I strongly side with Musk on this one.
ZeroHedge has a good writeup “Navarro Is Truly A Moron”: Musk Slams Trump Trade Czar In Ongoing Tariff Feud
I am struggling mightily trying to keep up with events.
Navarro on Musk
“We all understand in the White House (and the American people understand) that Elon’s a car manufacturer. But he’s not a car manufacturer — He’s a car assembler. In many cases, if you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets (which in the EV case are the batteries) come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan… what we want — and the difference is in our thinking and Elon’s on this — is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”
That dispute happened over the weekend. The feud escalated today.
About Navarro and Ron Vara
Former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney sides with Musk regarding Trump advisor Peter Navarro:
“I would have fired [Navarro] a long time ago. I would have fired him when he got caught making up his academic sources for his papers, with his Ron Vara imaginary friend.”
Trade Is Not Between Nations
Fundamentally, trade is not between nations. It’s between individuals. Neither Trump nor Navarro understands that key point.
Both look at trade as having a winner and a loser. And both view trade as bilateral.
These are key fundamental errors. Period. You cannot fix a problem you don’t understand.
One of the few times in the past hundred years the US had a trade surplus was the Great Depression.
Rand Paul on Trade
Senator Rand Paul gave a interview regarding trade with Kudlow.
Here’s a link to Rand Paul with Kudlow. Please play the video.
Paul: “We get a reduction in trade deficits when we go into recession. … a 50 percent tax on shoes from Vietnam. You think we going to make shoes in the US? It’s also not a bad thing shoes are not made here. Adam Smith talked about the division of labor. A fundamental aspect of capitalism is the division of labor and trade. Something so fundamental, you shouldn’t try to stop.”
Kudlow challenged Paul on “fair trade”. Paul responded beautifully.
Just play it.
The Fundamental Problem
The fundamental problem is there are no restrictions on deficit spending or trade imbalances.
Nixon started this in 1971 when he ended gold convertibility.
Prior to that, if nations spent too much and deficits soared interest rates would have to go up to stop the gold outflow or the deficit would have to drop.
Imbalances were self-correcting because of this control. There is no control on spending now. Tariffs will not and cannot fix this problem.
Nixon’s treasury secretary John Connally famously told a group of European finance ministers worried about the export of American inflation that the “dollar is our currency, but your problem.”
Balance of trade issues, soaring debt, declining real wages, and the demise of the US middle class are now our problem.
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Apparently Musk has had too much winning. Tesla sales are crashing globally and Musk has had enough of tariffs.
But Musk got what he bargained for when he took the job.
Regarding Reciprocal Tariffs
Reader: “Tariffs are reciprocal. All Canada has to do is to lower the tariffs they charge the US to what they want the US to charge them.”
USMCA IS reciprocal right now.
In extremely minor instances where it isn’t, TRUMP negotiated the deal.
Please read over and over Cheese Was a “Key Achievement” of Trump’s USMCA Trade Agreement
The fact of the matter is Trump has no legitimate right to unilaterally break a deal ratified by the Senate 89-10.
The additional pertinent fact is Trump just proclaimed to the world that he may not honor any deal, even those he signs. At some point there is a cost to this lack of trust.
Related Posts
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Tweets and Comments of the Day on Tariffs
April 8, 2025: Tariff Strawmen and Why Prices Didn’t Rise in Trump’s First Term
A reader thinks that because prices didn’t rise in Trump’s first term, the same is true now.
April 8, 2025: Consumer Credit Unexpectedly Declines with Huge Negative Revisions Too
Economists expected a $15.0 billion rise in consumer credit. The Fed reported -$0.8 billion.
I wonder how many CCP trolls there are now in the threads. I am not a long time user, even though I’ve read Mish for years. It seems like the Orange Man Bad Tariffs We’re All Gonna Die has heated up, the usual suspects who have TDS but some newer avatars.
It’s difficult to tell the CCP-trolls apart from the Democrat trolls, I guess it comes down to how authentic the TDS is… the algorithm is probably that any TDS post that doesn’t contain a pro-China bit of doggerel in it is probably a Blue-natic.
Musk also called him “Peter Retardo”. Aren’t you glad the grownups are in charge?
that ship sailed when you voted Billy blowjob into the whitehouse… they’ve all been cartoon characters ever since. Admittedly, Trump is trying to be Superman, but is more like Lex Luthor with a Tony Stark sidekick, but it’s an improvement on Mr Magoo.
Vis-a-vis the stock market, Denninger noted the other day, that the Nasdaq, at the recent peak, was 65% above the trend line from 2009.
Through price and/or time, markets revert to the mean. Reversion corrects excess deviation from the mean.
