......you say "sell Israeli all the arms they like".....you do realize where the money is coming from to buy those arms?....already Israel's fiscal position is in serious trouble after all their expenditures in Gaza, West Bank and fighting proxies.... and top of which now Israel's economy was shut down for 12 days straight in June and billions of dollars of damage done by Iran to Israeli infrastructure......where do you think the money is coming from to buy arms from us moving forward? Yep you got.... Its coming from us.....in this first phase of the conflict it may not look like a 'forever war' cause no US soldiers are coming back through Dover Air Force base (yet)........but in terms of financial payments already made since Oct 7th and obligations accruing in the background it is starting to have forever war-like price tag....which could so easily (when you factor in overt cost plus oil & the damaged to the global) have a forever war price tag that could make Iraq and Afghanistan look cheap....most especially given the fact the US itself is in a perilous fiscal position running 7% deficits....the US can ill afford a middle east boondoggle led by Bibi. In a world of infinite resources and no rising peer competitor in China.....I would get behind a 'backing Israel to the hilt' approach.....I love the country and its people......but its in the best interest of the United States now to shut down and freeze this Israel-Iran war....and focus on China.

And so has Israel hence why the United States is so intertwined now in the conflict....the 12 day war showed that in a toe-to-toe conflict with Iran....Israel is actually incapable of defending itself from Iran over a long period of time without serious military intervention from the United States........read the reports from Haaretz....Iran did huge damage to Israel and shut the country down for two weeks......you have some naive asymmetric view of a war between Israel vs. Iran...that it would somehow be a cakewalk because Israel is so strong and Iran is so weak....its just not the case.... Israel was days away from running out of interceptor missiles for their iron dome before the cease fire.....the lazy analysis is Iran needed the ceasefire.....the reality is they both needed the ceasefire Israel as much as Iran....the reality as Bibi knows well and why he's been to the White House three times in six months now is that Israel isnt as strong as you think it is....it is totally dependent on the United States in an escalatory war with Iran.....the narrative around Israel, the invincible, is a dangerous one because in reality what your really articulating is a combined 'Israel + the USA'....which entails huge military commitments on our part and something that starts to look like America's next forever war.

in a nice nutshell....I'd add something else that folks should be acutely aware of....which is while we fight Bibi's neighborhood quarrels for him in the Middle East.....in the East East....a global power is rising the likes of which the US has never had to deal with in its time as the Global top dog......the Soviet Union, it turned out, was in many ways a Potemkin village of a peer competitor to the US......when it fell we discovered just how weak it was internally (technologically, economically) and how flawed its political system was relative to ours in terms of dynamism/innovation..........China may be a Potemkin village of a peer competitor......but it doesn't seem so to me........look at these Chinese EV's, drones, semi-conductors, lithography progress, space program, ship building, belt & road, rare earths, solar/wind installed capacity, robotics.......scared enough?? You should be.......time for the US under Obama/Biden AND now Trump to stop dicking around in the Middle East like an ADHD teenage.......and keep the eyes on the security prize...keep the main thing, the main thing......we need to figure out how to contain China from expanding out from that first Island chain and fast.

