Summary
Global leaders criticized Trump’s new tariffs, which range from 10% to 49%, warning of trade wars and economic fallout.
The UK and Italy urged negotiation, while Brazil passed a reciprocity bill. China and South Korea vowed countermeasures.
Australia and New Zealand rejected Trump’s logic, citing existing trade deals and low tariffs. Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.
Financial markets dropped, oil and bitcoin sank, and leaders warned of inflation. Analysts say Trump risks fracturing global trade with little to gain economically.
There is simple logic in it. Punish everyone, and then let them come to you asking for exemptions. Then he can demand things in exchange. After that it’s “Pray I don’t alter the deal any further.”
UK already asked for an exemption and he said they should buy chlorinated chicken first. If every country responds in the same way and gives in he’s making bank. If they respond with a boycott on anything American, especially digital services, things get bad.
Well if hes following Project 2025, which it seems based on recent comments by Elon Musk, then hes expecting other countries to remove all tariffs first. As you say, chlorinated chicken, but if you dont then you dont get to sell your healthy chickens to America, and all that money you owe thats denominated in USD becomes very hard to acquire.
Maybe the better option is to allow it but to label it with its harmful chemicals, let the free market decide, in a kind of democratic process of people determining their own marginal utility versus budget constraints. You can still buy cigarettes in the UK and Europe as well, so whats a bit of American chicken versus a lifetime of smoking?
Then next Trump would just threaten with tariffs again until the labeling had been removed. Then he’ll threaten again for their oversized cars. There won’t be an end to this.
Chlorinated chicken…?
Is that as mouth-watering as it sounds?
For when your food grows up in so much squalor that you need to dip them in chlorine to fake the bacterial culture tests.
Oh no.
I hope the EU reacts with something non-tariffy. Like forbidding US online platforms to serve ads and collect personal data, with severe punishments if they still do.
I recently read an article that suggested the best retaliation would be to stop enforcing US intellectual property in the EU. One of the biggest exports they have is media, if we would stop enforcing their copyright it would cost them a lot of money.
You don’t even have to go that far. Just adopt sane copyright laws, like copyright only lasting the life of the artist.
Thats still too long imo. Patents are 20 years, so should every IP protection.
If it’s good enough for inventors, it’s good enough for musicians, writters and software developers.
Exactly. Especially when you figure in the longer scale up time with an invention. You can’t just flip a switch and start making money.
Yeah, but think about the grandchildren of the CEO who bought that IP from the artist‽
Do you want them to
starvehave to work for a living?Copyright and patent laws should just go away entirely.
The amount of resources we spend enforcing them, just so we can spend more resources on the products themselves, could all be spent improving the lives of people who need it.
Most great art doesn’t make much money anyways, barely more than a service job if you’re lucky. It’s the trashy-shit for low-standards morons that makes an egregious amount of money, like the marvel crap we keep seeing every year.
I’d be fine with less marvel-crap in the world. It’ll make what we do get more impactful, and we can dedicate more resources to fewer, higher-quality products.
That’s a great plan for letting those mega corps steal from the little guy EVEN more than they already do
Not really.
Corporations aren’t going to be making billions of dollars off of, say Photoshop, if copyright and patents laws didn’t exist.
Same goes for hollywood movies.
You’re peddling rhetoric that was put here by your oppressors so you will work against your own interests. Congratulations.
The entities with the established distribution networks will make the money, not the little guy who makes their own little story.
If I write a little seld published novel, under your system, Hollywood can just take that story and make a movie of it without my permission. How is that better? You think more people pirating will take down these mega corps? Your system is chaos that’s even worse than the current model.
They can do so currently by making a couple of minor changes and settling for a pittance because your lawsuit would bankrupt you.
“Chaos” is a better system than one benefitting corporations only.
Your dilemma essentially translates to “wahh, he stole my idea!”
