SpankyMcFarland

The cult members who think this is just a negotiating tactic and part of some ingenious 4D Trump plan miss the point. Even if this ill-considered nonsense was removed tomorrow, America’s image as a serious country, the home of the world’s reserve currency, has been seriously compromised. Investors won’t think of it quite the same again. Again, on basic messaging, these clowns can’t come up with the same story because even Trump doesn't know what he’s going to do next: https://thehill.com/homenews/5234671-brooke-rollins-dodges-questions-trump-tariffs/

The way this policy was implemented couldn’t have been more primitive. Even the basic PR was disastrous. The countries tariffed weren’t listed in any easy order but were hurriedly lumped together. There was no need to tariff every state in the world they could find on Wikipedia and omitting Russia etc. instead of including them with existing tariffs was a political gaffe which was clearly going to attract attention. There was no serious consideration of the tariff barriers faced by the US abroad or its ability to produce the products tariffed in the US. Is America going to become a behemoth in the vanilla industry now that it has hit Madagascar with crippling tariffs? The sight of massively tariffing some of the poorest countries in the world robbed the US of what little prestige it has left. What a gift for China.

In the 1565 siege of Malta, the Knights of St. John invented a weapon called the Trump, a tube packed with explosives and attached to a lance: ‘When you light the Trump, it continues a long time snorting and belching vivid, furious flames ... several yards long.’ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n06/ferdinand-mount/this-is-the-day

Most of the Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences since 1969 have been American. https://www.statista.com/statistics/262901/nobel-prize-winners-in-economics-by-nationality/ What a humiliation for the country that produced them to inflict such a moronic tariff formula on the world. An amateurish effort - grade F.

A close relative just died of Stage IV lung cancer. He was on death’s door five years ago when he was started on Tagrisso and had all those wonderful extra years with his family thanks to science.

Such amnesia might apply in South East Asia but we won’t forget this in Canada for decades at least. When was the last time they did something like this?

There are great deals to be made in Trump’s America. I see Mordor just got its tariff rate down to 10% by agreeing to sell the Eye of Sauron to Google.

This song comes to mind: I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour And when I die, I expect to find him laughing

I know mine did because I’ve seen the names of the companies I’m in going down, down, down but I just can’t bear to look. It will probably take a few weeks for me to summon up the courage.

Harold Wilson, a UK PM, once said that “a week is a long time in politics”. Two years is an eternity. Trump won’t be given that long to sort things out even by the cult followers in his own party. I did get the joke.

Not the death of America, no, but I can’t see how it will fully restore its reputation in the world. There’s such a thing as goodwill among free nations and that is in very short supply at the minute. There’s also no question that isolationism is not the self-destructive doctrine of one man alone but has infected many south of the border.

Irish eyes are certainly not smiling. They’re deeply worried about the profits booked by US companies in their country.

And a great article in The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-american-age-is-over

Here’s an editorial from the decidedly conservative National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-strategic-folly-of-a-global-war-on-trade/

Some pain for two years? I don’t recall candidate Trump promising that.

Message discipline is eluding the Tories and giving more opportunities for Carney to don his gear and play Captain Canada: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-carney-calls-mannings-comments-about-western-separatism-unhelpful/

Forget about the old track. We’re on a new one now, courtesy of Trump.

The grip of the old empires was restored in 1815 but had been present a long time before the French Revolution as well.

He’s been talking about it since the Eighties, took out ads on it and talked about it on TV, all as a private businessman. He also mentioned multiple countries back then apart from Japan. It appears in The Art of the Deal as well. So he has been carrying these ideas around for many decades. When he started with this preoccupation he had a more benign view of Canada. Obviously, now as president he has the chance to do it on a grand scale and make everybody come begging for mercy. It’s really one of his few fixed political beliefs in life. On most other things he has said whatever is expedient in the moment.

All political leaders ask whether a policy that’s good for the country is also good for them. Generally, a popular and effective policy will bring more influence and the possibility of re-election as well as more abstract benefits like serving the nation and entering the history books. But what of a policy that’s clearly bad for the country, both unpopular and damaging? How long would they persist with that if they made personal gains from it? I’d say most would find another course fairly briskly. Here’s where America may be with Trump. His tariffs may be dreadful for the economy and America’s geopolitical position but will mean that large numbers of wealthy, powerful people will come to him cap in hand looking for exemptions for their company or their country. That’s basically his dream situation. Great rivers of money and flattery will flow. Hard to let go of that for the sake of cheaper groceries.

He has publicly supported tariffs since the Eighties at the latest. Back then Japan was a major focus of his ire: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/trump-tariff-history-1.7469877 Here’s some info from several articles: ‘Three decades before President Trump’s trade agenda jolted the world, he laid out his vision in full-page newspaper advertisements foreshadowing what was to come,’ writes Jacob M. Schlesinger of The New York Times in ‘Trump Forged His Ideas on Trade in the 1980s—and Never Deviated.’ “Japan and other nations have been taking advantage of the United States” for years, wrote the New York real-estate developer, in the typewritten letter addressed “To The American People,” his signature affixed to the bottom.’ “ ‘Tax’ these wealthy nations, not America. End our huge deficits, reduce our taxes…” the September 1987 ads demanded.’ “Let’s not let our great country be laughed at anymore.” ‘Asked in a recent Wall Street Journal interview about the origin of his views on trade, Mr. Trump said, “I just hate to see our country taken advantage of. I would see cars, you know, pour in from Japan by the millions.” ‘In the interview, Mr. Trump called Japan “interchangeable with China, interchangeable with other countries. But it’s all the same thing.” ‘Shortly after the 1987 publication of Mr. Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal,” he applied his world view in speeches and television interviews to a raging trade debate as Japan flooded the U.S. with inexpensive, high-quality autos and electronics.’ ‘He continued gaining attention, and the book became a best seller.’ 'He followed his newspaper ads—they ran in the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe—and a brief flirtation with the 1988 presidential campaign with appearances on talk shows, telling hosts such as Larry King and Oprah Winfrey:’ “I do get tired of seeing the country ripped off.” He told Diane Sawyer in 1989 he would impose a 15% to 20% tariff on Japanese imports, adding: “I’m not afraid of a trade war.” ‘He complained specifically about the persistent trade deficit with Japan costing the U.S. money, as well as Japanese “import quotas and tariffs to protect their own interest,” as he put it in his 1990 book “Trump: Surviving at the Top.”

And those nasty-radical-left penguins on the Heard and McDonald Islands are asking for it. No more will they mock us: And we’ve just obtained exclusive footage of White House negotiations with a Heard Islander:

In days of yore, it was left-wingers who couldn’t follow the party line during campaigns. Now Tory insiders past and present are making Poilievre’s life a lot more difficult. This time it’s Preston Manning threatening the rest of Canada. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-poilievre-distances-himself-from-ex-reform-leader-preston-mannings/

B’y, his surname is listed on the video in block capitals - Hanson with an ‘o’.