Has anyone figured out who exactly the mastermind is behind these tariff tactics one after the other? They must be digging up these obscure justifications from somewhere.
Trump has literally been calling for tariffs for decades. Somewhere along the line, maybe when he wasn’t sleeping or bullying someone in school, he heard that before we had an income tax our government was funded mostly by tariffs. Having grown up listening to people like his dad rail against the government “stealing” their money through the income tax, Donnie the Genius just knew he had the solution. In fact he has said that his tariffs could replace the income tax.
I remember Jim Crow laws. Removing racial preferences, privileges and quotas are not Jim Crow laws. Between MAGA people and Woke people the nut fringe controls our primaries. Neither party has a respectable "base." What about moderates?
(1970s) Malaise And Gilded-age-greed Again. Whatever Don Cheato Snoreleone promised, this is what MAGA actually stands for, and what it actually produces for America and for the world.
Trump himself is stupid but his M.O. is to pay unscrupulous lawyers to find loopholes he can use to bulldoze his way through the system, morality and ethics be damned. And if a loophole is ruled illegal by his hand picked SCOTUS Justices because it’s patently outrageous, he already has a new loophole he paid the unscrupulous lawyers to swap in and roll out. Rinse and repeat
Gosh. Per the data, it sure looks like U.S. manufacturing was growing healthily during the Biden administration and is shrinking significantly under the Trump regime...
But I don't know – what should I believe? My lying eyes, or what Trump tells me?
Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and Chips and Science Act will produce a lot of jobs if they haven't already. Trump, however, is clawing back whatever funds were allocated in the Biden administration.
During the '24 campaign Trump gave the clear impression China and other countries would be pouring $Billions of beautiful tariff money into the U.S. Treasury. Not only is that a humongous lie, he's still doing it.
However, Trump revealed what his tariff scheme is really about by musing how it might replace the federal income tax. It's absurd but wouldn't he, Elon and his billionaire golfing buddies just love that!
Robert Mercer, hedge fund guy with one of the fastest private computers in the world, was the largest single contributor to Trump's first campaign when he installed his business partner Steve Bannon as campaign msnager.
Charles Koch. His late brother David wrote the 1980 Libertarian Party Platform which is still the playbook. Project 2025 is just a longer explication of those ideas.
I agree. Mercer, who was behind the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is a recluse who hides behind his daughter and has largely succeeded in vanishing from view. He certainly deserves attention. As do the others on your list.
Don't forget Russell Vought the Director of OMB. He may not be involved in the tariffs but he is dismantling from within. He is changing the rules on grants making them basically at the whim of the president.
I'll make an admission. After retiring, I wanted a full load of refresher economics coursework (as if 31 years in banking hadn't helped). The coursework was to work toward a Financial Crises course. Prerequisites were necessary including a lot of math.
I took intro micro and macro economics from UC-Davis. The Professor? Peter Navarro for both. The good news is intro coursework can't be screwed up. Much of my later work included a couple of Nobel Prize laureates. It was 2011. Please, forgive me.
Again, it's impossible to screw up introductory economics courses. Therefore, I'm in agreement Navarro went insane. However, I'm sure Navarro, though insane, he isn't babbling insane. This is Trump's authoritarian effort. 1/6 provided his dictatorial motivations. It caught most in full awe beyond words. Then came the separation of sycophants and those who remained centered in truth and rationality.
Paul Krugman continues to educate me. For that, I'm grateful.
I think you’re correct. I was not a great student of economics, but Paul Krugman is great at making economic concepts understandable to the ordinary person. This is one big reason I read him.
Not in 2011. My wife spoke about Giuliani during 9/11. They both appeared rational. A Harvard Economics PhD, Navarro knew the subject matter and never deviated.
What caused the metamorphosis? Here's our scary theory. Trump lacks a full skill base needed to be President. I've often wondered about dangerous authoritarians. Nearly all have few skills, Xi being an exception.
Putin, Un, Orban, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, etc. lacked skills to run a Nation. One unique skill is quite apparent. Build a propaganda machine and, if opposition happens, crush the opposition.
I never forgot Trump's claim he could shoot a person on 5th Avenue in his first campaign and he wouldn't lose a single voter. We all made a mistake. We didn't believe him. Then came 1/6 followed by elected sycophants who bowed to him. Trump has propaganda skills rarely encountered. The scary part is after he is gone, if the media becomes a dictatorial mouthpiece, it'll be difficult to unravel.
In the case of Giuliani and Navarro and a host of others, I compare successful authoritarians to a cobra. That animal has a unique skill to stare at prey. Unwavering, Then, when the prey is transfixed, the cobra strikes. Trump's followers never knew what hit them.
Fortunately, our Judicial Branch under Article III has mostly operated as an effective co-equal branch. If the 2026 election bears success in the House, Dems could achieve committee examination on legal issues. I don't want to raise your hope too much but 6 Senate seats are close. It's certain 3 will fall and the two seats held by Dems seem to hold. I'm shocked Iowa, Texas and Ohio are close. I suppose I should point out the Alaska Senate seats ought to go blue. Peltola won the at-large House seat in 2022. Holding both the House and Senate will pose difficulty on the administration's remaining two years.
Re the judicial branch, I'm afraid you forgot SCOTUS - as long as they're not afraid the trump insanity they're ruling on won't blow up the economy (rulings on the Fed and tariffs), they're as Trump compliant as any MAGAt.
The SCOTUS got some right. The Noem vs Garcia 9-0 decision, the 7-2 Enemies Aliens decision keeping the two planes holding Venezuelans from going to CECOT in El Salvador in April of 2025. The immigrants remain here out of detention. The 5-4 decision allowing the New York Court to hand down the 34 felonies on Trump. Decided on 1/9/25, 11 days before Trump took office. He's attempted in New York and through the Federal Appellate division and 2 Federal District Courts to reverse the felonies without success. Birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, Section 1, appears safe as it should. The 1898 Wong Kim Ark vs US remains a justified landmark decision.
This is but a summary. I'm aware the SCOTUS ought to have been more adverse on more Trump EOs. However, you take the wins when they come.
Giuliani's law firm represented Cambridge Analytica and sent their client a letter in April 2015 saying it's illegal to pay non-citizens to influence a US election. Mercer, Bannon, Mercer, and Nix soon had Giuliani working on the new Trump campaign managed by Bannon. Bannon made Giuliani director of cybersecurity for Trump. No kidding.
Navarro is in the news because he pushed the DOD to get involved with Vulcan, a a small, critical minerals company in NC which Don Jr. invested in. The DOD spent $600 Million in a rushed, no review contract. So Navarro is working behind the scenes.
The fact that “his” tariffs have been found to be illegal and will (if the government ever repays us) cost the government billions and put us further in debt should put him in a bulls eye for prosecution. When will any of these jerks be held accountable?
If by “us” you mean everyday Americans who are footing the bill through higher prices, we will never see a penny of repayment. Companies may eventually get repaid because they can show records. One more way that we get screwed while companies, who passed the cost along, will get to double dip.
Navarro helped DJTJr secure a govt. loan for $600+ million for a startup he is invested in. He's a Trump family stooge just like the entirely of Trump's cabinet and his staff.
‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival, a set of bold policy proposals, including hefty wealth taxes on billionaires, sharp reductions in working hours, a change in diets and a shift of investment from materially intense sectors, such as industry and mining, to education and health. The incomes of 89% of the world’s population could double by 2100 and global heating could be kept below 2C above the preindustrial average.
If these and other measures are taken, the report says, the incomes of 89% of the world’s population would double by 2100 and global heating would be kept below 2C above the preindustrial average. The authors say their vision provides a positive alternative to the grim projections from far-right techno extractivists, nationalists and billionaires who claim the future will inevitably bring more fossil fuels, climate disruption and inequality. “There’s a huge cultural, intellectual, political battle that is going on. And we all have a role to play,” said Thomas Piketty, a co-director of the WIL and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.
If he gets caught breaking the law, yes, he should go to jail. As I recall, he got jail time originally for contempt of Congress in refusing to respond to a Congressional subpoena.
It’s not just “who is behind the tariffs?” but also who is the engine for the all-night tweeting, and who is orchestrating the destruction of the civil service, snd who is coming up with all the crypto scamming. He’s not flooding the zone without a team of very deplorable henchmen.