Elon doesn’t want to go quietly under the bus.
Uhm you didn’t actually address the point about the tariffs being reciprocal. For example, you don’t deny that Canada does tarriff and impede American goods so why cant they just drop them? Or China?
Umn try reading – I have only posted this link 20 times.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/cheese-was-a-key-achievement-of-trumps-usmca-trade-agreement/
The US make good cars? The US can’t find markets for their products because they are utter shyte. I honestly doubt that even Kudlow drives Detroit iron.
This comment is idiotic. I drive a 2015 Mustang that has been an excellent car, only scheduled maintenance has been required. I have friends who drive US trucks and are very happy with them. It’s 2025, not 1980. Wake up!
American cars are crap. They lack the fuel efficiency of Japanese cars, and the style of European cars. You see very few abroad not because of tariffs, but because American cars are crap, and overpriced.
I just had this conversation with wife. We make inferior products, cars being the best example. American products are inferior quality and highly priced given unions, regulations, government edicts etc.. Back in the 60’s I worked in an auto factory and the junk they were turning out was unbelievable. BTW-That’s what happens when consumers have no choice.
“The Fundamental Problem”
All cycles complete themselves. This isn’t the first Fourth Turning or Kondratieff Winter. Roosevelt confiscated privately held gold, Nixon closed the gold window. Money is being created out of debt. What does Mises say about a debt fueled boom? Star Trek’s Kobyashi Maru. The no win situation. Debt or currency collapse. A fiat based system is as self correcting as a gold based system. It’s just that the mechanism is different. On the gold standard, debt collapsed in the 1930’s. A debt collapse now is effectively the same. A building in San Francisco recently went for near 90% off it’s previous sale price. Note it was 2024, not 1932.
Sex Workers Already Predicted There’s A Recession Coming — Here’s How They Know
The past has shown that nontraditional measures like brothels, beer and lipstick can tell us a lot about the economy’s health. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-recession-is-coming-sex-workers_l_67eaa67fe4b008c5a2ecc0bc
Fox and OAN are going to take a big hit on advertising for manufacturers of erectile dysfunction pills.
I’m doing my part for America by keeping my beer consumption elevated!
Who’s with me?
Everyone has been predicting a recession every week for the past 5 years.
“I keep hearing people interpret the cost of tariffs incorrectly. Let’s use an example with easy math.
I import 100 pairs of sneakers from a foreign country to sell in my home country. Each shoe costs me $100 to produce, package and ship to my warehouse. My total customs declaration is $10,000. If the tariff is 10%, then I pay $1,000 to the Customs and Border Patrol. My total cost for the sneakers is $11,000.
I now have a choice. Do I pass the $10 cost increase per sneaker to my customers, or do I accept a smaller profit margin? The answer, of course, depends on the price sensitivity of my customers.
What I keep hearing from people is that the tariff is on the retail value of the goods, and the price is going to increase by the tariff rate. This is not at all how it works. Please, conduct a bit of research for yourself. Trust but verify.”
Don’t try to explain it to someone who doesn’t want to understand.
You are perfectly correct. But to add a little more nuance, the cost of importing the sneakers is close to $5/per pair that you sell to retailers for $30/per pair, who sell them to end customers for $80. So the tariff on 100 at 10% would be closer to $50. A relatively small amount overall, likely eaten by a combination of the importer and retailer.
Now, the issue becomes interesting. Is the importer going to manufacture in the USA? Absolutely not. The 10% tariff is not worth moving manufacturing. Plus, it would take years to ramp up manufacturing, and Trump will be gone by then. Trump, playing to his supporters, isn’t passing any laws locking in long term tariffs, he is just doing it by fiat. So as soon as he’s gone, the next President will just reverse them. If the next President is a democrat, she’ll likely enjoy the increased revenue from some tariffs, but will remove them on tennis shoes (supporting her constituency), while keeping them on steel and aluminum, supporting labor unions while keeping higher costs on American manufacturing. Turtles of stupidity all the way down.
That’s all true, but we also need to examine how readily sellers raised prices during and since COVID. In my view, that practice was probably permanently altered by COVID training people to accept higher prices and often scurrilous explanations for them. I would not make any big assumptions on how the tariff costs will be absorbed vs passed along.
I don’t think any of those nuances change the basic framework of a tariff based trade war being highly inadvisable for a nation like ours, especially when the levies are calculated dishonestly and off trade balances rather than tariffs as they originally claimed in a very see-through way.
no one thinks it’s going to increase by the tariff rate, but it’s going to increase so if the rate is 20%, the retail price may increase 10%, it’s a lot. Some industries have think margins, others not.
the thing you don’t seem to understand is what makes this so dangerous economically. Whatever your profit margin, your workforce is keyed to that. so sure, Apple can go from 30% margins to 15%, and it will layoff lots of people in the US. Ditto for car companies, and any business.
