Political Posts

[Paarslaars]

1 hour ago, james22 said:

 

Your normalcy bias blinds you. It wouldn't happen without the madness.

 

 

 

Why not the other way around? Japan and Europe joining China VS US? It's not like the US can be considered trustworthy lately...

[james22]

 

[mattee2264]

Mag7 should rally bigly on the latest "exceptions".  Getting their money's worth for those inauguration tributes. 

[Sinbius]

President Donald Trump’s administration exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics....

 

It means that basically is China that is putting tariffs on US ...

Trump is showing day by day that was only a bluff...China is not bluffing...and can (and probably wants to) capitalize on this mistake...

Some recession and market crash and Trump is gone...and so US reputation...

 

Trump doesn't have the cards!!!

Edited April 12, 2025 by Sinbius

[dwy000]

2 hours ago, Paarslaars said:

Why not the other way around? Japan and Europe joining China VS US? It's not like the US can be considered trustworthy lately...

Why on earth would EU and Japan tax the crap out of their own citizens to help Trump improve a trade deal with China?

[cubsfan]

2 hours ago, Paarslaars said:

Why not the other way around? Japan and Europe joining China VS US? It's not like the US can be considered trustworthy lately...

 

Hey, why not. You could just join their Belt & Road initiative.  Mao would be pleased.

[mattee2264]

The whole trade war is a joke.

 

Reciprocal tariffs lasted about a New York minute before everyone except China got a 90 day pause.

The China reciprocal tariffs were then altered to exclude everything that USA needs made in China i.e. chips, smartphones, PCs etc. Every country knows now they just have to sell off their US bonds to put Trump under pressure.

 

What leverage does Trump have? Whenever he tried to put tariffs back on stock and bond markets will sell off. And everyone knows that will make him back down. 

[73 Reds]

5 minutes ago, mattee2264 said:

The whole trade war is a joke.

 

Reciprocal tariffs lasted about a New York minute before everyone except China got a 90 day pause.

The China reciprocal tariffs were then altered to exclude everything that USA needs made in China i.e. chips, smartphones, PCs etc. Every country knows now they just have to sell off their US bonds to put Trump under pressure.

 

What leverage does Trump have? Whenever he tried to put tariffs back on stock and bond markets will sell off. And everyone knows that will make him back down. 

So the fact that Bessent said that tariff concessions had nothing to do with falling financial markets means nothing?  Is he lying?  Is everyone in the Trump administration lying and inept?  Many here seem to be in the prediction business.  Personally, I prefer to be in the reaction business.  Whatever happens, I try to react in a profitable manner.  Last week was somewhat of a gift for many of us.   Meanwhile, once the next 90 days passes, we will have a better idea (rather than just predicting) whether the US is in a better, or worse position with its trading partners.  And maybe a few more gifts in the interim.

[mattee2264]

Trump said in interviews he walked things back down because everyone was getting a little scared and also referenced the Dimon interview which spooked him with talk of a potential recession and fixing the bond market problem that he caused. Right before he pivoted he told everyone to buy stocks and would have known full well the market impact from his pivot. In other words despite what he and his advisors may pretend, they are reactive to markets and markets will therefore to a large degree constrain trade policy. 

 

It is the same deal with the Fed. All the "forward guidance" wouldn't be at all necessary if they weren't worried about the market reactions to their policy changes. So despite supposedly just having a dual mandate in relation to inflation and unemployment they are excessively concerned with soothing financial markets and stabilizing them as far as possible. 

 

There will be a lot of volatility because Trump can through a tweet or an announcement move markets by granting exceptions, extending pauses, making claims about the progress of negotiations and teasing future policy shifts. So I expect this will be the new parlour game in markets. 

 

Agree entirely that from an investing POV the rational way to play this is to have some dry powder and scoop up babies thrown out with the bathwater as a result of forced and panic selling.  

 

But it is fun to speculate anyway on how this will all go down. Especially as this is a political thread.