You’re also missing the forest for the trees, again. How is hollywood going to make an egregious amount of money off of ‘your’ idea without copyright and patent laws? Without them, piracy isn’t piracy. It’s just a normal and legal way of sharing media.
Sad watching how hard you people go to bat for your oppressors, but it really puts into perspective why things are the way they are.
The average person just can’t see past their conditioning or how hard they’ve been indoctrinated to support a system that works against them. In the words of Mark Twain, “it’s easier to fool a man than to convince him he’d been fooled.”
Your mistake is thinking that Marvel is art.
Everything done with skill is art. From Citizen Kane to the design of a candy wrapper.
Sure, but that wording becomes detrimental when you only expect high-quality things because that’s what you associate with art, forgetting that there is also entertainment that doesn’t need to be high quality necessarily.
MY wording?
You were the one claiming marvel movies weren’t.
I think a lot of that kind of stuff is going to happen. I don’t think other countries are insulted, as much as they find it ridiculous, and to be ridiculed, I think they’re going to do some inventive chaos. I think we need to be building some world bingo cards, and I’ll bet we won’t guess all the (hopefully hilarious) petty revenges about to snowball.
Official EU website hosting American-made media for a nominal fee. Can’t tariff data!
Would also save the EU an enormous amount in monitoring and enforcement
Of that I am not convinced. This will work with a lot of smaller countries that don’t have much of a copyright portfolio, but not with Europe.
Yes that would be amazing and a great stimulant for EU companies to start developing a competing platform of it’s own (we have BeReal, Dailymotion, Medal and Dumpert, but they aren’t very big AFAIK)
Having Non-US platforms would be nice, yes, But leaving the US-based ones without ad revenue and a shit-ton of users would be nice, too.
Why not both?
Advertising should just be illegal.
It gives an unfair advantage to those who already have an unfair advantage.
I recommend installing an addon called AdNauseam to block ads in addition to sending data that you’ve clicked them.
Please everyone. Try to understand that being a useful idiot is the norm these days. It’s what’s cool.
Nice mention of AdNauseam, here is a link:
It’s based on uBlock Origin, so still state of the art in ad-blocking.
Someone needs to create plugins not to block data being sent, but to send inordinate amounts of trash data.
Make the whole system pointless.
or something ultra specific that is super easy to source from any other country, to exclusively hurt the american businesses
or something ultra specific that is super easy to source from any other country, to exclusively hurt the american businesses
That was part of what went into how Canada chose the targets of our first rounds of counter-tariffs.
Product categories that we also make here, or can easily get elsewhere or can comfortably do without for an extended period of time.
That combined with a consumer led boycott of anything "made in the USA " and even staunch Republicans like Mitch McConnell are starting to push back against Trump.
We can only hope.
Have we forgotten that he has done this each month since he was Inaugurated?
Today the stock market will crash on this news. The wealthy will buy on this massive dip, and in a few days, HitlerPig will announce that the countries on his list have responded to his tariff threats, so he is postponing them for a month or so.
The stock market will recover a bit, and the wealthy will make a fortune. In a month, he’ll do it all over again.
It’s deliberate market manipulation.
I am stealing “HitlerPig”
I’ve been using it ever since i heard thats what the younger staffers in the Biden White House called him. I found it simultaneously hilarious, vicious, and accurate. I encourage you and others to use it often.
Agent Krasnov is an acceptsble alternative.
Other suggestions:
Kapo Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller (my favorite)
Steve “Unwiped Asshole” Bannon
Empty G
Lauren Boobert
Big Boobie Bondi
Couchfucker Vance (not very original, but a good reminder)
Gold Digging Whore (the Propaganda Secretary, I can’t be bothered to learn her name)
Traitor also works for all of them. Nazi, too.
D-bag works well enough for my purposes
Sure, whatever works for you.
And we’ll all be destitute for it. Everyone loses when they do this, yes, even they do in the long run. Once nobody can buy a loaf of bread I’m sure we’ll collectively decide right at that moment that the rich actually do taste good and maybe they should pay more in taxes.
