Dow plunges 2,200 points, Nasdaq enters bear market
349 comments
·April 4, 2025Prosammer
romaaeterna
The things that dominate middle class budgets: food, housing, medicine, education, are surprisingly local, and have become increasingly unaffordable in recent decades even as economic numbers have gone up.
The question that really matters to most people is, "What will these tariffs do to the prices of these things that actually matter?" And that it actually rather hard to predict.
The economists who claim that tariffs will harm normal Americans were also the economists who claimed that sanctions would destroy the Russian economy. They had the opposite effect, for reasons that still remain somewhat unclear. It may be that global trade makes certain classes of society very very wealthy, while not necessarily being such a positive for the middle class.
It is also notable that Chinese competitiveness has only increased as they have engaged in decades of state economic planning and market barriers. The economists who have told us since Reagan that this is inefficient and stupid might be ... wrong.
mandeepj
> The things that dominate middle class budgets: food, housing, medicine, education, are surprisingly local
> The economists who claim that tariffs will harm normal Americans were also the economists who claimed that sanctions would destroy the Russian economy. They had the opposite effect, for reasons that still remain somewhat unclear.
> It is also notable that Chinese competitiveness has only increased as they have engaged in decades of state economic planning and market barriers. The economists who have told us since Reagan that this is inefficient and stupid might be ... wrong.
You are quite wrong there with all of those three points.
#1. a lot of food items come from Mexico, South America, Asia also. Housing material from Canada and China. A lot of meds come from Asia especially India. Majority of Stationary is manufactured in China as well.
#2. Russia is struggling with economy. But remember it has a lot of help from China, Iran, N Korea, and India. That offset a lot of sanctions. Europe is still buying gas from them.
#3. I’ve to remind you this - China exports in trillions.
leereeves
#1. Total US food imports are about $200B. That's about 10% of US household spending on food, measured by supermarket plus restaurant sales ($800B + $1T).
#2. It's hard to know what's going on in Russia.
#3. High exports don't disprove GP's claim about "state economic planning and market barriers". In fact, they prove the success of those policies and help China maintain a $1T trade surplus, the very opposite of the US's situation.
kivle
> were also the economists who claimed that sanctions would destroy the Russian economy.
This is _very much_ up for debate. It's been a couple of years since Russia went completely dark on publishing key numbers on their economy. [This was three years ago.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRgS6gpiMX0). They had a large war chest ready before they went to war (part of which has been frozen in the west), and there are a lot of signs that they are on their last stretch before things go really bad for them.
Predicting _when_ things go bad is very difficult, so I do not hold that against said economists. The most telling sign is that the first thing the Russians ask for is for sanctions relief before any peace negotiations.
mixermachine
Prices will very likely go up for products that are not 100% local. Some resources for end products are currently mostly imported. The new tarifs also affect resources and unfinished products.
New trade routes and spinning up local production will take time (likely longer five years) so the consumer will pay a price. Question is how high it will be.
To purely imported goods (a lot of tech for example): cost will go up substantially.
To Russia: They are currently in a war economy. You will likely not really see a collapse coming until it is to late. Banks have been forced to give far to cheap loans to the arms industry complex which are unlikely to ever pay them back. This partially masks the true cost of the war.
Let's so how this proceeds.
_fs
New trade routes and spinning up local production will take time (likely longer five years) so the consumer will pay a price.
ivan_gammel
>The economists who claim that tariffs will harm normal Americans were also the economists who claimed that sanctions would destroy the Russian economy. They had the opposite effect, for reasons that still remain somewhat unclear.
They didn’t have the opposite effect. They were ineffective in general, because Russia has large trade partners not aligned with the West and it has been preparing for it, optimizing the government apparatus for 20 years (financial bloc for 30 years). There are plenty of A-players (head of central bank, minister of finance etc), working industrial policy and digitalized processes, and they can make decisions very fast both politically and bureaucratically.
fifilura
> The economists who claim that tariffs will harm normal Americans were also the economists who claimed that sanctions would destroy the Russian economy. They had the opposite effect, for reasons that still remain somewhat unclear.