No business is going to eat tariffs without passing on some of the cost and then firing employees to deal with the portion they can’t pass on. this will lead to unemployment and recession.
I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Unfortunately the real numbers are approximately 84% now so that shipment of $10,000 becomes $18,400 and there is no way to absorb the tariff you pay as an importer. The choice is then to stop importing or raise the price. If you bring the product in and the consumer says “No” and you are then stuck with depreciating inventory.
If the tariff increases before your shipment arrives? What then?
None of this is simple as trump and his minions claim.
If I were a manufacturer of goods abroad, I’d make sure that no supplier would be from the US. That’d be an unreliable supplier. MAGA?
Actually I was trying to figure this out this morning. I learned that tariffs are calculated from the customs value. What I couldn’t figure out is what are typical customs values. For example what is the customs value for a TV that retails for $500 at Best Buy? If anyone has real world examples or accurate estimates based on experience, please share! I’d be interested in consumer electronics, consumer items like your shoe example, and cars.
Looking forward to Musk’s time ending with DOGE. His guy really running the show is just as capable but a million times less likely to open his big fat mouth.
FYI MUSK, you might as well get out of China. Their cars are better, cheaper & more preferred than yours by Chinese consumers. On you way out, take Tim Cook & Apple with you.
You should have introduced the inexpensive Model 2 two years ago. You should have built the original Cybertruck as the v 2.0 that’s planned. In addition, you should have introduced am inexpensive BEV truck similar to the Maverick & given Ford some competition in the low-cost Truck space.
Fortunately, Musk, you are ahead in the reusable rocket space . . . for now at least.
I strongly believe Musk knew the gig was up at Tesla. Most people don’t know that Musk’s only contributions at Tesla was adding the higher roof line to the Model 3 and calling it the Model Y, and the cyber truck, a disaster by anyone’s estimation. He absolutely needed the Model 2, needed significant updates to all lines of cars, and, like you intimate, a truck that was competitive visually with Ford. In an effort to pop profits over the short term, he gave up the EV market to far more savvy manufacturers. He saw the Chinese, Koreans, Europeans and (for God’s sake) even GM coming up with better products at competitive and better prices. Tesla was going to crash anyway. You can only BS your way with cyber taxis and robots for so many decades before even Wall Street morons turn on you. His last refuge (as a scoundrel) was sucking at the government teat with SpaceX. And he desperately needs Trump to keep his eye on pushing everyone else off the teat but leaving him on.
I’d like to see some more evidence before I’m convinced that the world’s richest man is done for…
You are forgetting or omitting the constant explosions and fires in Chinese EVs, and the fact that Chinese consumers are broke and countless EVs sit on forecourts unsold in all but the most affluent locales.
Is that Jay from Peking?
muskrat keeps projecting his own deficiencies onto others. he keeps revealing how utterly inept he is and just like his buddy don the old clueless about business.
Don’t worry. This is all just the Universe trying to make endless war unaffordable.
If Navarro had a clue about th automotive business he would know that Teslas have “Electric Motors” not engines, they do not have “Transmissions” per se. He wants to force manufacturers to buy Goodyear tires made in Akron Ohio?
Navarros reliance on a fantasy friend “Ron Varra’s” research is dishonest and intellectual fraud!
Trump has surrounded himself with an echo chamber on incompetent simpletons like himself and trumps mental condition needs to be assessed for the capacity to lead our wonderful and complex nation.
The term for trumps condition may well be “Malignant Narcissist”.
He promised businesses an environment of stability and the reduction of regulation. Now he is regulating every aspect of materials sourcing, labor sourcing and the location of production.
No business can build anything under this administrations interference.
Trump and Navarro are LIARS…
engine motor same difference. the biggest simpleton is muskrat who believes acquiring a business somehow gained him a modicum of intellect.
The question all of us should be asking is “Who does trump work for?” He has single handedly destroyed almost $10 trillion in market equity and is costing hundreds of thousands of Americans their jobs.
Trump promised to get government out of the way of business, Now he is obstructing sources of materials, sources of labor and access to markets. His role is now direct interference with trade and production.
Tax revenue will come crashing down and no sane nation will buy our debt or products.
Trump is an abomination and insurrectionist. Trump has no respect for due process or the rule of law.
Get him out before his deranged mental condition ruins our economy and country!
don old works for the same club congress does and all presidents since 1913. try and figure it out.
“destroyed … market equity”
LOLZ…thanks!