Wow. I am kind of blown away that Trump has that level of involvement. I knew he wasn't actually creating any of it, but it's almost as unsettling to know that he takes the time to look at it, and actually signs off. So sick.
Nighttime tweeting is normal. Trump, like all members of the extraterrestrial MAGA species, is nocturnal and crepuscular. He sees into the infrared, aka "sees in the dark." He particularly enjoys sex on airplanes where he can control the cabin for humidity, air temperature, air pressure, and atmospheric composition. MAGA do not like the percentage of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. They do not like green, chlorophyllic plants increasing oxygen in their environment. Trump paved the Rose Garden.
Stephen and Katie Miller are both sociopaths, and Katie still thinks Trump can take Greenland and incorporate it into his imagined American empire. It’s not gonna happen, and the Greenlanders and Danes don’t want it to happen. Their wishes should be paramount. Trump imagined there are no negative consequences for stabbing our allies in the back. That is categorically untrue, and I for one am ashamed of his behavior toward our allies, especially Canada, Greenland and Denmark. I want Canada to expel Pete Hoekstra as ambassador for encouraging Alberta to secede from Canada. That is not the act of a true ally.
They want to create the Technate of America, a plan from the 1930s led by, among others, Elon Musk’s grandfather, to expand the US to include Canada, Greenland, and Central America. Check out a map of the Technate of America.
I’ve heard discussion of this, and it doesn’t surprise me at all they want to do this. We have to peacefully yet strongly resist this. I recommend Gil Durán’s blog and forthcoming book “The Nerd Reich.”
This is a trivial exercise for AI turned loose on trade law with modest prompting, limited expertise and marching orders with malignant intent. They will keep this rolling indefinitely and disregard results until removed and likely continue the efforts in every other available domain after removal. This is not an empirical calibration. Arguing on facts, while stimulating for those in opposition and driven by evidence, has nothing directly to do with the project fundamentals either strategically or tactically.
Trump has always been skilled at using and abusing our legal system. Mainly to delay his opponents and drain their resources until they give up. His new blitzkrieg tactics of going straight to SOCUS may come from one of his followers.
Appropriate name for Trump, as nincompoop comes from non compos mentis, and Trump has been increasingly showing signs of being non compos mentis with his decline in communication skills, vocabulary, and propensity for falling asleep in public.
I don’t think he is capable of coming up with anything other than vague off the cuff remarks. I’m not sure he even comes up with these, and isn’t fed them, while he dozes, only to parrot them when he is bolted awake. Sleep deprivation is a dangerous thing, hence me writing in the early morning hours.
Right, BUT - those who are feeding him are being fed money from the thieving trumpster-from-the-dumpster/nincompoop in our White House. The accomplices are also guilty of serious crimes, but which came first the chicken-plucker or the chicken-suckers? Just THROW ALL THE BUMS OUT NOW!!!
Ilene, good question but you attribute, perhaps, too much ‘logic’ to Trump’s caprices. His cabinet are all employed on the basis of ‘loyalty’ to Trump (not the US or the Constitution).
Maybe I’ve lost my sense of fairness, but people are often dumb enough to mess up gloriously and to keep digging that same hole which we can all see ,while insisting that it’s not a hole but a desired destination…
Vought is encouraging Trump’s noncompliance with the anti-impoundment acts. Vought is wrong on this and everything else. He has a JD degree from George Washington University Law School, but I was able to find no record that he has been licensed as an attorney in DC, Virginia or Maryland.
It could be, or maybe he never registered to take a bar exam. I’ve not heard these bar exams are especially difficult to pass. New York and California do have a reputation for difficult bar exams. In California, this is especially true because they require a high Multistate Bar Exam score to pass the bar exam. I took and passed bar exams in Michigan in 1991, in Ohio in 1993, and Pennsylvania in 1994. Back when I took the exams in Michigan and Pennsylvania, you could be admitted if you made a good faith effort to complete the essays and had a scaled score of 150 on the MBE in Mi, and a good faith effort on the essays and scaled score of 135 on the MBE in PA. I managed to get admitted in both states on the MBE. The bar examiners have since made both exams tougher to pass. I passed Ohio’s bar exam on both essays and multistate, and Ohio has also raised the minimum pass score on the bar exam. Many states are going to a next generation bar exam, and I need to learn what this is about.
President Donald Trump’s inner circle of legal defenders and sycophants has featured prominent figures who transitioned from his personal defense to top government positions. Among the most notable are Todd Blanche, his former lead defense attorney who transitioned into a top Department of Justice role, and legal advisor Boris Epshteyn, who played a central role in coordinating Trump's legal and political strategies. Maybe these people and a team of clerks going through a list of laws looking for loopholes like a bunch of tax attorneys?
Trumpkopf has always been obsessed with tariffs. There's no mastermind. Only sycophants, some of whom have sufficient knowledge of the law to research and dig up justifications for their Orange Führer.
chatgpt or grok, or whatever the pseudo-ai search engine is capable of digging up the obscure justification plus some sort of “big-balls” intern with a laptop. trump is always cheap. so whoever is finding these justifications, they must be cheap labor.
Thiel from Argentina, now? I think that it is the board of the Heritage Foundation, their goal is to screw up the works in what they hope will be their favor
At least part of the rationale has to be moving the burden of taxation from income to consumption. Obviously that would make taxes far more regressive—but that’s the whole point. Right now wealthy folks like Trump go to great lengths to avoid/evade income taxes. Taxing consumption instead—which is essentially what tariffs do—would shift the burden to groups that have to spend most of their income to survive.
Thank you for mentioning that the tariffs breach international agreements freely entered into. In the case of Canada the breach could not be more obvious. In a side letter to the USMCA the then President (Trump) agreed specifically not to impose Section 232 tariffs on Canadian auto exports unless they exceeded a certain threshold (which has not occurred). However Trump has done exactly that.
My question is this. There has been much discussion around who actually pays the tariffs, whether they are effective and whether and how much they raise the cost of living, but very little around the implications of the US flagrantly breaching agreements freely entered into. Is that considered to be a less important issue.
The impact of "the US flagrantly breaching agreements freely entered into" is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Furthermore, Trump's continuing "51st" comments show Trump intends to continuing flagrantly breeching agreements, and his goal is total domination not the best interests of Americans.
Given this, how can Mexico and Canada make any concessions to the Trump administration?
This leaves Shinbaum and Carney with the challenge of making a USMCA deal that punts any actual changes to the next administration as a "win" in order to not be a political football in the mid-terms.
Agree. Why would anyone make a concession to Trump in return for his agreement to stop violating ( or violating to a lesser degree) a prior agreement. Would this not be a clear case of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football.
One of the things that Trump does not understand is that others have agency. Trump is so toxic in Canada that it would be very difficult for Carney to make meaningful concessions even if Carney were (unwisely) inclined to do so.
Further to that important point, Trump keeps hoping for some kind of formal agreement with Iran. But he himself now regularly demonstrates that the United States doesn’t keep its own agreements any longer, so what does that mean for Iran? What is the value of any agreement if even the USA can no longer be trusted to keep them?
Other countries consider it to be a very important issue. NATO has passed a resolution that any item they buy must be less than 40% U.S. made. France has stepped up to provide the nuclear deterrent. Several countries have promised Denmark military support against the U.S. if the situation in Greenland requires it. The EU is migrating away from Microsoft after Congress passed a law allowing the U.S. government the right to grab any information that any U.S. company has, wherever it's stored. Several contracts for F-35s have been cancelled for various reasons. Canada is shipping LNG to Europe and building new shipping capabilities to expand these shipments. Canada is also expanding their Pacific pipeline and shipping oil to China.
Trump has reacted to the NATO actions by putting pressure on Asian nations to buy more military equipment made in the U.S.. Since South Korea is a new major supplier of equipment to NATO, I doubt the efforts in Asia will go very far.
Tariffs will be reset to where they have been according to the laws set by Congress immediately after the next Democratic POTUS takes office.
The problem of a lost of trust in the word of the political leadership of the United States of America is gone. Why sign an agreement with a Democratic POTUS and get the agreement through Congress as law if the next Republican POTUS will ditch it on a whim?