I'd say the following - for somebody to be defeated it means somebody must have been victorious. John Mearsheimar covered this quite ably recently - Israel entered into conflict with Iran on June 13th with two overt strategic aims & one covert strategic aim (which is up for debate, the first two arent). Any "victory" needs to be measured by achievement of ones strategic goals....Israel's goals explicitly stated were: (1) to end Iran's nuclear program & (2) to institute internal regime change (the operation was called Rising Lion afterall!) I'll add the third....unstated but quite clear I believe to seasoned observers of the ME - (3) to pull the United States into the conflict So lets judge Israel's success or victory by the correct yardstick which isn't "humiliation" but rather the achievement of their strategic military goals when the operation started on June 12th > (1) Iran's nuclear capability has not been ended - in fact it has been moved underground and out IAEA sight. They likely rue their mistake not to pursue a nuclear weapon at the same time N.Korea did and are now racing towards a bomb. Israel has FAILED on this count. (2) Turns out bombing an indigenous people evens ones who dont like their rulling elite - did not start an uprising but rather caused a rally around the flag effect. The Iranian regime Israel sought to overthrow enjoys, by all accounts, wider and deeper public support today than it did a month ago. Israel has FAILED in its regime change objectives. (3) on this, which is a matter of conjecture, one must agree that Bibi has succeeded mighty here......Trump speaks of "we" now when before he spoke of Israel and Iran.......Israel & the United States are now locked in a box together going off Niagra Falls as it pertain to Iran.....it is exactly as Bibi (& Xi & Putin) would have wished it to be. What I described above is not what defeat of Iran looks like @cubsfan & conversely there was no victory for Israel here either.....why do you think Bibi was in the WH last week strategizing with Trump...because this isn't over. Contrary to popular narrative Israel does not come out of this 12 day war with some kind of invincibility aura. Iran suffered deeply embarrassing military blow but so too did Israel. The 'myth' of the Iron Dome has been shattered - Israel was on the receiving end of a barrage of missile attacks that did significant damage to its cities and infrastructure and which pierced with relative ease the Iron dome and what was stopped was stopped with huge expenditure of intercepter rockets that at the end of a short 12 day conflict were perilously close to completely running out leaving Israel wide open. The Iran attacks saw to it that between June 12th and June 23rd Israel was essentially shut down - nationwide closures of schools, workplaces, business gatherings. Only essential services (e.g., healthcare, utilities, emergency) were allowed to operate. Iran a country of 90m people, $400bn GDP with oil revenues coming from a state we can't control (China) and with the same soft support from China/Russia is a clear and present danger to Israel a country of 9.5m people geographically confined to what is a small place (& so militarily vulnerable).....Iran alone and most certainly with industrial assistance from China and Russia could bombard and essentially shut down Israel for months on end crippling its economy and laying waste to it cities....as it did already for 12 days. Iran I'm afraid when you dial down the rhetoric is a formidable security threat to Israel even hobbled and reeling from the surprise attacks of June 12th. Dont be fooled by neocon talking points re:Iranian weakness its a primrose path designed to lure the US into a surely 'easy' conflict @cubsfan......sure senior folks in Iran we're killed with amazing precision by Israel.....but decapitation strategies are not victories...everybody is replaceable.....who's to say the replacement of the the Iranian leaders killed are not MORE competent than their predecessors. This type of 'defeated' rhetoric is exactly the type of language that lures the US public into ever increasing military commitments in a conflict that is fundamentally 5,500 miles away.

Truth to that - but what I would say is that reporting from then and leading up to bombing indicated that indeed US intelligence’s consensus view was Iran remained very far away from a bomb , not particularly driving hard to get one and most certainly was no where close to Bibi’s threat inflation…..that same view was backed up the IAEA. As mentioned above - the US’s/the world is losing vital insights into the situation on the ground especially since the IAEA is now gone…..we are relying more and more on the boy who has cried wolf for going on 20yrs years now….and a Bibi led Israel is not a reliable source on this topic.

Tucker Carslon, Steve Bannon are left wing nuts now? Their view perfectly aligns with mine on this particular Iran/Israel issue.

Indeed - beautiful thing is we'll get to see who's current version of reality more closely aligns with what's about to unfold.....we can compare notes in a couple of years. I hope your right and I'm completely and utterly wrong. But my guess is as regards Iran we about here in this conflicts arc -

indeed time to get the list out again of the Senators up for re-election next year and figure out what industries most hurt their States and coordinate retaliation measures towards them....... Trump can deal with the House flipping next year....but if the Senate goes his he's in deep dog doo...nothing would scare Trump more than the House and Senate flipping next year which might really curtail Eric and Don Jnr's deal flow. Anyway don't think we ever get there.....this a narcissistic PR fingerprinting exercise....the next episode of the Donald show is titled "how Trump got America unbelievable concessions nobody had ever thought possible from the EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan, S Korea etc. " Tune in next week.