If you liked the S&Pee at 6,200….you should be lovin’ it here at 5,000…nice discount. Back up the truck and BUY BUY BUY! Remember, in the long term stocks only go up.
why weren’t you here screaming the same questions about that demented mong, Biden?
Imagine there’s no countries….
Individuals trading between themselves.
Nothing to kill or die for…
Imagine the world living as one for all and all for one…
Or keep gnashing your teeth because you hate “them”.
They are from a different country or continent.
“They” don’t look like me/us.
Don’t believe in MY gawd…
“That town down the road is backward and stoopid.”
Trillion ways to hate one another.
TRILLION WAYS TO HATE ONE ANOTHER.
Mish nailed it for the trump-tilion time!
MISH NAILED IT FOR THE TRUMP-TILION TIME!
Trading between individuals, not nations/ countries!
United States corporations hated unions, too effing expensive!
China sez, “we not commies anymore, plenty young men to work for you United States corporations for 1 dollar a day vs 160.
China didn’t sell out the middle class blue collar worker!
United States corporations sold them out!
PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT
SHAREHOLDER SHAREHOLDERS SHAREHOLDER
I’d have sold you out too!!!
Here in the United States of America we are for profit. Meritocracy.
Get over it!
Corporations sold out middle class America for profit and rightly so.
You want another way to succeed in business than do it!
Profit from slave wage labor for the sake of profit and EVERYTHING is perfect.
This hot lava filled orb keeps spinning in an ever expanding void and you all are concerned about these TWO-bit actors?!
First we have to tell you what we’re going to tell you.
Then we’re going to tell you….
After that we’re going to tell you what we told you.
Please, for effs sake, try to keep up?!
Numb skulled comments in this post.
Naive simpletons need to read Mish for comprehension or shut the you know what up!!
OR SHUT UP!
If you think meritocracy is what’s making people rich in the USA, your eyes must either be sewn shut, or purposefully averted.
I think he was trying to do a song and then he babbed his pants and sat in it.
Shhh….no one is supposed to talk about all this repub on repub hate.
In other news, Trump says he will put tariff on ALL pharmaceuticals. This may bankrupt medicare and seniors won’t be able to afford their meds but on the other hand it may save social security when many of the boomers die. This may be a win for everyone!
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/trump-says-us-will-soon-announce-tariffs-on-pharmaceutical-imports/articleshow/120110100.cms?from=mdr
Some of them are already missing checks from the IT snafu DOGE created.
It is democrats who are anti free speech. Speak away. I’ve never even blocked anyone. I’m certainly noting the hate emanating from tolerant Democrats. Politicians are afraid of losing their jobs. That applies to Republicans as well as Democrats. Thus none will touch the third rail of entitlements. Medicare is effectively bankrupt already. Medicare taxes pay a small fraction of the cost. Government is borrowing most of the money being spent.
Personally, i am not taking any prescription pharmaceutical drugs. Haven’t had any of the vaccines the CDC is pushing on seniors. Didn’t take Ivermectin or Paxlovid for Covid.
Elon’s Chinese parts just got 106% more expensive.
It’s the end of the fake economy, and it’s glorious. Goodbye Crony Capitalism, and good riddance.
👏👏👏
Rand Paul says “Adam Smith talked about the division of labor” but if he had actually read Adam Smith he would know that this is actually about comparative advantage and not division of labor”. Plus he would have spelled it “labour”.
The division of labor is the direct result of comparative advantage, but the truth is that Smith did talk more about the division of labor, quite literally starting with the opening line of the treatise. Ricardo made the more explicit connection to comparative advantage. However, the two concepts are effectively the same thing and are inextricably linked, so noting one directly implies the other. The issue that both Smith and Ricardo are exploring is the nature of trade or exchange. You trade your skills on the market in a system of exchange, usually your skills or labor are traded in exchange for money. The same principle of you exchanging labor for money in the market applies to firms exchanging goods or services for money in the market whether that market is domestic or foreign.
OK I stand corrected on terminology but Smith was certainly describing comparative advantage with his example of growing grapes in Scotland. Division of labour is not the same thing.
Yes, it was David Ricardo, not Adam Smith.
Politicians know nothing of economics or we wouldn’t be saddled with $36 trillion of federal debt.
Economists know even less about economics than politicians though.
I hesitate to side with Musk, but Navarro is indeed a complete moron. The White House formula to calculate “reciprocal tariffs” was probably the most stupid equation anybody has ever come up with in the context of tariff policy. Beyond that, Navarro really needs to listen to Milton Friedman’s pencil narrative and how real capitalism functions. I think Navarro is in fact a closet socialist.