The long term damage to the country is incalculable. I wonder, if Putin were POTUS right now what would he be doing differently?
Yeah, we really need constitutional amendments to protect any agreement or treaty ratified by congress, and hold a president accountable for any violation of the law.
By ignoring treaties that have been ratified by Congress Trump is already breaking the law.
No one is doing anything about it. It is clear to any country that wants to do a deal with America that the rule of law doesn't exist for our POTUS. No Constitutional Amendment will fix that.
Barring serious consequences for Trump and his co-conspirators (up to and including imprisonment and confiscation of all his property) our reputation will never recover.
While I'm not prepared to say never, the damage is severe enough that it will take decades - at least a half century, and probably more - to recover to maybe 85% of where we were.
But, as I mentioned, it will take constitutional amendments and some serious adjustments to how a president can operate to regain any trustworthiness and credibility. Trust has to be earned, and Trumpkopf just summarily tossed it out the window.
I hope I live long enough to at least see the ball get rolling.
It shows in the LACK of International Visitors to our Country thereby lowering our share of economic growth from the Tourist Trade! It’s not just the Tourist Trade that is causing harm…My husband and I who have traditionally made several trips around the Country each year have stopped!!!
Agreed that "everyone knows the justification is a lie," but from a propaganda perspective, that's the game Trump plays, and has been playing his whole bullshit life. He doesn't really mean to deceive. Of course his crowd wasn't bigger. Of course he wasn't going to make eggs cheaper on Day 1. Of course those immigrants weren't eating your neighbor's cat. It’s another "sneeringly bogus" assertion of his power designed to enforce a tribal loyalty. And as a bonus he never has to admit that he was wrong about anything. That we let him continue to get away with this grift says way more about his legions of slack-jawed followers, greedy sycophants, and broken institutions than it does about him. I'm so sick of this shit.
Fair point and I should have been clearer. The deception isn't the primary point, it just happens to be convenient, and stunning, that people buy it. When he sent Sean Spicer up to the podium to double down on the crowd size BS it was a loyalty test. That was his very first presidential presser, roughly seven thousand years ago. Watching people fall over to defend him over obvious, blatant, verifiable lies feeds his ego like heroine. He foreshadowed this with his "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" comment. It's all in service of his narcissism and if people are dumb enough to believe it, you damn well better believe he'll capitalize on it. Shameless grift combined with a daddy-didn't-love-me complex is his perverse superpower. And we're living in his wake of sewage. Deplorables indeed.
To not believe what one says when one utters a falsehood (i.e., to lie) does not imply an intent to deceive. If I say that the moon is made of green cheese, I do not expect anyone to believe it. When Trump lies, he may intend to deceive members of his cult, but a portion of them probably do not believe his lies but say they do because they are members of his cult. His purpose is to test them, to keep them in line. I agree with Jonathan Fowler that "Watching people fall over to defend him over obvious, blatant, verifiable lies feeds his ego like heroine."
And then there is the vast majority of us who are not members of his cult. If he thinks that his lies can deceive us, then he is even stupider than I think.
The flaw of rubio, graham, cruz and others who changed their view of trump
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Trump has learned the truth of Goebbels' statement about the Big Lie, and demonstrates Arendt's discussion of it.
Remember that US 'News' organizations have consolidated tremendously, so just a few mega-corporations own most of the newspapers and radio/TV stations, and the few 'independents' are owned by complicit billionaires.
"What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?
If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.
This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." -Hannah Arendt
The fucking infuriating part is that it really should be in under the file of Lessons Learned / Mistakes to Not Repeat. Arendt had the fascists' art of bullshit nailed down 70 years ago, and she literally wrote down an instruction manual on how it all goes down (though this quote was from her last public interview in 1973). On top of that we've made thousands of more accessible documentaries and movies on this stuff - we have no reason to act blindsided. Anyway, I think Trump intuitively channels the grift, but gnarlier creeps with more neurons (e.g. Miller, Bannon, kinda Vance, definitely Tucker Carlson) have studied the masters and just recycle tried and true techniques.
And what should we be doing about it 700? Protest? We're doing that? Write and Call our Senators and Congresscritters? We're doing that. Boycott the big box stores like Walmart and Amazon? Millions of people are doing that, too. Vote the bums out? Well, now's the time...
You ask a good question. Here in the UK lots of people writing to their Member of Parliament does have an effect (note Boris Johnson’s unpopularity a few years ago). Are the US congressional districts sufficiently gerrymandered that members can largely ignore the electorate’s concerns?
We don’t have the same mechanisms as a parliamentary system. There is little recourse. The 25th amendment technically would allow it, but 1) the people who have to invoke it won’t and 2) even if they did, they are also part of the problem, so it would just be a new face but same story.
And in terms of our Representatives and Senators, it is yes and. Many House districts are gerrymandered, and that is getting worse by the day. These people also represent around 750,000 constituents. With 60-65% turning out in a presidential election year and less than 50% for midterms, they don’t really have to care. The constituents don’t seem to, so they don’t bother either. And the Senate is worse because every state gets two no matter what. So California with 39 million and Wyoming with 500,000 both get two senators. Clearly unfair, but also consider that each Wyoming senator represents fewer people than the average house member, even their own lone house rep if you divide the population on Wyoming amongst the two senators. Plus, in the current climate, many Rs have stopped taking calls, stopped holding local town halls, made finding contact info difficult, and responding altogether, even a canned form letter is hard to come by.
Sounds like you've got a pretty crappy system. Combine that with the aforementioned complacency and you're in for a rough ride. And you let that weather you call a.President inflict this lunacy on the rest of the world? You all deserve the disdain in which the nation is held. Shining city on a hill??? ... pathetic nation in the gutter is more like it. At least the myth of American exceptionalism is dead for good.
Trump is the problem, nobody seems to want to be correcting him - at all. He should be grabbed by the ass and collar and thrown to jail in a straitjacket. But, no no, let's wait to Midterms, the great U.S. democracy will prevail and we wont get our hands dirty. tsk tsk.
So, what? Same procedure when they do illegal things. The problem is more likely that U.S. people are chickensheit scared of upholding their ideals. At least that's the impression we get over here on the other side of the pond.
If there's any attempt to grab Trump and toss him in jail, future elections will be cancelled and Trump's Sicherheitsdienst (AKA "ICE") will start rounding all of us up.
Half the country watches Fox News and believes every word of it. Tariffs are just Trump fighting back against EU corruption that took advantage of the US for years. Case closed, eyes shut, ears plugged.
I think that Bames is pointing to the 30-40% of US Americans who still support Trump and his government.
Out here in the rest of the world, we understand that Trump is not ‘America’, and that it is extremely distressing for Americans.
But - Bames is making an uncomfortable point which is nonetheless relevant:
- Trump governs as the President of the USA, his mis-rule is that of the President (even ‘though it offends you at every level)
- the poison in the politics (I think most of us recognise a local variation of Trumpism in our own societies) is remarkably resistant to logic and legal argument.
‘We’ (US Americans & foreigners) have a problem which isn’t going away.
Please don’t give in to cynicism, please keep on writing/ talking/ speaking out.
The first set of tariffs were deemed illegal by the courts. I don't understand how U.S. people, all of them, are allowing Trump, for the third time, to impose a set of tariffs that are obviously also illegal. Most of what Trump does is illegal and people think an election is going to make things right. I don't get it.
Do you honestly believe that Trump will calmly allow election results that turn the House and/or the Senate. H will have armed US military troops picking up ballot boxes and voting machines and filing dozens of law suits in state and federal courts to delay the sitting of new representatives. Worse, I believe he will never leave the White Hose and it will require military action to get him and his cronies out of power. Like Adolph, he believes his "Empire " will last 1,000 years, never realizing that Adolph didn't even last a dozen.
Nope, I don't believe that Trump will calmly allow election results that turn the House and/or the Senate. You must be answering somebody else's post, I presume.
Curious to know what you are suggesting? Americans are trying to fight these illegalities through legal and peaceful means. Eventually — I believe, as a child of the sixties — patience will run out.
Patience indeed will eventually run out, but how will the U.S. look like then?
I'm suggesting that I don't understand how Trump can keep un pushing the same agenda of tariffs, even though it's quite clear it's illegal for him to do so the way he does it.