Trump Threatens 30% Tariffs on EU, Mexico https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-threatens-30-tariffs-on-eu-mexico-c48ce36f?mod=hp_lead_pos1 30% August 1st letter issued to the EU.....my comments have not aged well @Spekulatius ! .....but for those who want an insight into Trump world.....I have a contact with first hand knowledge of the EU-US negotiations...this network is very wide as the EU side needs to keep each of the 27 EU states abreast of what's being discussed...but he was unequivocal that the two sides understanding is that they we're headed for what he called a 'UK like' deal.....kinda 10% background tariff rates some carve outs and some upcycled rates on agriculture.....both negotiating teams the US and EU we're days away from signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) they thought on this basis ( or in MAGA world thats called a trade deal). The US side itself has been completely blindsided by this letter they are saying.......the hot take internally.....is Trump wishes to inject himself and some TV worthy drama into the last mile of negotiations such that he can directly "own" some big "trade deal" concessions (already secured by the US side).....to be announced in the coming weeks.....these letters are a narcissistic fingerprinting exercise.... Trump likes to claim he is involved in every deal negotiation somehow...down in the weeds....but its far from the case....he is barely even tangentially engaged the US side says and finds the details of trade negotiating completely "boring"......... this is the reality TV president after all....he understands dramatic arcs......there is no story without a last minute dramatic twist....there is no heroic win he can claim unless the deal might fall apart at the last minute......and some major concession extracted by him personally to put it all back together and secure a 'great' deal. While Trump knows little of the contents of the major 'trade deals; he is supposedly negotiating with the US's largest trading partners - he knows a huge amount and has a huge interest in the fixtures and fittings of the White House - the 'Decorator-in-Chief' -

They weren't - don't believe me - believe Trump's own appointed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March 2025 who testifyed to the matter under oath to Congress: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americas-spies-say-iran-wasnt-building-a-nuclear-weapon-trump-dismisses-that-assessment This is before Bibi got in Donald's ear and the neocons got a hold of Donald's brain. On the contrary - a few weeks ago Iran was crawling with IAEA inspectors.....the world had its eyes on their enriched uranium and centrifuges....and we were in negotiations to (again) freeze their program in place with a deep inspections regime.....Iran was to put it bluntly a kind of semi-domesticated rogue state. Today - - we have no idea where their enriched uranium is - we have no inspectors on the ground and we are not at the table continue to domesticate them under our rules - and so even if you believe the Trump propaganda that the B2 bombing obliterated every last centrifuge in Iran (which is wishful thinking) - It is impossible to bomb the KNOW HOW on how to build centruges out of the minds of the Iranian engineers who built the old ones! So is the world safer - no its demonstrably got alot more dangerous..... Iran was in some respects foolish to sign the JCPOA back in the 2010's with us and should have instead taken the North Korea route....they are unlikely to make that mistake again and so - a nation of 70 million people, - vast financial oil resources and a client for those resource (China) that we cant control..... - has 60% enriched uranium - centrifugal production knowledge - sophisticated ballistic missile technology - And is most likely racing towards a nuclear program - all while our visibility on that program has gone DARK If a bunch of half broke peasants in North Korea can produce a bomb in secret I can assure you Tehran can if they put their mind to it. So Iran is racing towards a bomb..and as my story goes they would be foolish not too.....the military options available to stop a nuclear program that has gone underground in a country and regime like Iran are not low overhead and would involve simply massive military commitments from the United States on a financial scale that might make Ukraine look cheap over time. Why? Because outside the realms of pure nuclear non-proliferation and military costs to stop it..... that same nation (Iran) has levers to pull that effect the global economy.....with their ability to disrupt with mines, missiles and other means one of the globes great strategic economic choke points - the Strait of Hormuz. The overt military costs of stopping Iran would pale into insignificance the economic costs that could be imposed by them on us. The great crime - is that the above emerging nightmare was completely avoidable.....great executives of companies and nations.....block and tackle and put out fires or stop fires from igniting such that they can focus on key strategic objectives in our case that is containing China......whats the great phrase...."keep the main thing, the main thing"......... I'll give Trump something of a pass on Ukraine which he inherited (though his clumsy six month attempt at ending the conflict has been a disaster).......this Iran problem which wont go away now is 100% his folly.....completely avoidable....but he got sucked in by what I consider to be one of the great politicians of all time Bibi Netanyahu....who eats two Donald Trumps for breakfast each morning with his toast and coffee.