And yet the administration’s effective rate of trade barrier calculations comported with BofA’s last year:
https://images.mktw.net/im-87459767?width=700&size=1.396039603960396&pixel_ratio=1.5
Derp.
Thanks. If you correlate the numbers given in your table with Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs,” and you will get a negative correlation, i.e. the higher the tariff & non-tariff barriers are, the lower the Trump-Navarro “reciprocal tariff.” A PhD from Harvard should be able to do better.
Well, the BofA numbers are the multi-national averages, not the bi-lateral numbers.
You’re probably right, though, the administration’s figures do seem a bit high compared to these BofA figures.🎯
it’s not really about tariffs though, that’s just a word thrown out as meat to feed the press dogs.
There are millions of moving parts and individual decisions made by buyers, sellers, suppliers, manufacturers, planters, miners, drillers, transporters, etc for any government to control the process of trade.
Control, no. Fuck up, yes.
“Paul responded beautifully” (to Kudlow on fair trade). Paul (who I usually like) didn’t explain why it’s OK for other countries to levy tariffs on American products. Why is it OK for Vietnam to levy a 46% tariff on American products? Under Rand Paul’s doctrinaire free trade philosophy, there is no such thing as “dumping” – where a country subsidizes it own industry until such time as competitors go out of business.
To quote SNL “Jane you ignorant slut!”
Seriously WTF is wrong with you?
Only morons think Vietnam has 46% tariffs on the US.
Mish doesn’t understand that countries with nominally low tariff rates still can—and do—bar American goods outright.
The rate can only apply to goods allowed in, making the “rate” a moot point!
Hi EddyD.
Please list the US goods that Vietnam bans.
Thanks in advance.
Some moronic talking point he picked up on Fox
You have TDS. Everything on MSNPC is gospel. “Doing your own research” is anathema to you.😱
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2024%20NTE%20Report_1.pdf
Idiot.
Vietnam bans certain blends of Ethanol; They ban imports of a variety of goods from ‘certain children’s toys’ to ‘certain cultural products’; and they have onerous rules about our pharmaceuticals.
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2024%20NTE%20Report_1.pdf
The Vietnamese Dong does not truly float, so that stifles the other side of the equation.
Vietnam has been hit with anti-dumping levies by the EU. But it’s okay when the EU protects themselves, but not when we do it, right?🙄
It’s trade. It’s complicated and messy. Both sides have to represent themselves and negotiate. Workers in the U.S. haven’t had a representative in decades.
I can show you tariffs that VN has that are higher than 46% …on vehicles and alcohol, for example… and there are more examples.
Before sounding off… why not check yourself before you wreck yourself?
This goes beound. Vat is paid by the end user wherever the product come from.
yea the mention of VAT as a trade barrier just showed how ignorant these folk are, surely they employ some people who know stuff
A tariff is a tax that is paid by the citizens of the nation imposing the tariff. So, why should you care that Vietnam is taxing its citizens at a 46% higher rate than they do for other things?
https://ttd.wto.org/en/profiles/viet-nam
Vietnam seems to import a lot of electronics parts and products, and oil. Perhaps for its factories.
import tariffs? a lot 7.5% and 15% on animal products
http://www.itpc.gov.vn/documents/20624/296003/chapter_01_2024/91b16b76-58fe-41e4-880b-0ffa0045dde3
I found batteries with a 40% import tariff listed in 2024 here
https://www.vietnamtrades.com/en/hts-code/other-with-discharge-capacity-exceeding-height-hs-code-85071092
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IwnymEwaTPcTJwMtJtg1aVOS4G61NYcZ/edit?fbclid=IwAR0JnDTATTMkAaAwQmfIx4UNT_WarzJ3tqMQuIj2gZLDNGTSbh3hButoUA8&pli=1&gid=614894065#gid=614894065
https://wtocenter.vn/chuyen-de/23590-import-and-export-tariff-schedule-of-vietnam-in-2024
I also found bin lorries (“garbage trucks” in Ameristani) with 50% tariffs
https://www.vietnamtrades.com/en/hts-code/refuse-garbage-collection-vehicles-having-refuse-compressing-hs-code-87042322
and goods vehicles too – 50%
https://www.vietnamtrades.com/en/hts-code/motor-vehicles-transport-goods-heading-8704
I also found 65% tariffs on vermouth and other alcoholic drinks
…oh and cars at 78%!
https://caselaw.vn/chi-tiet-ma-hs/87036041?tab=thongtin
that’s low compared to other countries in ASEAN
am I a moron? please look through the VNese tariff schedules and prove that I am.
What is the average tariff?
Oh, we’re doing averages now? What’s next, you lengthen the granular list of low to zero tariffed items to get the average mathematically down to “win”?