It's waste of citizens time and money to fool around like that and Trump should be penalized for not understanding this. Trump should be fired as president or even better locked up to prevent further damage.
(I hope my "French" doesn't offend - if so - please forgive). But I just need to complement the incomparable PAUL KRUGMAN for his persistent efforts to GIVE 'EM HELL!
Prof Krugman, one small request. Please don't put Donald Trump's disgusting face on your articles. We get to see enough this pathetic face on media everyday and that's enough.
As well as the wealth of the entire Muslim world, the Chinese Empires, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire and, don't forget the great sub-Sahara black empires of the pre colonization centuries.
Yes the greeks, romans, turks chinese, south asians all had slavery and people are still enslaved but the philosophers of the enlightment abhorred it which gave intellectual impetus to end it here.
For millions of us, this is our country. It's not perfect, but it's done a lot of great things and it's been a beacon of freedom and the rule of law throughout the world despite our flaws. It's degrading fast under Trump, but millions of us Americans are tying to reverse that.
Millions of us are trying to be worthy of our founding principles (which implied the end of slavery, for instance, and unlike any other country at the time, enshrined the logical end of slavery by stating "all Men are created equal").
Millions of Americans don't care about our founding principles, and some of them probably even want to bring slavery back. That's life in a democracy.
And seriously, what country do *you* live in? There's a 99% chance that your country was also, "built on slavery". Have you opened a history book lately?
The US GDP was $10B (adjusted) when slavery was abolished in 1865. Now it's 3000 times that. We've done just fine without slavery (better in fact).
Sorry, but I'm not going to pay for the sins of my grandfathers for the rest of my life, let alone my great great great great grandfathers.
I saw the FO before you edited it. Quite an opening salvo. As for the 'beacon of freedom and rule of law', that ship has sailed forever. I wasn't asking you to pay for slavery. I was merely acknowledging it.
I'm an historian, so yes, I have opened a history book lately. The $10bn figure means nothing unless it's relative to other nations at the time: an historian would know this. The US then was about 12% of the world's economy and 'By the end of the Civil War in 1865, enslaved people were the largest single financial asset in the American economy, valued at roughly $3 billion (over $50) billion adjusted for modern standards). Their forced labor and the cotton they produced generated wealth that laid the foundational infrastructure for modern U.S.'
And as for guiding principles, slavery was still there almost a century after 1776, though I guess you didn't hear of the founding fathers' 3/5ths solution before? Moreover, the US was one of the last countries to abolish slavery (before Yemen, Ethiopia, Korea, Cuba etc), and even that took a civil war; if you opened a history book lately, you might have read about that unpleasantness. And that civil war is still being fought at the highest levels of your government (re the Supreme Court ruling last week...just one example). That's enough of my day with the ignorant.
The lying part comes easy to this regime. As PK points out, the lies are obvious. Just something to kick the can down the road.
So to what end? Aside from stroking his own….ego, trumps main motivations are to extort bribes from billionaires and please Putin by disrupting world order. Thats it.
Translastion: As much as we would like to forget the Trump administration, we won't be able to. To use another metaphor, "Apres moi, le deluge"... the mess is coming, and it's big.
As one of the commenters on Lawyers, Guns and Money said, this is the problem with the Toddler: defeat never convinces him to step back, reconsider tactics, maybe walk softly for a while. His ego won't accept that so his response to being thwarted or defied is to try something else outrageous and stupid.
I am a Canadian subscriber and I count on your posts to help me make sense (or as much sense as is possible) of the chaos happening south of our border. As one of your largest trading partners and ally, I wish you would include Canada more in your analyses. Thank you for the thought, time and expertise you bring to your articles.
At first I thought all this tariff policy was simply because he is stupid and the Republicans supporting him are stupid as well, and I still maintian that fact but he has been so stubborn on this I think it is something more. He owes hundreds of millions if not billions to Russia and China, of course the Media no longer reports on this and killing our economy and strength of our nation maybe one of the things he has to do in lue of payments. We also know that while he doesn't pay his taxes here he does pay his taxes in China. People all forgot that China gave Trump some 16 trademarks for Trump goods sold in China. And Americans still made that P0S president. Racism and hate has near cost us all our country.
I’m no expert, but I gather he’s been a fan of tariffs for a very long time. Like many wealthy people, he hates income tax, because the wealthy pay a higher rate.
He learned that many years ago the federal government had NO income tax and was financed by tariffs.
Trump owes the proceeds of his illegal tariffs as a refund to the consumers who paid the illegally increased prices. I don’t count on any consumers on ever getting refunds of illegal tariffs they paid. The companies imposing the tariffs might get refunds instead. Trump is incapable of understanding the countries and manufacturers don’t get charged tariffs, the tariff costs are ultimately paid for by American consumers and are included in the prices they pay for foreign goods where Trump imposes tariffs.
I'm not sure that, from his point of view, the tariffs have failed, and that he is afraid to admit it. That would assume more rationality on his part than he possesses and would assume a concern for this country that he does not possess. He doesn't act because, however ignorantly and mistakenly, he thinks that he is doing something for the good of the country. He acts, to quote this post, to fulfill his "fantasies of omnipotence." Everything he does comes down to an attempt not to face his immeasurable psychological insecurity.
Has anyone figured out who exactly the mastermind is behind these tariff tactics one after the other? They must be digging up these obscure justifications from somewhere.
Surely it is not Trump himself, for to borrow a phrase from Huey Long, if you want to hide something from Donald Trump, put it in a book.
Trump has literally been calling for tariffs for decades. Somewhere along the line, maybe when he wasn’t sleeping or bullying someone in school, he heard that before we had an income tax our government was funded mostly by tariffs. Having grown up listening to people like his dad rail against the government “stealing” their money through the income tax, Donnie the Genius just knew he had the solution. In fact he has said that his tariffs could replace the income tax.
Tariffs, disco, misogyny, gas-guzzling cars, etc. = the Golden Age for Trump.
Jim Crow, too.
I remember Jim Crow laws. Removing racial preferences, privileges and quotas are not Jim Crow laws. Between MAGA people and Woke people the nut fringe controls our primaries. Neither party has a respectable "base." What about moderates?
(1970s) Malaise And Gilded-age-greed Again. Whatever Don Cheato Snoreleone promised, this is what MAGA actually stands for, and what it actually produces for America and for the world.
Trump himself is stupid but his M.O. is to pay unscrupulous lawyers to find loopholes he can use to bulldoze his way through the system, morality and ethics be damned. And if a loophole is ruled illegal by his hand picked SCOTUS Justices because it’s patently outrageous, he already has a new loophole he paid the unscrupulous lawyers to swap in and roll out. Rinse and repeat
Just LOVE your name for Trump .....I must remember this one ...Don Cheato Snoreleone! - brilliant!
good observation
"This is nothing but a transparently, one might say sneeringly, bogus rationale for continuing to flout both US law and international agreements."
Sneering and bogus is all they've got. Intelligence or intellect, not so much.
Time to give the bullies a black eye in November.
Gosh. Per the data, it sure looks like U.S. manufacturing was growing healthily during the Biden administration and is shrinking significantly under the Trump regime...
But I don't know – what should I believe? My lying eyes, or what Trump tells me?
Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and Chips and Science Act will produce a lot of jobs if they haven't already. Trump, however, is clawing back whatever funds were allocated in the Biden administration.
During the '24 campaign Trump gave the clear impression China and other countries would be pouring $Billions of beautiful tariff money into the U.S. Treasury. Not only is that a humongous lie, he's still doing it.
However, Trump revealed what his tariff scheme is really about by musing how it might replace the federal income tax. It's absurd but wouldn't he, Elon and his billionaire golfing buddies just love that!
Short List includes:
Robert Mercer, hedge fund guy with one of the fastest private computers in the world, was the largest single contributor to Trump's first campaign when he installed his business partner Steve Bannon as campaign msnager.
Charles Koch. His late brother David wrote the 1980 Libertarian Party Platform which is still the playbook. Project 2025 is just a longer explication of those ideas.
Aleksandr Dugin
Benjamin Netanyahu
I agree. Mercer, who was behind the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is a recluse who hides behind his daughter and has largely succeeded in vanishing from view. He certainly deserves attention. As do the others on your list.