 

But I doubt there will be all that much more clarity after 90 days. It takes a lot longer than that to engage in proper trade negotiations. All you might get over that period is some cheap (or not so cheap) concessions designed to placate Trump.  And would you trust Trump to stick to what is agreed or make any kind of long term commitment? 

 

What we really need is a hard policy pivot. But so long as tariffs remain on the policy agenda it is hard to imagine that happening. 

 

 

 

[dwy000]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

So the fact that Bessent said that tariff concessions had nothing to do with falling financial markets means nothing?  Is he lying?  Is everyone in the Trump administration lying and inept?  Many here seem to be in the prediction business.  Personally, I prefer to be in the reaction business.  Whatever happens, I try to react in a profitable manner.  Last week was somewhat of a gift for many of us.   Meanwhile, once the next 90 days passes, we will have a better idea (rather than just predicting) whether the US is in a better, or worse position with its trading partners.  And maybe a few more gifts in the interim.

Yes, he was lying. Even Trump commented on the market reaction and bond yields being problematic.  And if it wasn't that, what was it?  There were no deals signed.  The only other reason would be a fear of reciprocal tariffs from EU, Canada and others (which would be even more of a cave).  How can anyone be surprised by this administration lying?  It's their base case. 

Edited April 12, 2025 by dwy000

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, dwy000 said:

Why on earth would EU and Japan tax the crap out of their own citizens to help Trump improve a trade deal with China?

The EU still hadn’t a lot of trade with both China and the US. I don’t think they interested in any trade war. Same for literally any other nation.

 

I still think the existing Tarifs are a grenade that has been thrown in a room that has not gone off yet. A lot of Chinese exports are components that go into existing  products build in the US and elsewhere. Then there is the rare earth export control ( a de facto ban) that is going to have an impact in a few month when exiting stock is depleted. This will affect high tech manufacturing, RV production and many other things that are going to be hard to predict. My guess is that a severe recession ow is inevitable, at least for the manufacturing sector.

 

I think the base case is that this trade conflict is toned down in the next few months  but I think the US- China trade relationship will never be the same again.Both countries will decouple each other , sort of what Zeihan has predicted. Also note that this decoupling increases the risk of a military conflict down the road.

[mattee2264]

In fairness, I do think that the "reciprocal" tariffs were always intended as a bluff to try to scare trading partners in advance of the negotiations. The pattern is similar to the dress rehearsal with Canada and Mexico with outlandish tariff increase announcements  then followed a few days later by a pause. Incidentally the Canada and Mexico tariff increases were announced in February and even after the pause there is still very little clarity what is happening with those two countries. And those are neighbouring countries! And it was supposedly because of a fairly limited disagreement over border enforcement. 

 

But I imagine they would have ideally wanted to make trading partners feel a bit more heat and provoke more of them into retaliating before granting pauses to those who didn't escalate and picked up the phone and "begged". 

 

 

[Sweet]

 

[backtothebeach]

43 minutes ago, Sweet said:

 

 

She bought a whole bunch of stuff April 3 and 4 according to the screenshot, not even great timing, yet the post text implies she bought right before the restrictions on AAPL and others were lifted on April 12.

 

I mean Trump probably didn't know until an hour before what he was going to do, but she can look 8 days into the future? Why do you repost this shit?

[dwy000]

1 hour ago, mattee2264 said:

In fairness, I do think that the "reciprocal" tariffs were always intended as a bluff to try to scare trading partners in advance of the negotiations. The pattern is similar to the dress rehearsal with Canada and Mexico with outlandish tariff increase announcements  then followed a few days later by a pause. Incidentally the Canada and Mexico tariff increases were announced in February and even after the pause there is still very little clarity what is happening with those two countries. And those are neighbouring countries! And it was supposedly because of a fairly limited disagreement over border enforcement. 

 

But I imagine they would have ideally wanted to make trading partners feel a bit more heat and provoke more of them into retaliating before granting pauses to those who didn't escalate and picked up the phone and "begged". 