You said: “Only morons think Vietnam has 46% tariffs on the US“, nothing about averages.
You yourself also recognise that trade doesn’t happen between countries but between businesses and individuals; and similarly, between specific HS-code categories of goods, and on that basis, it’s open information that there are high protectionist tariffs on a lot of mfg goods and services.
So, whilst it might feel good to call people names, you actually were being sloppy, and you know that the game is not about averages, but about reducing those high tariff rates on finished goods and services, so that the US can in theory export more, because we all know that due to price differentials the USA is not exporting primary resources to developing countries, it’s selling high value-added products and services into those markets to those manufacturers, and to a potentially growing consumer base.
People in developing countries will live in a shack but have a nice foreign moped, a nice iPhone, and fashionable foreign phones, and by strongarming those developing countries into lowering tariffs on those status products (and potential status services, like having a maybank account in Cambodia versus the crummy local bank; or buying foreign medical insurance etc… rather than using the local public health system).
It won’t amount to much immediately, but in aggregate over time and across developing world markets, it’s another bit of chipping away at the trade imbalance, and getting American/Western cultural influence wedged into those markets to get indirect influence over China – which has been doing that very thing, flooding ASEAN with cheap phones and tat on local ASEAN retail platforms – to the extent that Thailand and Indonesia have put up their own tariffs against China for dumping mfg goods.
I doubt if our products are very popular in Vietnam. Maybe peasants are snapping up those poorly made 60k US trucks?
Why not go there and look? I am there, I go to all these places often, you can see plenty of demand for western products, whether it’s cheap jars of coffee in a local supermarket, going to a foreign fast food place as a treat (whilst we go to fancy restaurants for their food!), wearing western fashion, owning expensive western cars and phones… I saw that in China 20 years ago, I saw in Vietnam last year. I see it in ASEAN and other APAC countries regularly. Peasants will live in a shack and wear gucci and have an iphone.
Apple’s plan is to ship iPhones from China to India, and import from there.
That is essentially it.
Good. China will see this, then play ball. In the end, the playing field will be more equal for everyone—Americans included.
You can’t play ball with somebody that does not honor agreements.
China has never honored agreements. WTO lol.
No, too expensive.
Just change the name of the country made.
Elon never mentioned tariffs. His main beef always was with illegal uncontrolled immigration, as opposed to merit based legal migration. He is also an advocate of Western culture (in the Western countries), not multicultural bs.
That’s it.
Yeah sure….Multi cultural BS. Did you get off the mayflower, Maximus? No…just special sorts when you got here…right Maximus?
That’s not multiculturalism. It’s colonialism. Exactly what Biden’s 10-miliion invaders are doing, too. “Oh, but it’s good when we do it.“🙄
That’s stupid, LOL
Trump, for all practical purposes, is the first female president. He can never admit when he’s wrong, he lashes out, and doubles down on the BS without being able to accept accountability for his mistakes. Or maybe he’s the first non-binary or transgender president. A “girl boss” in an old man’s body.
Hate women much ass*ole? Your mommy not nice to you when you were a tyke? Good lord your heads on backwards!!!
Stop the misogyny. Girl boss. Transgender President. Shut the f*ck up. Stick with the facts. We are talking about a convicted felon who was found liable in a civil trial for rape. A man accused by no less than 27 women of rape. What is wrong with your head? Your peoples fixation on other people sex lives is so bizarre. And yet, the rapist in chief is no problem for you at all.
You’re the one who brought up his sex life, not me. But I don’t think he raped the old hag that sued him. I do think he and others need to go on trial for raping kids on Epstein Island along with the Clintons, Dershowitz, Gates, Prince Andrew, and the others. It’s doubtful any of the johns will ever get arrested, so American boys and girls will die in wars against Iran, Yemen and elsewhere as a result of the blackmail. I think we can agree it’s why Queen Trump pulled out the chair for Netanyahu twice instead of being a sassy boss babe like he was with Zelenskyy.
Does this sound like a certain president we all know:
Trump is a Drame Queen of Hearts
“The Queen of Hearts is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She is a childish, foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as “a blind fury”, and who is quick to give death sentences at even the slightest of offenses. One of her most famous lines is the oft-repeated “Off with his/her head!” / “Off with their heads!”
Trump is a Drama Queen of Hearts
Perfect! Except he’s a black hearted drama king. Vengeance is the oxygen he breathes. His people love that about him.
Yep, that’s her!
Tiny peepee detector is flashing red
From the movie As Good as it Gets:
Receptionist: “How do you write women so well?”
Nicholson responds, “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.”
So much winning !
Navarro…another convicted felon. But, Americans seem to love convicted felons now.
Truth hurts. I know.