Don't forget Russell Vought the Director of OMB. He may not be involved in the tariffs but he is dismantling from within. He is changing the rules on grants making them basically at the whim of the president.
Hee hee! 😝
😂 So much for being a stable genius. The latest brilliant idea? Doubling the national guard presence in DC despite outcome data proving it had “no measurable effect.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-dc-crime-rate-national-guard-violence-b2989203.html
😂
I would guess Peter Navarro is encouraging it, although he isn’t a formal member of Trump’s second administration.
I'll make an admission. After retiring, I wanted a full load of refresher economics coursework (as if 31 years in banking hadn't helped). The coursework was to work toward a Financial Crises course. Prerequisites were necessary including a lot of math.
I took intro micro and macro economics from UC-Davis. The Professor? Peter Navarro for both. The good news is intro coursework can't be screwed up. Much of my later work included a couple of Nobel Prize laureates. It was 2011. Please, forgive me.
Again, it's impossible to screw up introductory economics courses. Therefore, I'm in agreement Navarro went insane. However, I'm sure Navarro, though insane, he isn't babbling insane. This is Trump's authoritarian effort. 1/6 provided his dictatorial motivations. It caught most in full awe beyond words. Then came the separation of sycophants and those who remained centered in truth and rationality.
Paul Krugman continues to educate me. For that, I'm grateful.
I think you’re correct. I was not a great student of economics, but Paul Krugman is great at making economic concepts understandable to the ordinary person. This is one big reason I read him.
I've heard Navarro speak, and I think he IS babbling insane.
Not in 2011. My wife spoke about Giuliani during 9/11. They both appeared rational. A Harvard Economics PhD, Navarro knew the subject matter and never deviated.
What caused the metamorphosis? Here's our scary theory. Trump lacks a full skill base needed to be President. I've often wondered about dangerous authoritarians. Nearly all have few skills, Xi being an exception.
Putin, Un, Orban, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, etc. lacked skills to run a Nation. One unique skill is quite apparent. Build a propaganda machine and, if opposition happens, crush the opposition.
I never forgot Trump's claim he could shoot a person on 5th Avenue in his first campaign and he wouldn't lose a single voter. We all made a mistake. We didn't believe him. Then came 1/6 followed by elected sycophants who bowed to him. Trump has propaganda skills rarely encountered. The scary part is after he is gone, if the media becomes a dictatorial mouthpiece, it'll be difficult to unravel.
In the case of Giuliani and Navarro and a host of others, I compare successful authoritarians to a cobra. That animal has a unique skill to stare at prey. Unwavering, Then, when the prey is transfixed, the cobra strikes. Trump's followers never knew what hit them.
Fortunately, our Judicial Branch under Article III has mostly operated as an effective co-equal branch. If the 2026 election bears success in the House, Dems could achieve committee examination on legal issues. I don't want to raise your hope too much but 6 Senate seats are close. It's certain 3 will fall and the two seats held by Dems seem to hold. I'm shocked Iowa, Texas and Ohio are close. I suppose I should point out the Alaska Senate seats ought to go blue. Peltola won the at-large House seat in 2022. Holding both the House and Senate will pose difficulty on the administration's remaining two years.
We all have work to do.
Re the judicial branch, I'm afraid you forgot SCOTUS - as long as they're not afraid the trump insanity they're ruling on won't blow up the economy (rulings on the Fed and tariffs), they're as Trump compliant as any MAGAt.
IMO, few of the "justices" have a good grasp of the economy and what will blow it up.
The SCOTUS got some right. The Noem vs Garcia 9-0 decision, the 7-2 Enemies Aliens decision keeping the two planes holding Venezuelans from going to CECOT in El Salvador in April of 2025. The immigrants remain here out of detention. The 5-4 decision allowing the New York Court to hand down the 34 felonies on Trump. Decided on 1/9/25, 11 days before Trump took office. He's attempted in New York and through the Federal Appellate division and 2 Federal District Courts to reverse the felonies without success. Birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, Section 1, appears safe as it should. The 1898 Wong Kim Ark vs US remains a justified landmark decision.
This is but a summary. I'm aware the SCOTUS ought to have been more adverse on more Trump EOs. However, you take the wins when they come.
Giuliani's law firm represented Cambridge Analytica and sent their client a letter in April 2015 saying it's illegal to pay non-citizens to influence a US election. Mercer, Bannon, Mercer, and Nix soon had Giuliani working on the new Trump campaign managed by Bannon. Bannon made Giuliani director of cybersecurity for Trump. No kidding.
I haven’t heard anything about him for months. I thought he left with his tail wagging behind him. Oh wishful thinking I guess. Put him back in jail.
Navarro is in the news because he pushed the DOD to get involved with Vulcan, a a small, critical minerals company in NC which Don Jr. invested in. The DOD spent $600 Million in a rushed, no review contract. So Navarro is working behind the scenes.
The fact that “his” tariffs have been found to be illegal and will (if the government ever repays us) cost the government billions and put us further in debt should put him in a bulls eye for prosecution. When will any of these jerks be held accountable?
If by “us” you mean everyday Americans who are footing the bill through higher prices, we will never see a penny of repayment. Companies may eventually get repaid because they can show records. One more way that we get screwed while companies, who passed the cost along, will get to double dip.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted Seneca the Younger
Navarro helped DJTJr secure a govt. loan for $600+ million for a startup he is invested in. He's a Trump family stooge just like the entirely of Trump's cabinet and his staff.
When the world can finally leave Trump behind in the dust ‘an equal and habitable world is possible’:
Academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/04/world-inequality-lab-equality-academics-planetary-survival?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival, a set of bold policy proposals, including hefty wealth taxes on billionaires, sharp reductions in working hours, a change in diets and a shift of investment from materially intense sectors, such as industry and mining, to education and health. The incomes of 89% of the world’s population could double by 2100 and global heating could be kept below 2C above the preindustrial average.
If these and other measures are taken, the report says, the incomes of 89% of the world’s population would double by 2100 and global heating would be kept below 2C above the preindustrial average. The authors say their vision provides a positive alternative to the grim projections from far-right techno extractivists, nationalists and billionaires who claim the future will inevitably bring more fossil fuels, climate disruption and inequality. “There’s a huge cultural, intellectual, political battle that is going on. And we all have a role to play,” said Thomas Piketty, a co-director of the WIL and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.
thanks for posting this article
If he gets caught breaking the law, yes, he should go to jail. As I recall, he got jail time originally for contempt of Congress in refusing to respond to a Congressional subpoena.
They aren't "digging up" reasons. They are imagining reasons.
You’re correct.
Maybe even hallucinating them.
Yep
he crawled out for Wed's EO signing
No surprise there!
It’s not just “who is behind the tariffs?” but also who is the engine for the all-night tweeting, and who is orchestrating the destruction of the civil service, snd who is coming up with all the crypto scamming. He’s not flooding the zone without a team of very deplorable henchmen.
https://newrepublic.com/post/210363/donald-trump-team-pissed-aide-nighttime-social-media
Wow. I am kind of blown away that Trump has that level of involvement. I knew he wasn't actually creating any of it, but it's almost as unsettling to know that he takes the time to look at it, and actually signs off. So sick.
Very sick.
I heard it was that blonde lady
He tried to destroy the civil service in his first misadministration. I'm a bit surprised that it took him this long to remember about it.
His "team" are remoras
Nighttime tweeting is normal. Trump, like all members of the extraterrestrial MAGA species, is nocturnal and crepuscular. He sees into the infrared, aka "sees in the dark." He particularly enjoys sex on airplanes where he can control the cabin for humidity, air temperature, air pressure, and atmospheric composition. MAGA do not like the percentage of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. They do not like green, chlorophyllic plants increasing oxygen in their environment. Trump paved the Rose Garden.
Miller and project 2025
Maybe, but Miller is more consumed with “ridding the world of others”, not tariffs. Tariffs are not evil enough for him.
Stephen and Katie Miller are both sociopaths, and Katie still thinks Trump can take Greenland and incorporate it into his imagined American empire. It’s not gonna happen, and the Greenlanders and Danes don’t want it to happen. Their wishes should be paramount. Trump imagined there are no negative consequences for stabbing our allies in the back. That is categorically untrue, and I for one am ashamed of his behavior toward our allies, especially Canada, Greenland and Denmark. I want Canada to expel Pete Hoekstra as ambassador for encouraging Alberta to secede from Canada. That is not the act of a true ally.