It is somewhat unclear to me that sanctions had the opposite effect to destroying Russian economy.
Does that mean it is doing great? I don't think so.
bryanlarsen
Those things that are highly local have been dominating middle class budgets because foreign stuff like clothes has gotten so cheap. That's a good thing -- if you spend less money on some things you have more money for others. If you make the foreign stuff expensive, the local stuff will less dominate budgets as they destroy those budgets.
ty6853
And labor shifts from activities where we have comparative advantage (highly skilled labor) to things where we have less comparative advantage (low skilled labor).
So now you have a lower skill low pay job and paying more than before.
I cannot make sense of it other than as a few others posted here that Trump is preparing for war and wants to soften the blow of the interruption to international trade by making sure we are more prepared for isolation.
sangupta
Food is not entirely local. CA gets majority of fruits from Mexico, Peru, Chile etc. Olive, Sunflower, and other oils are imported. Many spices are imported. Lumber tariffs will impact housing and repairs. Any thing with semi-conductors will be expensive: routers, modems, tablets, phones.
Middle class expenses may arise around 5-10% at the very least.
cloudbonsai
To add some perspective, the most expensive component of modern farming is fetilizers. Things such as Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash.
America depends on other countries to supply some part of these materials (like Potash from Canada).
I'm not sure the assertion "food is entirely local" is entirely sound, when we consider the supply chain.
IMTDb
> The things that dominate middle class budgets: food [...] have become increasingly unaffordable in recent decades
I tried finding some number to corroborate your claims.
The proportion of food in the American budget has decreased from ~17% to ~13% between the 60's and now. In fact, it has decreased a lot for "at home food" and increased slightly for "dining out food"[1]. Food seems cheaper than ever - on average. The current price of a calorie sufficient diet is now roughly $0.44/day in the US [2] that sounds very low. Between the 60's and today; the average daily supply of calories per person has increased from ~3000 kcal to ~3800 kcal [3]. People eat more than ever - on average.
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-d... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-calorie-sufficient-d... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-caloric-...
I really wanna believe you, but aren't you just looking at the past with rose tainted glasses. And if you are young; aren't you making up a past that doesn't even exist ?
romaaeterna
Over the period since the 1960s, look at education, medicine, housing, not food.
For food prices, look at the most recent 5-year timescale, where price increases are reported to be on the order of 30% for American consumers. [1]
[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/price-of-food
pyk
During a world war, you cannot trade with your international “enemies.”
This level of tariffs is to discourage international dependency and trade as a prelude to war. Look who does not have a tariff.
This is not good policy - leading economists have written about this [1] as “…perhaps the worst economic own goal I have seen in my lifetime.”
[1] https://www.thefp.com/p/tyler-cowen-liberation-day-was-even
glial
This is both the most rational and most depressing take I have seen yet.
askvictor
As I understand it, there is a trade embargo on Russia, so there's no trade to put a tariff on.
gbear605
You’d be wrong. The US imported 3.5 billion dollars of goods from Russia in 2024, and exported 500 million dollars of goods.
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
onlypassingthru
I've seen some recently manufactured Russian plywood for sale in the US that would disprove that claim.
null
unrealhoang
There is, and it’s much more than an unknown penguin island.
patapong
This is a great question. For me, the steelman argument is the following: Without trade barriers, the local production economy is disadvantaged. Local companies have to comply with things like environmental and labor law regulations, making it more expensive to produce things. Other countries may not have these regulations. Therefore, by institution these rules without tariffs, the net effect is a reduction of environmental and social standards, as manufacturers move to locations where they do not exist.