Trump’s government has made the US a village idiot - and if the idiot gets into a fight with the whole village, the idiot will have more bruises.
Why he does that - I don’t pretend to understand.
He’s preparing for an authoritarian takeover.
Almost every dictator in history enacted massive tariffs so they had a way to control the economy. Loyal businesses are given tariff exemptions while all the other ones are suppressed. That’s what Mussolini did, that’s what Putin did and now it’s what trump does.
I’ll wonder if that “we need guns to defend ourselves against an oppressive government” statement was true.
All the guns on the world won’t do any good against a missile. Gun nuts are just waiting for an excuse to shoot their neighbors. Jokes on them because no gun can save them from getting 🗡 In their sleep or getting their food ☠️.
And the United States won in Vietnam.
He’s trying to destroy the country. Amassing as many bruises as possible is the point.
The village idiot has more guns than the whole village together. So I’m not sure he will accept the bruises.
Until nukes start flying. I pray every day for the light of a thousand suns. We deserve it.
Shortly after Trump’s announcement, the British government said the United States remains the U.K.’s “closest ally.”
I’m sorry TERF island, that’s not gonna keep Trump from stabbing you in the back too.
It’s heartbreaking, really.
The UK is like a kid who just got his face covered in mud by bullies, and goes “aren’t my friends wonderful for playing with me?”.
Well see there is just the problem, TERF island needs more toxic masculinity so the men can be tough!
/s
The UK already shot themselves in the foot turning their back on the EU… they have no one left, they are done for
Heads up, UK, the US will use you as a toilet every chance you give it, and we’ve just dropped all pretense, however thin it may have previously been, about caring about our “allies”. Speaking as a US citizen, I would strongly advise against considering yourself a close friend to the US until we get our shit sorted.
If I was Prime Minister, I’d impose a retaliatory tariff of 9000% just because it’s all just this stupid.
Call it the Goku tariffs, but drag it out over an hour or two with a lot of screaming.Wouldn’t it have to be 9001%?
Spoiler
Power levels are bullshit.
Says the guy with the broken scouter
Your reply has a lot of Yamcha energy.
You’re absolutely right, I can easily hear that comment in his voice too
You’re hired
ISO PTSD trigger warning! Hide that shit the next time.
Naa, 9001% is too high. It’s impossible. Better stick with 9000%.
Call a press conference, build up to announcing the 9000% tariff but then end the conference promising to come back next week and make the announcement.
PEOPLE OF THE UK!
I NEED YOUR ENERGY TO CHARGE THESE TARIFFS! AHHHHHHH \o/
- Order tariffs
- Make everything more expensive for everyone everywhere
- Piss off the entire world and invite countermeasures
- ???
- MAGA
for everyone everywhere
This is all so the American companies don’t actually have to compete with anyone else. Instead of lowering their prices to be competitive to give better deals to customers, they game the system and force everyone else to raise prices to match theirs.
There are people who are benefiting from this. People like elon musk who don’t need to worry about, say, affordable electric vehicles from China.
I’d like to call Republicans the Party of Useful Idiots, but I genuinely believe they’re working in tandem with the Establishment Democrats at this point. It’s a two-pronged strategy to ensure the disparity in wealth never decreases.
The rich get richer while the working class squabbles over bullshit.
That whole story assumes the population of the USA will continue to have the capacity to buy stuff… this assumption is ever less likely as the USA is heading into the worst recession they have ever experienced
You have to remember the people doing this are fucking idiots who have convinced themselves they’re smarter than everyone else.
Exactly… Yesterday Trump’s “liberation day” clearly proved this
I recently read an article that suggested the best retaliation would be to stop enforcing US intellectual property in the EU. One of the biggest exports they have is media, if we would stop enforcing their copyright it would cost them a lot of money.
Depression.
It’s a depression.