JCPOA….which Trump never should have ripped up in the first place….and should have been happy to re-sign again on similar terms once he got back around a table with the Iranian’s earlier this year….but no he let the Israel negotiating position (no civil nuclear) become the US position….and now instead of putting our focus and scarce resources into a security project that matters , containing China, we are focused instead on a defacto regional conflict between two warring Middle East neighbours Iran and Israel. Let’s be frank about this Bibi has played Trump like violin and the US (under Trump) is now pot committed to what is clearly a Bibi-led aggression campaign to overthrow the regime in Tehran using a WMD ghosts as a trigger…short version is that it was entirely possible to freeze that conflict earlier this year and allow the US to move its focus to East Asia. Re:Russia….its becoming oh so clear that if you truly wanted the war to end there when he came into office….throwing Russia’s military opponent under the bus straight out the gates was not the way to bring Russia to the table with palatable deal the correct strategy was an escalate to de-escalate one…Donald decided to publicly bleed Ukraine dry of American support instead. Donald was clearly taken in by his imaginary good relationship with Putin…which is really just a manipulation of Trump….something to which even Donald is starting to realize and admit to publicly…showing weakness to Putin straight out the gates of the administration only served to embolden his ‘peace’ demands & war aspirations….it was a monumentally stupid piece of war diplomacy. I feel bad for Trump - in Bibi and Putin he has two elite level politicians and strategic thinkers….its not a fair fight.

Trump Signals Support for New Israel Attack if Iran Moves Toward Bomb - https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-israel-nuclear-program-693a4e2a?mod=hp_lead_pos2 And how of course would we know that Iran is moving towards a bomb seen as we bombed them thus ensuring the IEIA wont ever back in there?......and so we know have an information vacuum on that question and reliant on Mossad/Bibi for their take.....there is a very good reason why Bibi has clocked up no less than THREE visits to the White House in the first six months of this administration.....Trump has taken the boondoggle he inherited in Ukraine and mismanaged the situation.....and has somehow managed to get the US sucked into a boondoggle in the Middle East......Xi must be sitting in Beijing laughing his ass off as his chief global rival fumbles the ball & spend scarce resources on sideshows.

And thats my point.....honestly looks to me like he's capitulated on the big tariff re-shoring narrative as it pertains to large trading partners (know there's still some grandstanding with Canada etc.)...and the China tariffs are only going to serve to strategically hurt them moving more of their labor intensive industries offshore to lower cost and lower tariff locations but most certainly not to the US.......I mean he still talks about it and he seems laser focused on a couple of industries he's taken a shine to like autos where he seems determined to force a few visible wins.....but like you say 10% writ large isnt enough to change the opex difference than can be achieved in lots of European countries versus setting up in the US and the tariffs I'm seeing knocking on various countries dont create enough of a delta either.....hence why its looking more and more like a revenue raising exercise.....now I believe that in his naivety Trump thought that post-Liberation was just going to be win after win for him.....but what he found is that tariffs and trade are devishly complex.....for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction......and so the negatives of tariffs started to become clear to him and he's basically chickened out. Thats right....and the word on the street (with some caveats and carve outs) is thats where we're going to land......with the proviso that Trump could do anything because he's so mercurial but the US negotiating team have been indicating to the EU team that 10% with higher duties on agriculture and a couple of other areas in the realm of market access, strategic purchases and fuzzy non-tariff barriers will likely work to get a deal over the line. IMO the rush to get all this stuff done before August........is that preliminary inflation data containing the tariff hit is starting to creep into the data the Trump team likely has a preview on.......we can revisit my thesis after September/October print......but I think we are going to be getting some annualized 3%+ months coming up in late Q3 and into Q4.....as well as all the anecdotal reports of small businesses going to the wall & shoppers getting sticker shock. If Trump decides to take Canada into the 8th and 9th round....my advise to Carney would be stick around to 10th round (Oct/Nov)...it will be worth a couple of months at 35%.......the political pain for Trump will starting around then.

The immediate repercussions of borrowing ever more money....as anybody who's gone to town on their credit card knows.....is a mighty good time....I think a mighty good time could continue for a while more who knows a year or two......before the CC bill drops into the letter box and ruins the party! When your the reserve currency the 'due date' has a TBD written in it so enormous flexibility.....we are for sure closer to the end game than the beginning but I've no idea when it starts to matter.....for the now equity holders in the United States have been handed at the very high end an additional $32,000 a year to invest in equities/real estate.....its a wonderful stimulus to financial assets