A strong version of the policy would thus involve directly tying tariffs to environmental and labor laws of the producing country, thus equalizing the field with the local companies. Not only would this allow for fair international competition, it would also economically incentivise the global development of good standards.
billti
I've never understood why countries like the EU pass strict environment and labor laws and then DONT place some kind of tariff or tax on countries without those restrictions. Not only to offset making your own market less able to compete on cost, but to provide a financial incentive for the other countries to up their game on environmental and worker quality-of-life issues (if that is the overall aim).
gruez
>I've never understood why countries like the EU pass strict environment and labor laws and then DONT place some kind of tariff or tax on countries without those restrictions.
This happens all the time though? GMO are very restricted there, so farmers there can't use them. Imports are also banned.
ashoeafoot
Because those ither countries would and do lie all the zime to placate delusional western citizens . it would result in tax carousels with countries were there is no legal recourse.
HillRat
There are already ways to enforce those -- for example, Democrats and US labor unions used the USMCA negotiations to enact a "facility specific rapid response mechanism" that lets the US essentially strong-arm Mexico and Mexican companies into improving collective bargaining rights within the context of the trade deal; section 307 products (created by forced labor) have been illegal since 1930 (and enforced more strictly over the past decade, given concerns about Chinese slave labor); carbon import taxes addressing environmental regulations have been proposed in Congress, but haven't been implemented yet. The government also has existing authorities under anti-dumping and countervailing duty (ADD/CVD) legislation, so long as those duties comply with American obligations under international treaties (Trump's tariffs exist outside the ADD/CVD framework, and place the US in noncompliance relative to our WTO obligations).
Trump's tariffs don't really serve any specific policy goals other than "trade is bad and everyone should buy more from us than we buy from them," which is self-evidently absurd; why are we punishing Madagascar because we buy their vanilla and they're too poor to have extensive need of our services-based economy? Beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies inevitably beggar us as well, as we're likely to find out quite soon.
HillRat
There's no coherence here, the people coming up with this policy are either ignorant or incompetent to the point of malice (Navarro, AKA "Ron Vara," being the benchmark). Tariffs, when used judiciously, can help support "infant industries" where domestic investment in emerging technologies means that supply constraints are less of a concern and where there are long-run expectations of lower domestic prices through efficiencies. In some cases, targeted punitive sanctions (against dumping policies, or to enforce labor and environmental standards) make sense, but the economic evidence on efficacy is mixed.
There is somewhat of an argument that countries such as China overuse American consumption as a crutch for development, rather than stimulating domestic consumption (Xi has, to give very mild credit, proposed policies to increase domestic demand); tariffs would certainly force countries and trade blocs to focus on non-American consumption, though this is a bit like losing weight by removing the patient's esophagus.
What we're seeing here is just ridiculous, from an economic perspective. Low-cost low-margin manufacturing is not coming back to the US, absent an economic crisis that pushes down to a upper-middle-income-level state (stay tuned!), while putting tariffs on agricultural products simply ensures that consumers will pay more without a corresponding increase in domestic competition (how many pineapples does the US grow?). The "calculation" of the tariffs, such as it is, is simply a tax on comparative advantage, which is mercantilist nonsense we left behind centuries ago. There's no steelman for this; even if there were, the increase in raw material costs would make the steelman unaffordable for us both.
t0lo
I think it's about reducing the impact of outside market forces on the US, and increasing its sovereignty in the long term, and potentially laying the groundwork for a white ethnostate that doesn't rely on immigration. The globalised world is going to be crippled by climate change, mass climate immigration, demographic instability and food security.
This avoids the demographic and, depending on your perspective cultural challenges that are coming for many countries in the future, and lets America march to its own beat. America is setting up to be a fortress and a world unto itself in an unstable world. While a lot of countries will be going through these issues in the future America is doing its hard yards now.