Putting tariffs on Norfolk Island and Heard and McDonald Islands are particularly funny considering Heard and McDonald Islands only has penguins living there lol.
Those penguins are trying to rip off America! It’s about time they pay their fair share
I’ve never once heard a penguin say thank you.
Those slovenly penguins dont wear suits, either.
penguins like cheetos. i remember that uh… ‘documentary’. we should send 'em a big giant fat one. no charge. just to say ‘sorry’ for imposing the unfair tariffs on their trade.
Yo this motherfucker put tariffs on Antarctica?!!
Heard Island.jpgOops, wrong one. Still close.
“No basis in logic”
No shit, this whole administration has no basis in logic. Just look at Project 2025 and the progress they’ve made on it in a little over 2 months.
Woah, and biden waited until the very end of his term to do something as benign as removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Man, whoever is voting for establishment democrats in primaries is really just helping Republicans at this point.
Dead horse economics:
Wake up you lazy horse!
and the price of bitcoin dropped 4.4%.
I cannot express how much I hate that this appears in a serious economic article.
You don’t like hearing about made up currency with no backing that’s primarily used for pump and dump schemes and money laundering?
But arent all fiat currencies made up since there’s no gold standard backing them.
No, they are backed by the economies of the issuing countries.
Gold standard is not viable in a modern economy.
If I can’t pay my taxes with it, it isn’t a real currency.
By that logic you don’t think foreign currencies are real?
Sure they are, as long as foreign nationals pay their own taxes with them.
I pay my taxes with Euros so I guess Mericuhn Dollers are not a real currency
Depends. Do Mericuhns pay their taxes in Dollers?
Bitcoin is primarily used for pump and dump schemes? You mean like the middle step trade between scam crypto and real money?
The price of speculative speculation dropped
UK and Italy are playing Trump’s game. He doesn’t negotiate. He demands tribute and only honours agreements if they are a win for him and he feels like honouring it at the time. Canada has a Trump negotiated trade agreement - the best agreement ever, in his parlance. It is apparently not worth the paper it is written on.
Countries must negotiate trade agreements - with everyone except the USA. And citizens must support their countries by not purchasing any thing from the USA. As for the few Americans that didn’t vote for Trump, so sorry but your fellow Americans still fully support him. So it isn’t “just Trump”, it is America that is the problem. Trump is simply reflecting who the majority of Americans really are.They’re AI generated tariffs. He asked Grok and these are the numbers it spat out.
He’s imposing tariffs on uninhabited islands… what a fucking moron…
There are penguins! 🐧
McDonald’s fucked up his order recently which is why their island received tariffs.
He’s going to get free hamberders for life when they cave.
True. Those freeloading penguins.
they have it hard enough already without tarrifs. wasn’t it last year or the year before where an entire colony of emperor penguins had every single chick die that breeding season? that’s extremely sad. but sure, hit 'em with tarrifs too, why not
These penguins managed to put USA into trade deficit with the island somehow?
Maybe this is some 5D chess move against the rise of penguins
Give him some credit (not a lot). What if China were to give these penguins cars to resale? Middle men penguins is what they are. They should call the island Midway island, a term invented by his assholness.
They’re mostly [Trade deficit]/[Exports to US]
Which is a fucking stupid basis for tariffs.
It’s possibly the most stupid basis for tariffs. The penalty is directly proportional to U.S. reliance on a country’s imports. The countries that are the most important suppliers to the U.S. are penalized the most. It’s a policy designed to cause maximum reshuffling of production, which maximizes the start-up costs of developing new factories and so on. And those factories are not going to be in the U.S. Import substitution industrialization is a failed policy and it won’t work for reindustrialization either.
The depth of stupidity of this Administration will be studied by mathematicians for centuries as a new form of fractal.
Someone asked chatGPT how to apply tariffs to give America an equal playing field and it spit it a formula that looks shockingly similar to how trump calculated the tariffs
Try grok and you’ll get an exact match.