AG Eric Holder also ignored a congressional subpeona, but he wouldn’t prosecute himself. Navarro was prosecuted by the DOJ of the most corrupt AG ever – Merrick Garland – and convicted in a city that’s 93% democrat. We dodged a bullet when McConnell kept Garland off the Supreme Court. Ol’ Mitch wasn’t all bad.
You are not sentient at all
This whole…I know you are but what am I bull shit is
tiring.
We are dealing with Trump and a global financial crisis right now.
No, you’re dealing with trumphumpers, which is a waste of time.
I just read an article about an interview with Navarro… from prison. Only in Trump’s Amerikkka
In high school you had the a students, the bs and cs, and then you had the ds who knew someday they would get back at everyone who called them stupid and they would pay for making the ds feel worthless. This is the day.
By the way, I told everyone they would miss Biden by May. There’s still another few weeks to go. The Republicans can still impeach Trump for Jan 6th if they want. Or any number of crimes he’s committed. I’d settle for Vance but his ideas are even more outlandish.
More interesting is the steadfast Repub support they are giving to this failed “businessman.” We’ve watched too many made for tv movies where the hero wins at the end despite everyone being against him. We can’t tell the difference anymore between reality and fantasy.
Those of us not in the cult are truly flabbergasted. His supporters love that we hate him. They think it’s their super power. We can warn them all we want. It does not matter. Cults by their nature remove individual freedom. They must follow. They will lose everything they own for him, just to show the rest of us. But, they don’t really know what those losses will really feel like. They think they are soldiers and fighting for the cause. Collateral damage. They thinks it’s worth it. Until they don’t.
It’s also this “feeling” amongst the population that the low wages, the lack of benefits, the rising costs are just too much to bear and we need someone to blame, and an avenging angel to bring back “leave it to beaver.” They will be disappointed.
Yes.. all the while bragging about our American exceptionalism
America is exceptional alright, not many nations would voluntarily destroy their own standard of living……………………..
While his tariff policy is nuts, I continue to 100% support his efforts to:
1) Close the border to illegals and deport them (the criminals)
2) End DEI
3) Cut government spending (methods are drastic but any/all cuts help)
Getting 3 out of 4 things right policy wise is very good.
Oh stop wimping out. Dei is just a buzzword so you don’t have to say loud and clear “I hate nig*ers, spics, slant eyes and kikes. Grow a pair 😎
Not if one of them crashes the economy and tax revenue with it.
I am struggling mightily trying to keep up with events.
You’re not on the same drugs they are;-)
This dead cat didn’t bounce. Now Trump is gonna make the people eat it.
To phrase this another way, if tariffs will not achieve their objective of leveling a mercantilist playing field and reshoring a large chunk of production back to the US, what would be your preferred target required to, let’s say “nudge” behavior in a direction which both saves our fiscal position and benefits the middle class? The current situation prior to tariff mania ain’t it.
Mish, I am SO GLAD you keep mentioning “The fact of the matter is Trump has no legitimate right to unilaterally break a deal ratified by the Senate 89-10.” B/e it is SO TRUE.
Every time we talk about the numerous (yes, multilateral) issues after all is said and done how can anyone negotiate with someone who just breaks agreements b/e they wake up on another side of the bed?
You are so right to keep mentioning this. NO ONE of integrity that a nation trusts dealing with can just unilaterally break their agreements on a whim.
THAT is really the antithesis of integrity and trust. Trump negotiates with the (absent) integrity of a 3rd World Country. My God – this is supposed to be (WAS!) a moral beacon Country for the World!
The US was a moral beacon for the world? When was this – other than in your imagination?
Not sure how gold ever becomes the answer again and the only way deficit spending ends is with a version of the big bang with hyper inflation and currency collapse. But like Argentina, it just keeps repeating.
Deficit spending, 36 trillion debt is actually not the major problem if spend responsibly. US has been spending for over 50 years and no problem. The problem is wasting. Military budget of 900 billion, forever war (eg. 2 1/2 + trillion Afghanistan war), social benefit, bloated government, etc. Reserve currency status is unimaginably powerful. Because of attacking the world, US can lose this status.
Boys will be boys………..
Rand’s comments seem a bit … libertarian. Like Ron has been haranguing him. We can’t make shoes in the US? What division of labor? They make it and we consume it? Sounds more like the description of a parasite. We consume the labor arb in an overfinancialized economy. Its almost like standing Marx on his head (not easy because Karl was fat, sweaty and reaked of rotting cabbage and sausages). The fiction of “surplus labor” is substituted for what, “surplus consumption”?