Still years of economic misfortune ahead in the meantime.
paulryanrogers
So basically, integrating and supporting different cultures within one country is doomed? Better to be a closed ethnostate?
t0lo
That's not my thinking but it aligns with his practice, especially considering his buddy's interesting hand gestures. Caucasian people are set to become a minority in a lot of their traditional countries pretty soon, and race is potentially going to become extremely heated imo to the point of constant brazen violence. I'm most worried about what he's using all this tarrif(tax) revenue for in the proposed sovereign wealth fund.
pinkmuffinere
I can’t speak with authority, but I imagine the steelman involves something like
- US needs manufacturing capability to maintain defense capability and boost long term growth.
- tariffs result in pushing some manufacturing (and associated skill set) back to the U.S.
philipwhiuk
This would be a good argument for targeted tariffs. Less clear that it's a justification for tariffs on stuff the US just doesn't have.
jredwards
US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. It doesn't feel that way because there aren't as many jobs involved. I understand you're not actually arguing this, just speculating, but, "we need to boost manufacturing capability" isn't a convincing argument.
deepsquirrelnet
If this were indeed the case, I’m not sure tariffs are the right direction to do it.
Principally, that a company would need more guarantees on their capital investment that extend beyond a single president’s term. Since tariffs can be revoked at any moment, companies will want more assurances that the long path of capital investment will be worthwhile, or else they might find themselves disadvantaged before even getting off the ground.
They would find themselves lobbying the government to hold back the free market for them within a few years time.
billti
I did see a talk where someone was making the case that if the U.S. depends heavily on China for steel, and Taiwan for chips, then if China invades Taiwan the U.S. would very quickly be unable to wage a war with both supplies cut off. So the goal is to build some capacity for such products domestically.
They also tied that to Trump's desire to get out of Europe and deescalate the Middle East, being that if the U.S. was already stretched across Ukraine and say Iran, it would be way to stretched to also wage anything in the far east.
I'm no expert by a long way, but I can see some logic in the argument.
OgsyedIE
In what crazy worldview would these be seen as good for America? Here's one.
Hypothetically, if you perceived that the root cause of some foreign policy problems you felt were important to solve was the gap in civil liberties between your country and powerful overseas countries, you could conclude that peace could be achieved by handicapping your own country so that it regresses to match the lower standards of the foreign nations that appear to have a problem with your country and its ideologies.
.
No guarantees that this is the actual belief of the people in power, it would just satisfy your requirement.
analog31
If the best possible version of this policy were smart, it would be coupled with boosting science and education, and improving conditions for the working class, including health care. It would also include governing in good faith.
steveBK123
Hoping the VC bros are enjoying what they sowed.
IPOs already getting pulled, M&A market dead, market selloff, inflation persisting (soon to rise), probable max tax brackets to rise, etc.
dylan604
Isn't the market sell off exactly what oligarchs would want so they could sweep in and buy what's being sold off so their portfolios expand that much more. Ultimately, leaving less available for the 99%ers when the market rebounds leaving the oligarchs that much more in control.
gruez
This seems epistemically dubious. If Trump decided his first act as president was to cut corporate taxes instead, and stocks rallied, I bet the same people are going to complain about how "this is exactly what oligarchs want". Short of a communist revolution, what wouldn't oligarchs want?
steveBK123
Not really. Too complicated. Trump is not a complicated man.
Also if you are wealthy you have more money in the market than sitting in cash, so crashes hurt more than help you.
jredwards
That's generally not true. Crashes hurt everybody, but rich people making a killing during the recovery.
dylan604
How is this too complicated? All of the oligarchs surrounding Trump knows that if they manipulate him to their advantage, he's not bright enough to know it. So, they realize how much he loves the beautiful word "tariff", and the nudge him even further. Voila! It's win-win
9283409232
VC bros want a recession so they can buy everything for cheap. I'm sure they are very very happy right now. Pay attention to REITs.
overfeed
They may get that in the short term, but also get higher taxes and a CFPB-on-steroids oversight agency over the next couple of election cycles.