They want to create the Technate of America, a plan from the 1930s led by, among others, Elon Musk’s grandfather, to expand the US to include Canada, Greenland, and Central America. Check out a map of the Technate of America.
I’ve heard discussion of this, and it doesn’t surprise me at all they want to do this. We have to peacefully yet strongly resist this. I recommend Gil Durán’s blog and forthcoming book “The Nerd Reich.”
In the US, currently, '54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level)' https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics.
"The Nerd Reich" - superb! Many thanks!!
Here 'tis - https://brilliantmaps.com/the-technate-of-america/
Maybe America First Legal or the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025).
Good guesses. They certainly have some legal historians digging to find anything useful.
This is a trivial exercise for AI turned loose on trade law with modest prompting, limited expertise and marching orders with malignant intent. They will keep this rolling indefinitely and disregard results until removed and likely continue the efforts in every other available domain after removal. This is not an empirical calibration. Arguing on facts, while stimulating for those in opposition and driven by evidence, has nothing directly to do with the project fundamentals either strategically or tactically.
Trump has always been skilled at using and abusing our legal system. Mainly to delay his opponents and drain their resources until they give up. His new blitzkrieg tactics of going straight to SOCUS may come from one of his followers.
Bari Weiss’s Free Press published an article indicating all the different tariffs Trump could use. I no longer subscribe.
I'm pretty sure it's only the NINCOMPOOP IN OUR WHITE HOUSE who's trying to tear everything down starting with THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE...
Appropriate name for Trump, as nincompoop comes from non compos mentis, and Trump has been increasingly showing signs of being non compos mentis with his decline in communication skills, vocabulary, and propensity for falling asleep in public.
Trump's middle-of-the-night posts are becoming more outlandish. I didn't think they could get crazier, but they have.
They are, and his behavior shows classic sundowning which occurs in people with various dementias.
Who are the skilled techies that build these?
Good question.
I don’t think he is capable of coming up with anything other than vague off the cuff remarks. I’m not sure he even comes up with these, and isn’t fed them, while he dozes, only to parrot them when he is bolted awake. Sleep deprivation is a dangerous thing, hence me writing in the early morning hours.
Right, BUT - those who are feeding him are being fed money from the thieving trumpster-from-the-dumpster/nincompoop in our White House. The accomplices are also guilty of serious crimes, but which came first the chicken-plucker or the chicken-suckers? Just THROW ALL THE BUMS OUT NOW!!!
Ilene, good question but you attribute, perhaps, too much ‘logic’ to Trump’s caprices. His cabinet are all employed on the basis of ‘loyalty’ to Trump (not the US or the Constitution).
Maybe I’ve lost my sense of fairness, but people are often dumb enough to mess up gloriously and to keep digging that same hole which we can all see ,while insisting that it’s not a hole but a desired destination…
Regards, Anthony
I don’t think it’s his cabinet. It’s some shadow others. Oh maybe Vought.
100% agreement from me on that point!
Vought is encouraging Trump’s noncompliance with the anti-impoundment acts. Vought is wrong on this and everything else. He has a JD degree from George Washington University Law School, but I was able to find no record that he has been licensed as an attorney in DC, Virginia or Maryland.
That is a significant finding. Maybe he couldn't pass examines.
It could be, or maybe he never registered to take a bar exam. I’ve not heard these bar exams are especially difficult to pass. New York and California do have a reputation for difficult bar exams. In California, this is especially true because they require a high Multistate Bar Exam score to pass the bar exam. I took and passed bar exams in Michigan in 1991, in Ohio in 1993, and Pennsylvania in 1994. Back when I took the exams in Michigan and Pennsylvania, you could be admitted if you made a good faith effort to complete the essays and had a scaled score of 150 on the MBE in Mi, and a good faith effort on the essays and scaled score of 135 on the MBE in PA. I managed to get admitted in both states on the MBE. The bar examiners have since made both exams tougher to pass. I passed Ohio’s bar exam on both essays and multistate, and Ohio has also raised the minimum pass score on the bar exam. Many states are going to a next generation bar exam, and I need to learn what this is about.
we know Peter Navarro is involved. but since he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, there must be someone behind him.
President Donald Trump’s inner circle of legal defenders and sycophants has featured prominent figures who transitioned from his personal defense to top government positions. Among the most notable are Todd Blanche, his former lead defense attorney who transitioned into a top Department of Justice role, and legal advisor Boris Epshteyn, who played a central role in coordinating Trump's legal and political strategies. Maybe these people and a team of clerks going through a list of laws looking for loopholes like a bunch of tax attorneys?
Navarro- decrepit old former addict. The economic “braintrust” behind tariffs.
Trumpkopf has always been obsessed with tariffs. There's no mastermind. Only sycophants, some of whom have sufficient knowledge of the law to research and dig up justifications for their Orange Führer.
chatgpt or grok, or whatever the pseudo-ai search engine is capable of digging up the obscure justification plus some sort of “big-balls” intern with a laptop. trump is always cheap. so whoever is finding these justifications, they must be cheap labor.
Thiel from Argentina, now? I think that it is the board of the Heritage Foundation, their goal is to screw up the works in what they hope will be their favor
He seems to be moving his family there, but I've read that he's retaining some residences in the States.
An intern paid minimum wage who knows how to Google.
At least part of the rationale has to be moving the burden of taxation from income to consumption. Obviously that would make taxes far more regressive—but that’s the whole point. Right now wealthy folks like Trump go to great lengths to avoid/evade income taxes. Taxing consumption instead—which is essentially what tariffs do—would shift the burden to groups that have to spend most of their income to survive.
Thank you for mentioning that the tariffs breach international agreements freely entered into. In the case of Canada the breach could not be more obvious. In a side letter to the USMCA the then President (Trump) agreed specifically not to impose Section 232 tariffs on Canadian auto exports unless they exceeded a certain threshold (which has not occurred). However Trump has done exactly that.
My question is this. There has been much discussion around who actually pays the tariffs, whether they are effective and whether and how much they raise the cost of living, but very little around the implications of the US flagrantly breaching agreements freely entered into. Is that considered to be a less important issue.
The impact of "the US flagrantly breaching agreements freely entered into" is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Furthermore, Trump's continuing "51st" comments show Trump intends to continuing flagrantly breeching agreements, and his goal is total domination not the best interests of Americans.
Given this, how can Mexico and Canada make any concessions to the Trump administration?
This leaves Shinbaum and Carney with the challenge of making a USMCA deal that punts any actual changes to the next administration as a "win" in order to not be a political football in the mid-terms.
Agree. Why would anyone make a concession to Trump in return for his agreement to stop violating ( or violating to a lesser degree) a prior agreement. Would this not be a clear case of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football.
One of the things that Trump does not understand is that others have agency. Trump is so toxic in Canada that it would be very difficult for Carney to make meaningful concessions even if Carney were (unwisely) inclined to do so.
Further to that important point, Trump keeps hoping for some kind of formal agreement with Iran. But he himself now regularly demonstrates that the United States doesn’t keep its own agreements any longer, so what does that mean for Iran? What is the value of any agreement if even the USA can no longer be trusted to keep them?
All the commenting will do nothing. There is a core 35% support
Non fa
Other countries consider it to be a very important issue. NATO has passed a resolution that any item they buy must be less than 40% U.S. made. France has stepped up to provide the nuclear deterrent. Several countries have promised Denmark military support against the U.S. if the situation in Greenland requires it. The EU is migrating away from Microsoft after Congress passed a law allowing the U.S. government the right to grab any information that any U.S. company has, wherever it's stored. Several contracts for F-35s have been cancelled for various reasons. Canada is shipping LNG to Europe and building new shipping capabilities to expand these shipments. Canada is also expanding their Pacific pipeline and shipping oil to China.
Trump has reacted to the NATO actions by putting pressure on Asian nations to buy more military equipment made in the U.S.. Since South Korea is a new major supplier of equipment to NATO, I doubt the efforts in Asia will go very far.
The answer to that depends on who you ask. IMHO, they are equally serious problems that need to be rectified.