 

 

This is the part I don't get.  What is "a deal" to be negotiated?  All of these countries would be happy to have reciprocal tariffs, likely at zero, because the US buys more from them than the other way. 

 

You can't force these countries to buy more stuff from the US at above market prices so what exactly is there to negotiate?

[Spekulatius]

I think ~40% of Canada’s exports to the  USA are still in the 25% bracket. auto, auto parts, Aluminum, steel, Lumber (lumber tariffs are even higher than 25% - 34%).

 

I do wonder if negotiating with Trump makes sense at all . There is no decent deal to be had with Trump‘s maximalist demands. Trump also tends to rip up agreements anyways, even those he negotiated himself. The only thing that makes sense is stalling tactics .

These 90 day will be interesting. I expect a lot of noise and very little tangible results, but we will see.

[Blake Hampton]

2 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

I think ~40% of Canada’s exports to the  USA are still in the 25% bracket. auto, auto parts, Aluminum, steel, Lumber (lumber tariffs are even higher than 25% - 34%).

 

I do wonder if negotiating with Trump makes sense at all . There is no decent deal to be had with Trump‘s maximalist demands. Trump also tends to rip up agreements anyways, even those he negotiated himself. The only thing that makes sense is stalling tactics .

These 90 day will be interesting. I expect a lot of noise and very little tangible results, but we will see.

 

Oil guy here:

Don't forget the 4 million barrels of crude a day; around 20% of our total consumption.

 

[Blake Hampton]

A 10% tariff on 20% of your oil consumption can have a larger impact than people might think.

[Blake Hampton]

The primary problem with a lot of these tariffs isn't just the cost of a specific product going up; it's the possibility of that cost being spread throughout the entire economy. When the price of gas goes up, you can bet that the input costs for basically EVERYTHING goes up. It has a sort of compounding effect. I read something a while back on this same premise regarding both steel and screws.

 

Edited April 13, 2025 by Blake Hampton

[Castanza]

7 hours ago, Paarslaars said:

Why not the other way around? Japan and Europe joining China VS US? It's not like the US can be considered trustworthy lately...

So the US is criticized (really just Trump) for breaking 100+ year ally relationships over some likely temporary tariffs. 
 

and somehow we jump to….

 

EU, Japan and other ally nations opening aligning with a dictatorial communist country.
 

If that happens I can’t help but think that’s far worse than imposing tariffs on ally nations. 
 

I think emotions are really getting the best of people. Otherwise the world is much more insane than just Donald J Trump; and there are bigger things to worry about. 
 

Just my two cents…

[Blake Hampton]

Trump is looking pretty dictatorish himself

[Blake Hampton]

It sort of feels like that scene in The SpongeBob Movie where Plankton put all the Chum Bucket helmets on everybody's head. I think those MAGA hats somehow turn off people's brain.

 

Edited April 13, 2025 by Blake Hampton

[Castanza]

5 hours ago, dwy000 said:

Why on earth would EU and Japan tax the crap out of their own citizens to help Trump improve a trade deal with China?

Because the “US” isn’t “Trump”. He’s the current CEO. You would think the expectations the EU has for the US (in terms of respecting allies) would be the same standards they hold for themselves. Do you play the long game with COUNTRIES; or do you make short term decisions based on single term Presidents? 

These types of views are extremely hypocritical imo. Exact thing @Gregmal is talking about imo. 
 

 

[Castanza]

21 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Trump is looking pretty dictatorish himself

Asshole sure…But a Dictator because of tariffs? 

Edited April 13, 2025 by Castanza

[dwy000]

10 minutes ago, Castanza said:

Because the “US” isn’t “Trump”. He’s the current CEO. You would think the expectations the EU has for the US (in terms of respecting allies) would be the same standards they hold for themselves. Do you play the long game with COUNTRIES; or do you make short term decisions based on single term Presidents? 

These types of views are extremely hypocritical imo. Exact thing @Gregmal is talking about imo. 
 

 

Normally you play the long game.  But Trump threw the wrench in that by tariffing allies and literally pushing America First.