9283409232
I feel like people haven't internalized that there may not be fair another presidential election. The SAFE Act is the most Orwellian bill that is highly likely to pass and would tremendously move things in Republican's favor
ajross
Yeah, but the schadenfreude won't last, sadly. The coming recession is essentially inevitable at this point. Q2 earnings are going to be a disaster for everyone, expect economy-wide layoffs by autumn.
TomK32
Wikipedia has a list for this, point-wise today was #3 pushing yesterday down to #6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_daily_changes_...
AznHisoka
Shouldn’t we be looking at percentage changes? Naturally, there would be larger point changes as the total market cap of the entire market goes up over time
freddie_mercury
Exactly right. Otherwise we have to argue that 18 of the 20 worst days in economic history happened in the last 3 years, far surpassing the crashes of 1929 or 1987.
mimirs
It’s 6th (yesterday) and 7th (today) by rate.
vonmoltke
Only within the table of 20 largest point drops. Neither even makes the table of 20 largest percentage drops (which is above).
null
semiquaver
As a price-weighted measure, even a percentage drop is not that comparable over time.
yieldcrv
for derivatives traders, points is good enough, given how options prices are calculated
but yeah, it is a red herring in an industry that’s obsessed with hyperbolic phrasing
gtech1
I'm willing to believe this administration is acting in good faith, but two things seem to contradict that, although maybe I'm wrong:
1. Why didn't they include services exported by the US in their 'tariff chart' ? The EU for example, imports a lot more US (tech amongst others) services than they export to the US. It seems disingenous
2. Why couldn't this tariff strategy be implemented in a more calculated, predictable, slow way to give everyone time to adjust, at home and abroad. What's to gain from doing it this way over the one I mentioned ?
binarymax
With what I’ve seen I don’t believe the administration is acting in good faith. Everything about their behavior suggests otherwise.
andrethegiant
What makes you think a twice impeached president who incited an insurrection would act in good faith?
TooSmugToFail
Perhaps we should entertain the simplest explanation: the administration is utterly out of its depth.
Incompetent leader and a coterie of overconfident personalities with no depth or expertise. The fallout is predictable.
davesque
3. Why was Russia uniquely exempt from tariffs?
drowsspa
Yeah... I would have thought that fear of Russia was way more ingrained into the American psyche. It's amazing how much they're basically bowing down to Putin
le-mark
It’s beyond amazing; it’s the tell that gives the whole grift away. Conservative media bought and paid for by foreign influence money. They have sane-washed, explained away, normalized so much egregious behavior that would have ended any 10 other politicians.
deepsquirrelnet
> Why couldn't this tariff strategy be implemented in a more calculated, predictable, slow way to give everyone time to adjust, at home and abroad. What's to gain from doing it this way over the one I mentioned ?
To me, the more concerning detail is that they don’t have any messaging about what their strategy is, except what appears to be guessing from various members of the administration — often which is mutually exclusive with other messaging.
The real risk of all that is people are going to sit on the cash they have, unwilling to make purchases when they can’t see the risk in their future.
My wife and I want to install new flooring, but that’s off the table for us right now, until we have a better idea where this is going.
^ those decisions are disastrous for the economy en masse
gtech1
yep. I liquidated my TFSA ( tax free savings account in Canada ) 2 weeks ago. 90k. Invested in risk-free 90 days GICs instead. No way I would have watched it lose 10-20% of its value in 2 weeks
rawgabbit
They are not acting in good faith. We have a “burn it all” mentality at the highest level of government.
add-sub-mul-div
> I'm willing to believe this administration is acting in good faith,
There's a difference between nonpartisanship and ignorance.
wonderwonder
I voted for Trump, I think they have very large aspirational ideas. I think they have a very shallow bench to implement the low level details.
They are also just terrible at communication, needlessly aggressive and bombastic
gtech1
alright, can you try and answer #1 for me ? Why weren't services included in that chart ?
wonderwonder
I have a guess but not a solid one. The way they determined the rates on these tariffs makes no sense at all. I wish they would have just explained it instead of pushing back and insisting it was based on real existing tariff rates. They really dropped the ball on this implementation.
