Trump Announces Big Tariffs For Our Friends, Little Tariffs For China
Begun the trade war has.
The Trump administration announced Friday it would impose new tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China, to go into effect today. Almost immediately after that, the stock market drove off a cliff, flipped over several times, and burst into flame. See what happens when you let Toonces drive the economy?
At yesterday’s press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the tariffs of 25 percent on goods from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on goods from China, apparently after spinning a wheel and deciding the reason was … oh, how about fentanyl? Yeah, why not fentanyl! It’s not immediately clear how raising import duties on cars, produce, and energy will have an effect on the illegal drug trade, but Trump has been itching to slap some tariffs on something and wreck Joe Biden’s good economy, so here we are.
On top of the new duties on Canada, Mexico, and China, the Washington Post reports (gift link), the administration also plans “additional import taxes on European goods, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, copper, and oil and gas.”
Asked about the economic effects of the broad range of new taxes, Trump burbled some inane crap about how there might be “some temporary short-term disruption,” but no biggie, because “People will understand that.”
Trump has never in his life acknowledged that tariffs are actually paid by American companies that import goods, with the costs usually passed on to consumers with higher prices. Instead, he pretends other countries pay the tariffs, because he is an idiot and a liar. That was the case Friday, when he told reporters, “Tariffs don’t cause inflation. They cause success.”
However, in what may have been a very subtle acknowledgement that Americans actually are harmed by tariffs, Trump suggested that maybe imports of Canadian oil would “probably” have a 10 percent tariff instead of the higher 25 percent tariff on other imports.
In a quick demonstration of how much success tariffs bring, US stock indices successfully plunged after the announcement, faster than you can remember that the plural is not “indexes.”
All three major gauges fell into the red Friday. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost 0.5% at the closing bell, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) shed 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gave up 0.3%, reversing earlier gains.
The dramatic tariff news pushed aside more optimistic updates from earlier in the day, which had buoyed stocks. Solid earnings from Apple (AAPL) and an inflation reading that matched expectations lifted market sentiment for much of the day.
All three countries being hit with new tariffs said they would respond by increasing tariffs on US products, because if you go around punching other economies in the snoot, you should expect your own exports to take a roundhouse kick to the head, too, as Bruce Lee explained in the classic film “Enter the Broker: Tariffs of Fury.”
For the sake of pointing out that the trade war will dope-slap states that voted for Trump, the New York Times pointed out that products likely to get hit with retaliatory tariffs include “Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky peanut butter.”
Canada and Mexico have both called the tariffs stupid, but more diplomatically than that, and pointed out that they will hurt Americans by driving prices higher for food and consumer goods, and may disrupt supply chains as well. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter Friday that “No one — on either side of the border — wants to see American tariffs on Canadian goods.” He added that he was meeting with his trade negotiators in hopes of preventing the tariffs, but that “if the United States moves ahead, Canada’s ready with a forceful and immediate response.”
Oh, also, while she was announcing the tariffs yesterday, Leavitt added a little bonus disinformation about fentanyl! See if you can spot it in the video!
“The president will be implementing tomorrow 25 percent tariffs on Mexico, 25 percent tariffs on Canada and a 10 percent tariff on China, for the illegal fentanyl they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans.”
Did you notice the lie? (Or at least the big whopping mistake, because we are way too generous sometimes.)
While fentanyl remains a serious problem, it’s not killing “tens of millions of Americans,” thank Crom. Per the CDC, the total number of overdose deaths between 2003 and 2023 was nearly 1.2 million, and about 70 percent of drug overdoses are from synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
That’s still terrible, but Leavitt either lied or misspoke (“tens of thousands” would be accurate). Worse, some press outlets like CBS News and even the BBC quoted Leavitt’s “tens of millions” without any corrections. Jesus, these people are exhausting, but golly whillikers, reporters need to do their jobs, too.
For contrast, here’s journalism actually explaining things well. The New York Times story on the tariffs includes a fun oily fact that I did not previously know, and maybe you didn’t either: Even though the US has for the last couple years been producing more oil than any other country at any time in history, and is a net exporter of the climate-destroying stuff, we still import oil from Canada because the light oil produced in US oilfields needs to be combined in US refineries with heavier oil from Canada (or elsewhere) to make diesel and gasoline. Huh!
There’s a factoid for you, and now I’m going to drive my new Kia EV6 to go buy produce while it’s still relatively affordable. Glad I leased it before Trump decided to increase tariffs on Korea or declare EVs a national security threat.
[CBS News / WaPo (gift link) / Yahoo Finance / NYT]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d like to make a one-time donation, there’s no tariff on that, not even if you’re Canadian, eh?
Canadian here. Yes, we produce 65% of the oil you Americans use (that's the Economist's figure, not the 50% the NYT underreported). And our government won't just retaliate with broad tariffs, they're planning on retaliating with lols: a 100% tariff on Tesla and Tesla only.
Pam Bondi fucking lied to Congress. She said there would be no ememies list.
Purging every single FBI agent involved with prosecuting the Jan 6 cases is the very definition of an enemies list.