when I look at the US's top 8 trading partners that kind of really matter....more or less all of them are headed to ~10%..in reality lower due to carve outs but higher for China & China derivative trade proxies who get hit with higher.......think Trump needs a few more 'tough' headlines like with Canada or the EU such that he feels he hasnt climbed down completely from all the Liberation Day bravado.....the last few months will turn out to be an hilariously chaotic period in international trade when a lot of ink was spilled and not much changed in terms of American domestic manufacturing and access to foreign markets......which could have been avoided if Trump had simply slapped a flat 10% on all imports and called it what it is - a federal sales tax falling most heavily on the bottom 20%of American's designed to help fund tax cuts for the top 20% of Americans. American workers will continue to turn their noses up at manufacturing jobs in favor of service economy jobs - as they have done so for decades now - maybe AI will lay waste to so many of those jobs that the trend will reverse....those that do enjoy working with their hands in a manufacturing setting will enjoy good real wage growth which will only incentivize other lower end manufacturing to move offshore. You can't help but see Trump as an 80yr old man waste deep in the ocean trying to fight back the waves of globalization & advanced economy de-industrialization. I hope he succeeds in those areas with direct national security implications but already IMO he's kind of run out of time with no real clarity yet on so much of US trade flows and the President is now headed towards a full year in office, the BBB done, mid-terms next year with a likely flip to democrats and the long lead time associated with so much of the on-shoring investments he dreams off and no heir apparent to the MAGA movement because Trump is too narcissistic to allow one.....a pharma executive, a chip executive will start to model much of this Trump tariff stuff as a anomaly....they may hedge a bit with investments....but I can assure you they are not moving all their chips into the middle of the table and betting on "Trump World" to continue beyond 2029.

Yeah you cant have your cake and eat it too......if there's a huge incentive to on-shore....its BECAUSE tariffs made it that way....for them to make it that way they've got to hurt domestically here first (the tariffs)........in almost every deal that matters with our largest trading partners your seeing a big retrenchment back to 10% with a bunch of carve outs....in practise it likely works out at mid-to- HSD effective......I've seen in my job the cost delta on American production versus foreign production in a bunch of industries and I can assure you these manufactoeres didn't move offshore for a 10% delta....and they aren't moving back because a 10% spread has tigthened. Ironically when I've looked at these figures wages tend not be too bad whats a killer for American manufactoring is benefits....specifically the cost to provide healthcare to staff (it truly is the American tapeworm). For sure your going to get some factories opening....they will get headlines......Trump will get the CEO to say it was because of Trump's tariffs, regulatory reform, taxes..... What you wont see Trump standing beside is factories closing down cause copper or steal or aluminium or even China intermediate goods went through the roof for them and they could no longer compete in the international market........

Can only answer that question if the voting public meaningfully observe the price of things they buy to have gone up as a result of tariffs.....if they do....it becomes an election issue.....if not........its a sales tax that never comes of because its a tax on the population that is effectively hidden from view

I'd say the following - one - I'll give Trump the benefit of the doubt there is a certain logic going on here that could work beatufully......but the issue with him has never been good ideas per se.....its always execution. But what I would say is that there's a central tension or dichotomy going on here still that just hasn't been resolved. (1) if tariff's are really a nothing burger in terms of the general price level (inflation) such that they get lost in the data.......which is what the WH talking points are right now......there is no manufactoring tariff led renaissance coming to the US cause why...and it really just nets out at like a ~1% federal sales tax on imported goods with one or two new factories to claim as a phalic victory about....or (2)the tariffs are a something burger and whichs means they are generally going to flow through to US businesses and consumers (with the associated pain)....which is a basis for a domestic manufactoring renaissance. all these things cant be true at the same time IMO...........to me given the genereal retreat to 10% with a tonne of carve outs in most of MOU's being called trade deals.......the situation is trending towards (1).....a federal sales tax of about 1% on goods which falls hardest on imported goods......and you get some factories at the margins that will function as PR events for tariffs but when you zoom out and look at the aggregate data US manufacturing will not increase and imports will remain a very large part of consumption. As I said above.....just a sales tax.

Your are simply insane to think - for ultra low margin goods that anybody else except the consumer is going to pay for the tariffs - Shark Tank covered it well.....small businesses will go to the wall......domestic producers will raise their prices......tariffs are doing exactly what you would expect them to do which is act like a federal sales tax while introducing a whole bunch of tariff collection/sourcing/documentation friction into supply chains.....its quite something to watch a Republican administration introduce this tax & regulatory burden on businesses.....I'd expect it from a democrat