If I was to hazard that guess, they don't care about services, services are already a dominant US product, no one can beat us. Manufacturing is where we are weak so they went after that. They want manufacturing to come back to the US in case of a war with China over Taiwan. They also don't want counter tariffs on services as again that's our major export. What's really interesting and I could be wrong here is I dont think anyone else has actually hit the US with tariffs on those same services. Its a very calm trade war so far. But its early
TooSmugToFail
Yeah, turns out running the largest economy on the planet is even more complicated than setting the clock on a VCR. Who would have thought. At least they tried.
wonderwonder
oh I think they very much know what they are doing from a directional sense. All of this is intentional. I just think they are VERY bad at the details.
redwood
Incompetence has a price
Kkoala
Yeah Americans are going to learn that the hard way, if they haven't already
cj
I'm hoping the lesson we learn is "do everything possible to maintain 3 separate but co-equal branches of government"
Tariffs are supposed to be imposed by congress, not the president. The president is using a loophole (declaring a national emergency) to give himself authority to bypass congress.
It shouldn't be possible for 1 branch of government to take such drastic measures unilaterally.
atmavatar
The fundamental problem is that political parties (and, in particular, a two-party system) render the existing constitutional checks and balances useless. As long as you have political parties with members spanning all three branches, they are not truly separate branches.
We lived in the illusion that this wasn't the case for nearly 250 years because most of the time, elected officials have largely acted in good faith. However, the Republican party (correctly) determined that when it comes to wielding power most effectively, it's in their best interest to protect its own members in all branches rather than members in each branch thinking of themselves as independent of (or even in conflict with) the other two branches as the constitution envisions.
horns4lyfe
Ah yes, the government has famously been only competent up to this point
le-mark
We didn’t know how good we had it!
nipponese
He had a choice of hard landing vs soft landing. He chose hard landing — looking at history, large scale war follows failed economic war and alliances are arming up in anticipation. I hope Hegseth is ready.
abuani
Good news is most of his reserves come from Kentucky, so he won't have to worry about getting hit with tariffs. Oh, you're talking about ready for the military?
gdiamos
If I wanted to source semiconductors from the US to avoid tariffs, how would I go about doing that?
Don’t micron, intel, and GF have US fabs?
ChuckMcM
Create a subsidiary in Toronto, Canada that owns a boat and rent a mailbox in Rochester NY?
Lots of jokes flying around about how the new business opportunity is smuggling. Sure it was booze back in the day, but hey meeting market demand is a thing.
myHNAccount123
You're still going to be paying the higher price so does it matter?
gdiamos
Why do you say that?
Because the components are going to become more expensive?
Because the US labor is more expensive?
Do you know how it breaks down?
ashoeafoot
Because those exvluded from tarifs will take the tatiffed competition sticker price -1$ to milkvtheir good fortune ?
money on the table for patriotism ?
AlotOfReading
For one example, you'll pay tariffs on everything you import to do the manufacturing, from lithography machines to FOUPs. Equipment costs are the majority of wafer cost in a modern fab, so this is pretty significant.
ChuckMcM
Generally the BOM cost of most hardware is much smaller than the labor cost of assembly. That's why company shipped their semiconductors to low labor cost countries and re-imported finished goods.
That said, if the US does enter a depression then the cost of labor in the US will plummet as people compete for jobs which may? change that ratio in favor of manufacturing in the US. That is rumored to be the "big secret" behind these stupid moves but frankly the folks who believe that are not seeing what I'm seeing I guess.
bilbo0s
Because the components are going to become more expensive?
Of course.
Do you think you're the only one who wants to source US semiconductor parts?
It's supply and demand. Along with some good ole fashioned profiteering.
bgnn
Aren't semiconductors exempt from the tariffs?
rescripting
Can someone explain how tariffs aren’t both a tax and inflation, all rolled in to one? These are two of the most toxic words in politics and yet those most allergic to them are relatively quiet.
wredcoll
Because it was never actually about principles.
