Donny Two Dolls Strikes Again!
Chinese goods getting 130 percent tariffs, just in time for the war on Christmas.
Well, well, well, sounds like the greatest dealmaker who ever lived still can’t make one with China and dig himself out of the tariff mess he singlehandedly made. Rare earth mineral exports DENIED! And now Donald Trump says starting November 1, he’s going to tax Chinese goods at 130 percent. If he doesn’t chicken out again, of course.
You’ll recall Trump started with his tariffing insanity barely more than a week after taking office, slapping tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, and then by April practically the whole wide world, because of something something fentanyl, or something about being mad that American consumers are buying more from other countries than vice versa, or maybe something about intellectual property? Or to inspire investors to build robot factories out of found materials? The precise nature of China and other countries’ sins/the motivations for the tariffs seems to shift with the wind.
But whatever the real reason for Trump starting a trade war with China — maybe just to grab the power of the purse and play with it for fun!— since he started stirring the turd, he has royally decreed tariffs on China to be up, down and all over town, from 10 percent to 145 percent, then 80 percent, then back to 30 percent, where they were until he announced that extra 100 percent on Friday, bringing them up to 130 percent. Scroll down to 2025 at this link if you want to see the full seesaw!
Thirty percent was already insane, if you haven’t noticed while browsing your local Spirit Halloween.
And so the stock market crashed and burned Friday, again, with the S&P having its worst day since the first “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. A nice little dip for Trump’s buddies to buy in! And some VERY LUCKY Bitcoin wallet made $27 million shorting positions right before the announcement. Wonder who?
Anyway, what brought on this latest Trump tantrum? Seems that sometime after Trump imposed the 145 percent tariffs, and also revoked the visas of Chinese students, he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent realized that OOPS, China controls most of the 15 rare earth mineral elements in the world, ones needed to make car parts, planes, LED screens, AI chips, solar panels, phones, and all sorts of goodies that companies need if they want to take over the moon and Mars, and build an AI Taylor Swift to tell MAGA incels she loves them.
After a meeting in Geneva in May, Bessent crowed that China was considering a deal to let US companies buy the minerals again, and in June Trump said that the deal was DONE.
But in spite of Bessent claiming concepts of frameworks of deals with China about once a week since then, it was not a done deal. And it sounds like whatever US negotiators or Trump said to China more recently pissed them the fuck off even more. Because now not only is the US not getting any samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium, China is also putting new export controls on holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium. Take that! China ALSO placed restrictions on the export of specialist technological equipment used to refine some of the minerals, citing national security.
Yep, Trump has screwed us all again. And the US doesn’t just need China for dolls and metals, either, we rely on China for as much as 80 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients and 90 percent of generic antibiotics. And more than 90 percent of the medical gear worn by American healthcare workers.
Merry Christmas!
Trump is so pissed that he pounded out some truly epic screeds on his shitty platform on Friday.
It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.
Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.
It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A MORAL DISGRACE! How dare China not give daddy’s most special boy what he’s demanding RIGHT NOW in the fight he started, unprovoked!
And there was more.
Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China. Nobody has ever seen anything like this but, essentially, it would “clog” the Markets, and make life difficult for virtually every Country in the World, especially for China. We have been contacted by other Countries who are extremely angry at this great Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere. Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one. I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right! There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World “captive,” but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the “Magnets” and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least. But the U.S. has Monopoly positions also, much stronger and more far reaching than China’s. I have just not chosen to use them, there was never a reason for me to do so — UNTIL NOW! The letter they sent is many pages long, and details, with great specificity, each and every Element that they want to withhold from other Nations. Things that were routine are no longer routine at all. I have not spoken to President Xi because there was no reason to do so. This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World. I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so. The Chinese letters were especially inappropriate in that this was the Day that, after three thousand years of bedlam and fighting, there is PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. I wonder if that timing was coincidental? Dependent on what China says about the hostile “order” that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move. For every Element that they have been able to monopolize, we have two. I never thought it would come to this but perhaps, as with all things, the time has come. Ultimately, though potentially painful, it will be a very good thing, in the end, for the U.S.A. One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America. There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Hostility out of NOWHERE! No reason at all! Double elements! If you don’t laugh you’ll cry!
Then Sunday,
Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!! President DJT
Oh, so we’re gonna get a depression now? Why did Donald John Trump start shit in the first place? Maybe it’s just his thing. Long before his president days, he’s loved making deals to stiff other people. After all, he could have stuck all of the money he got from father Fred — the equivalent of $532 million today — in investment accounts and kicked back living a comfortable life off of the interest as a nepo scion. Instead he started company after company, seven of which filed for bankruptcy, leaving unpaid contractors, lawsuits and accusations of fraud in the wake. While some people like to go to escape rooms for fun, Trump likes to see how much he can get away with screwing over the other party in a deal, and evading consequences. It’s entertaining for him, in spite of how he’s lost in court 93 percent of the time.
Too bad it’s OUR money he’s playing with now!
[BBC]
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DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...
...did not write one word of those posts.
"... the U.S. has Monopoly positions"
Looks like China has Boardwalk and Park Place, though.