Tariffs will be reset to where they have been according to the laws set by Congress immediately after the next Democratic POTUS takes office.
The problem of a lost of trust in the word of the political leadership of the United States of America is gone. Why sign an agreement with a Democratic POTUS and get the agreement through Congress as law if the next Republican POTUS will ditch it on a whim?
The long term damage to the country is incalculable. I wonder, if Putin were POTUS right now what would he be doing differently?
Yeah, we really need constitutional amendments to protect any agreement or treaty ratified by congress, and hold a president accountable for any violation of the law.
By ignoring treaties that have been ratified by Congress Trump is already breaking the law.
No one is doing anything about it. It is clear to any country that wants to do a deal with America that the rule of law doesn't exist for our POTUS. No Constitutional Amendment will fix that.
Barring serious consequences for Trump and his co-conspirators (up to and including imprisonment and confiscation of all his property) our reputation will never recover.
While I'm not prepared to say never, the damage is severe enough that it will take decades - at least a half century, and probably more - to recover to maybe 85% of where we were.
But, as I mentioned, it will take constitutional amendments and some serious adjustments to how a president can operate to regain any trustworthiness and credibility. Trust has to be earned, and Trumpkopf just summarily tossed it out the window.
I hope I live long enough to at least see the ball get rolling.
Canadians are furious. Many are refusing to vacation in the US.
It shows in the LACK of International Visitors to our Country thereby lowering our share of economic growth from the Tourist Trade! It’s not just the Tourist Trade that is causing harm…My husband and I who have traditionally made several trips around the Country each year have stopped!!!
Agreed that "everyone knows the justification is a lie," but from a propaganda perspective, that's the game Trump plays, and has been playing his whole bullshit life. He doesn't really mean to deceive. Of course his crowd wasn't bigger. Of course he wasn't going to make eggs cheaper on Day 1. Of course those immigrants weren't eating your neighbor's cat. It’s another "sneeringly bogus" assertion of his power designed to enforce a tribal loyalty. And as a bonus he never has to admit that he was wrong about anything. That we let him continue to get away with this grift says way more about his legions of slack-jawed followers, greedy sycophants, and broken institutions than it does about him. I'm so sick of this shit.
"He doesn't really mean to deceive."
Baloney. Do you really think he believes what he says? (Well, maybe now he does, but back when he was lucid?)
Fair point and I should have been clearer. The deception isn't the primary point, it just happens to be convenient, and stunning, that people buy it. When he sent Sean Spicer up to the podium to double down on the crowd size BS it was a loyalty test. That was his very first presidential presser, roughly seven thousand years ago. Watching people fall over to defend him over obvious, blatant, verifiable lies feeds his ego like heroine. He foreshadowed this with his "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" comment. It's all in service of his narcissism and if people are dumb enough to believe it, you damn well better believe he'll capitalize on it. Shameless grift combined with a daddy-didn't-love-me complex is his perverse superpower. And we're living in his wake of sewage. Deplorables indeed.
I feel it was at least 20,000 years ago...
To not believe what one says when one utters a falsehood (i.e., to lie) does not imply an intent to deceive. If I say that the moon is made of green cheese, I do not expect anyone to believe it. When Trump lies, he may intend to deceive members of his cult, but a portion of them probably do not believe his lies but say they do because they are members of his cult. His purpose is to test them, to keep them in line. I agree with Jonathan Fowler that "Watching people fall over to defend him over obvious, blatant, verifiable lies feeds his ego like heroine."
And then there is the vast majority of us who are not members of his cult. If he thinks that his lies can deceive us, then he is even stupider than I think.
The flaw of rubio, graham, cruz and others who changed their view of trump
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Are you saying that Rubio, Graham, and Cruz have not changed their view of Trump but have only professed to?
yes
Seems like trump bought Rubio's loyalty by tossing him the Cuba bone. Cruz and Graham?
Trump has learned the truth of Goebbels' statement about the Big Lie, and demonstrates Arendt's discussion of it.
Remember that US 'News' organizations have consolidated tremendously, so just a few mega-corporations own most of the newspapers and radio/TV stations, and the few 'independents' are owned by complicit billionaires.
"What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?
If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.
This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." -Hannah Arendt
The fucking infuriating part is that it really should be in under the file of Lessons Learned / Mistakes to Not Repeat. Arendt had the fascists' art of bullshit nailed down 70 years ago, and she literally wrote down an instruction manual on how it all goes down (though this quote was from her last public interview in 1973). On top of that we've made thousands of more accessible documentaries and movies on this stuff - we have no reason to act blindsided. Anyway, I think Trump intuitively channels the grift, but gnarlier creeps with more neurons (e.g. Miller, Bannon, kinda Vance, definitely Tucker Carlson) have studied the masters and just recycle tried and true techniques.
It's incredible how complacent U.S. people are with the situation. The tariffs should have been an easy no-no.
And what should we be doing about it 700? Protest? We're doing that? Write and Call our Senators and Congresscritters? We're doing that. Boycott the big box stores like Walmart and Amazon? Millions of people are doing that, too. Vote the bums out? Well, now's the time...
You ask a good question. Here in the UK lots of people writing to their Member of Parliament does have an effect (note Boris Johnson’s unpopularity a few years ago). Are the US congressional districts sufficiently gerrymandered that members can largely ignore the electorate’s concerns?
We don’t have the same mechanisms as a parliamentary system. There is little recourse. The 25th amendment technically would allow it, but 1) the people who have to invoke it won’t and 2) even if they did, they are also part of the problem, so it would just be a new face but same story.
And in terms of our Representatives and Senators, it is yes and. Many House districts are gerrymandered, and that is getting worse by the day. These people also represent around 750,000 constituents. With 60-65% turning out in a presidential election year and less than 50% for midterms, they don’t really have to care. The constituents don’t seem to, so they don’t bother either. And the Senate is worse because every state gets two no matter what. So California with 39 million and Wyoming with 500,000 both get two senators. Clearly unfair, but also consider that each Wyoming senator represents fewer people than the average house member, even their own lone house rep if you divide the population on Wyoming amongst the two senators. Plus, in the current climate, many Rs have stopped taking calls, stopped holding local town halls, made finding contact info difficult, and responding altogether, even a canned form letter is hard to come by.
The last time I got a reply from my Republican "representative", he claimed to have co-sponsored a bill that he actually voted against.
Sounds like you've got a pretty crappy system. Combine that with the aforementioned complacency and you're in for a rough ride. And you let that weather you call a.President inflict this lunacy on the rest of the world? You all deserve the disdain in which the nation is held. Shining city on a hill??? ... pathetic nation in the gutter is more like it. At least the myth of American exceptionalism is dead for good.
It seems to be.
Trump is the problem, nobody seems to want to be correcting him - at all. He should be grabbed by the ass and collar and thrown to jail in a straitjacket. But, no no, let's wait to Midterms, the great U.S. democracy will prevail and we wont get our hands dirty. tsk tsk.
Actually, the problem is much wider than Prumt. Imagine, who replaces him?
he can't be replaced; his base does not like couch wanker vance. trump gone so is maga.
So, what? Same procedure when they do illegal things. The problem is more likely that U.S. people are chickensheit scared of upholding their ideals. At least that's the impression we get over here on the other side of the pond.
Not *all* of the U.S. people.
Please recall Minnesota and ICE.
Please recall Brexit.
Stupid people do stupid political things in every government, sadly..
The US system is in many ways a lot more rigid than Westminster parliaments.
The rigid fixed timetable for one thing. The office of the president, which has no Westminster equivalent since the King lost political power.
Similarly there’s two houses, the Senate and Representatives. Westminster has no Senate since the House of Lords lost political power.
With three separate bodies, it’s a wonder anything gets done at all in the US.
If there's any attempt to grab Trump and toss him in jail, future elections will be cancelled and Trump's Sicherheitsdienst (AKA "ICE") will start rounding all of us up.
🤣🤣🤣 on 700!
Half the country watches Fox News and believes every word of it. Tariffs are just Trump fighting back against EU corruption that took advantage of the US for years. Case closed, eyes shut, ears plugged.
That’s exactly how they talk!
Hello.
I think that Bames is pointing to the 30-40% of US Americans who still support Trump and his government.