Trade is between individuals? You’ve said this before. I think this requires more explanation in detail. If I go online at Amazon and buy something from China, am I buying directly from Chairman Mao? Or is it that corporations are considered legal persons? (which is an interesting legal fiction in and of itself.)
Individual people. Individual companies. Buying from each other.
Home Depot buys LG washing machines from the LG factory in S Korea and China. Home Depot will now pay the US Government a tariff on that washer. This tariff cost will be passed on to the US consumer.
A US consumer may buy a toy online from Amazon that is made in China. A tariff will now be paid on that toy.
It isn’t the US government buying the washing machine from the Chinese government. It is individual consumers or businesses doing the buying from companies in China.
A state sponsored entity controlled by Communist Party Members and supported by an artificial cost of capital, in a currency which is still linked to the USD no less (because the house of cards cannot free float its own currency?), leveraging slave labor of Chinese peasants with the demand supplied by Global corporations increasing profit margins by selling into western markets like the US, driven by overfinancialization and consumption is just individuals dealing with individuals? That like saying a person’s DNA is just individual atomic particles dealing with other atomic particles.
Lol! Is that the best you can do?
And if Home Depot buys the washer from LG in S Korea? Or Vietnam?
Stop wasting my time.
Its seems to me that you live in wasted time.
You keep using terms like “overfinancialization.” What do you mean by this? How do you think tariffs address this finacialization problem?
You are an individual – You buy something when you need it or want it.
The sum of these transactions dictates what Walmart buys. Walmart buys from a wholesaler what think you want. Usually they get it right, if not sales to clear inventory.
This applies to big ticket items too.
OK now who makes this stuff? Is it nations or businesses?
Businesses of course. But what businesses make is the sum of all the individuals who work at that business.
Some small businesses are a single person, some a few people, and for large corporations perhaps 500 or more.
Ultimately the economy is the sum of individual transactions. Individuals produce goods or work for companies who do.
But it is all based on the idea that individual decisions determine what they buy, and individuals decide where they work.
Corporations are an intermediary.
Rand Paul gave the example of individuals buying what they need.
Now, I happen to have a trade deficit with the dentist. Should I put a tariff on him?
Should Wisconsin put a tariff on cheese from Vermont?
And the iPhone has parts from many countries. So so cars. And what about the minerals for the batteries. Trump has made trade bilateral when its multilateral but ultimately driven by individual decisions.
I love how they keep telling us we don’t want cheap Chinese stuff. So 80% of Americans who don’t have 1k for a financial crisis are on board with expensive goods and slave wages. You trump supporters just have no vision at all.
And if you think those jobs coming back here are not robotic…you are really delusional. They just want slave labor back here. It’s not about a better life for average Americans at all.
Add the pollution to your air, water and soil and no real jobs other than robotic…it’s win win for some billionaires.
When the manufacturing plants come back… the employees will be robots. The air, water and soil will be polluted by these unregulated businesses. Neighborhoods will once again deal with high incidences of illness and cancers. I’m unsure how you are all comfortable with this.
To be more accurate, the factories with the robots never left and they’ve been humming along just fine for decades. What left were the manufacturing plants that relied upon undifferentiated labor, i.e. unskilled labor. And those plants left because unskilled labor is, well, unskilled. If I can get the exact same labor quality for far less of a labor wage bill then I would be stupid not to take advantage of those lower costs. But, yes, if manufacturing reshores it is not going to be a major source of employment except for the guys who know how to install, program, and repair robotic assembly lines.
Thanks Mish, this is a nice exposition, maybe make a post. My question is, how does this notion of individual square with the notably non western antagonist in this theater, CCP China? The US has a Bill of Rights protecting individuals against government encroachment. Madison, Father of, did not necessarily see the point, but Jefferson and others persuaded him. BoR to Magna Carta, there’s a western evolution, going back further grounded in Ancient Greece, then Rome, etc. China: Confuscius, subordination of the individual to the State. Mix in Marx and Mao, and you have an economic overlay of subordination to the State. SoEs and Party Members, its a form of power sharing and the populace at large, which historically had recourse if the Emperor was unjust, was via peasant uprisings, warlords etc. until order was restored. The two frameworks are very different. If the CCP controls markets, there are no free markets, even if individual Chinese also have a history of pragmatism (Taoism) they are overwhelmed by the Emperor and his Municipal Warlords or Party Members. Just as if the US Gov borrows money into oblivion and spends it then borrows and spends more, enabled by the so called independent FED, while it becomes the biggest employer in the country and huge consumer of science and technology via the MIC, then the free market is also questionable. Combine those two disparate systems, I find it hard to see individuals, especially when factoring in propaganda and marketing. Pettis a number of years ago had a great reading list on Chinese history and markets.