Tip: You Can’t Spell ‘Tariffs’ Without ‘FFS’
Yes, we stole that from BlueSky. But it's a helpy spelling reminder all the same.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump started a bit of a stock market panic by going ahead with 25 percent tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on stuff from China. He even said in his Tuesday night rant to Congress that US automakers loved the tariffs because they’d protect their business, which turns out to have been a fib, because even before the speech, execs from Ford, GM, and Stellantis had begged Trump in a phone call to not do the tariffs.
The brilliant business genius president was apparently the last person in North America to know that US cars are actually built with a supply chain that includes Canada and Mexico, a tiny detail that he should probably have picked up in the big beautiful US-Mexico-Canada Agreement he signed himself to replace NAFTA. He has since said that all our trade agreements were obviously negotiated by idiots, and every time he does, an aide has to kick his shin to remind him of the USMCA.
So what the hell, on Wednesday, Trump said tariffs for automakers could wait another month, and then to avoid tariffs, all the giant corporations would simply have to move all their supply chains to the USA, because building entire factories is exactly like setting down a little red plastic hotel on a Monopoly board. (This may have been Trump’s actual plan when he built those failed casinos in Atlantic City.)
Then on Thursday, Trump changed his mind some more and decided to exempt a wide range of goods from Canada and Mexico to avoid the 25 percent tariffs after all, as long as they were covered by the USMCA. Around half of Mexican imports fall under the agreement, and a bit under 40 percent of those from Canada. Energy imports aren’t covered under the USMCA, so oil and electric power from Canada will still have a 10 percent import tax.
Trump also insisted that he hadn’t delayed or modified anything, and hadn’t been reacting to the stock market mess, because he’s perfect, his plan is perfect, shut up.
Treasury Secretary Explains: Nobody Promised You a Rose Garden, Much Less Affordable Roses
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained in a speech Thursday that it’s time we Americans stop lollygagging around and enjoying affordable consumer goods, because excuse me, America is not about that, it’s about struggle and competition, OK? Speaking to the Economic Club of New York, Bessent straightened us out about a thing or two:
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said. […] “The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”
Why yes, that was a defense of the higher prices that are going to result from Trump’s tariffs, at least those he doesn’t roll back, at least until he reimposes them, at least until a donor squeaks about it and he rolls them back again.
Translated into Free Market Bullshit, Bessent simply wants Americans to remember that “living well and being able to afford things” is the result of getting rich through hard work, no, much more hard work than you’re doing. Once you become prosperous enough, you can then buy stuff you want! Ergo, making things “affordable” by importing them is actually cheating, so if you have a big-screen TV made in Korea or Malaysia you should probably feel bad that you didn’t instead get one that cost five times more and was made in America. Except there aren’t any, although some brands are assembled here. (Link is to a rare Politifact piece where Donald Trump said a true thing, in 2016.)
In conclusion, that’s just how it goes, why are you Americans so spoiled, and where did you get the ridiculous notion that Donald Trump would bring down prices? Are you really American anyway?
In conclusion we will just remind you that the Economic Club of New York is the very place where, near the end of the campaign, Trump “replied” to that question about how he would make daycare affordable with a long, disjointed, rambling rant about tariffs, and isn’t that a funny parallel?
Trump and Musk are expected to reverse themselves on at least another hundred things between now and whatever horrific Friday Night News Dump is coming this evening, and we’re sure we’ll catch up with it eventually. Or not.
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I wonder if people are starting to catch on the whole administration is like being trapped in a club where the band is performing freeform jizz.
Updated with important photo caption quote from a Great American.