Out here in the rest of the world, we understand that Trump is not ‘America’, and that it is extremely distressing for Americans.
But - Bames is making an uncomfortable point which is nonetheless relevant:
- Trump governs as the President of the USA, his mis-rule is that of the President (even ‘though it offends you at every level)
- the poison in the politics (I think most of us recognise a local variation of Trumpism in our own societies) is remarkably resistant to logic and legal argument.
‘We’ (US Americans & foreigners) have a problem which isn’t going away.
Please don’t give in to cynicism, please keep on writing/ talking/ speaking out.
Anthony
No, I'm not pointing to anyone in particular.
The first set of tariffs were deemed illegal by the courts. I don't understand how U.S. people, all of them, are allowing Trump, for the third time, to impose a set of tariffs that are obviously also illegal. Most of what Trump does is illegal and people think an election is going to make things right. I don't get it.
Do you honestly believe that Trump will calmly allow election results that turn the House and/or the Senate. H will have armed US military troops picking up ballot boxes and voting machines and filing dozens of law suits in state and federal courts to delay the sitting of new representatives. Worse, I believe he will never leave the White Hose and it will require military action to get him and his cronies out of power. Like Adolph, he believes his "Empire " will last 1,000 years, never realizing that Adolph didn't even last a dozen.
Nope, I don't believe that Trump will calmly allow election results that turn the House and/or the Senate. You must be answering somebody else's post, I presume.
Curious to know what you are suggesting? Americans are trying to fight these illegalities through legal and peaceful means. Eventually — I believe, as a child of the sixties — patience will run out.
Cartoon created by Aaron Allen-
Two vultures on a branch:
"Hell with patience, I'm gonna go out and kill something".
https://quotesgram.com/img/cartoon-quotes-about-patience/8510643/
Patience indeed will eventually run out, but how will the U.S. look like then?
I'm suggesting that I don't understand how Trump can keep un pushing the same agenda of tariffs, even though it's quite clear it's illegal for him to do so the way he does it.
It's waste of citizens time and money to fool around like that and Trump should be penalized for not understanding this. Trump should be fired as president or even better locked up to prevent further damage.
I imagine quite a lot of MAGA people enjoy it, because they see it as Trump sticking it to "the libs". Whoever "the libs" are...
Perhaps they are, but at one point they will be awakened when their ass is on the line, when Trump's policies repercuss to their small world.
You just answered your own question there. You seem confused.
Absolutely there is Trumpism elsewhere. See Canada’s Alberta separatists, for example (currently being encouraged by Trump himself).
Not all of us. But there are so many out rages and the GOP led Congress does nothing.
(I hope my "French" doesn't offend - if so - please forgive). But I just need to complement the incomparable PAUL KRUGMAN for his persistent efforts to GIVE 'EM HELL!
You have both complemented him in his efforts and complimented him for them.
Prof Krugman, one small request. Please don't put Donald Trump's disgusting face on your articles. We get to see enough this pathetic face on media everyday and that's enough.
Was it really 14 months ago? Feels like 14 lifetimes.
For a country whose wealth was built on slavery, this moral high ground is, as usual, sickening.
as was the wealth of britain, spain, and portugal. Even belgium's colonization of the Congo
As well as the wealth of the entire Muslim world, the Chinese Empires, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire and, don't forget the great sub-Sahara black empires of the pre colonization centuries.
Yes the greeks, romans, turks chinese, south asians all had slavery and people are still enslaved but the philosophers of the enlightment abhorred it which gave intellectual impetus to end it here.
This comment is sickening, in fact.
For millions of us, this is our country. It's not perfect, but it's done a lot of great things and it's been a beacon of freedom and the rule of law throughout the world despite our flaws. It's degrading fast under Trump, but millions of us Americans are tying to reverse that.
Millions of us are trying to be worthy of our founding principles (which implied the end of slavery, for instance, and unlike any other country at the time, enshrined the logical end of slavery by stating "all Men are created equal").
Millions of Americans don't care about our founding principles, and some of them probably even want to bring slavery back. That's life in a democracy.
And seriously, what country do *you* live in? There's a 99% chance that your country was also, "built on slavery". Have you opened a history book lately?
The US GDP was $10B (adjusted) when slavery was abolished in 1865. Now it's 3000 times that. We've done just fine without slavery (better in fact).
Sorry, but I'm not going to pay for the sins of my grandfathers for the rest of my life, let alone my great great great great grandfathers.
I saw the FO before you edited it. Quite an opening salvo. As for the 'beacon of freedom and rule of law', that ship has sailed forever. I wasn't asking you to pay for slavery. I was merely acknowledging it.
I'm an historian, so yes, I have opened a history book lately. The $10bn figure means nothing unless it's relative to other nations at the time: an historian would know this. The US then was about 12% of the world's economy and 'By the end of the Civil War in 1865, enslaved people were the largest single financial asset in the American economy, valued at roughly $3 billion (over $50) billion adjusted for modern standards). Their forced labor and the cotton they produced generated wealth that laid the foundational infrastructure for modern U.S.'
And as for guiding principles, slavery was still there almost a century after 1776, though I guess you didn't hear of the founding fathers' 3/5ths solution before? Moreover, the US was one of the last countries to abolish slavery (before Yemen, Ethiopia, Korea, Cuba etc), and even that took a civil war; if you opened a history book lately, you might have read about that unpleasantness. And that civil war is still being fought at the highest levels of your government (re the Supreme Court ruling last week...just one example). That's enough of my day with the ignorant.
The lying part comes easy to this regime. As PK points out, the lies are obvious. Just something to kick the can down the road.
So to what end? Aside from stroking his own….ego, trumps main motivations are to extort bribes from billionaires and please Putin by disrupting world order. Thats it.
On oubliera jamais. Québec, Canada.
Je me souviens!
Translastion: As much as we would like to forget the Trump administration, we won't be able to. To use another metaphor, "Apres moi, le deluge"... the mess is coming, and it's big.
En tabarnak, mets-en, s'ti. 😬
As one of the commenters on Lawyers, Guns and Money said, this is the problem with the Toddler: defeat never convinces him to step back, reconsider tactics, maybe walk softly for a while. His ego won't accept that so his response to being thwarted or defied is to try something else outrageous and stupid.
I am a Canadian subscriber and I count on your posts to help me make sense (or as much sense as is possible) of the chaos happening south of our border. As one of your largest trading partners and ally, I wish you would include Canada more in your analyses. Thank you for the thought, time and expertise you bring to your articles.
He probably doesn’t know much about Canada.
At first I thought all this tariff policy was simply because he is stupid and the Republicans supporting him are stupid as well, and I still maintian that fact but he has been so stubborn on this I think it is something more. He owes hundreds of millions if not billions to Russia and China, of course the Media no longer reports on this and killing our economy and strength of our nation maybe one of the things he has to do in lue of payments. We also know that while he doesn't pay his taxes here he does pay his taxes in China. People all forgot that China gave Trump some 16 trademarks for Trump goods sold in China. And Americans still made that P0S president. Racism and hate has near cost us all our country.
I’m no expert, but I gather he’s been a fan of tariffs for a very long time. Like many wealthy people, he hates income tax, because the wealthy pay a higher rate.
He learned that many years ago the federal government had NO income tax and was financed by tariffs.
This is the root of his obsession with tariffs.
Trump caring about slave labour is almost as amusing as him caring about sex trafficking.
Indeed! It’s completely ridiculous.
Trump owes the proceeds of his illegal tariffs as a refund to the consumers who paid the illegally increased prices. I don’t count on any consumers on ever getting refunds of illegal tariffs they paid. The companies imposing the tariffs might get refunds instead. Trump is incapable of understanding the countries and manufacturers don’t get charged tariffs, the tariff costs are ultimately paid for by American consumers and are included in the prices they pay for foreign goods where Trump imposes tariffs.
I'm not sure that, from his point of view, the tariffs have failed, and that he is afraid to admit it. That would assume more rationality on his part than he possesses and would assume a concern for this country that he does not possess. He doesn't act because, however ignorantly and mistakenly, he thinks that he is doing something for the good of the country. He acts, to quote this post, to fulfill his "fantasies of omnipotence." Everything he does comes down to an attempt not to face his immeasurable psychological insecurity.