MarkMc
Ultimately a large number of people identify with Trump. So when he says he inherited an awful economy and the tariffs are the cure, they believe him
stephc_int13
The reason it is not a real market crash yet is the uncertainties around those tariffs, as they seem too absurd to be kept as announced.
And I believe this is a correct analysis, but I also think that Trump is over playing his hand and miscalculating the reactions of the world at large.
We are going to see a lot more chaos and weird moves during the coming weeks, but I am not optimist about the final outcome.
jfengel
Which is to say: the market hasn't yet fully priced in the effects of the tariffs. It will continue to fall until people have accepted that the tariffs are here to stay.
After that it could level off. Or continue to fall, if there are knock-on effects that haven't yet been priced in.
(Or, I suppose, a bunch of manufacturing could spring up in the US, superior to the rest of the world, giving us whole new export markets and pushing the Dow into six figures. Let's find out!)
paulryanrogers
> (Or, I suppose, a bunch of manufacturing could spring up in the US, superior to the rest of the world, giving us whole new export markets and pushing the Dow into six figures. Let's find out!)
Didn't we find out like a century ago with the Smooth-Hawley tariffs? Do we really have to test this again, and now in the sloppiest most haphazard way?
jfengel
We appear to be intent on repeating a lot of old mistakes. So we're gonna find out.
lvl155
Vietnam already approached this admin hat in hand. Remember they are all politicians and they will do what it takes to remain in power. Having a global financial meltdown is a bluff. Some countries will play the game (smaller ones) and some will not (China).
ssklash
So 1 country down, 193 to go? Threatening the entire world with a financial meltdown is not a bluff, or in any way a reasonable thing to do. It's tantamount to a declaration of war, and we'd get what we deserve if the rest of the world treated it that way.
Either way, the stature and role of the US internationally has been forever altered, and not positively.
alephnerd
> So 1 country down, 193 to go
One of America's largest trading partners (6th largest import market) so there's that.
Furthermore, India is also working on announcing a Bilateral Trade Agreement with the US before the QUAD Summit in October (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/trump-pil...)
Other large countries also have delegations in the midst of negotiations already - like SK (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/south-kor...).
The EU has also started negotiating (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/eu-begins...)
And Canada and Mexico remain under NAFTA/USMCA.
Tl;dr - most of America's largest trading partners are in the midst of negotiations or exempt.
bagels
Right, so we can get some concessions from Vietnam, but completely get cut off from Europe and China. Great trade.
alephnerd
EU is negotiating an off-ramp (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/eu-begins...)
China is not playing ball, but equally large India is working on announcing a Bilateral Trade Agreement (a FTA in all but name) with the US by Aug-Oct.
goatlover
I'm thinking China not playing the game is a much bigger deal than countries like Vietnam bending the knee.
stephc_int13
China is the real target, others tariffs are mostly a smoke screen and considered a potentially beneficial side effect.
llm_nerd
While I have no doubt that Vietnam went calling, facing devastating tariffs, the "hat in hand" bit is uproarious.
What do you think Vietnam will offer?
It has negligible tariffs on US goods. It exports a lot to the US because it has very cheap labour, because it's a poor country. It is in no position to buy more from the US. There is no universe where it's going to even remotely close that trade deficit.
So what, in your rose-coloured view, do you think they are offering up?
I mean, everyone realizes this is a hilarious cope regardless. Trump declared, with utter absolutism, that the tariffs are not going anywhere and there is no way to negotiate them. That his "ERS" would net trillions and balance the budget. But wait...now it was really a masterful negotiating strategy?
I mean, Trump could have said "here's the tariffs we have estimate based upon a current analysis", and if isn't remediated in a month we'll stagger in "reciprocal" tariffs. That isn't what he did. Instead he did the stupidest thing imaginable, which is what we see today. So yes, when he has to backtrack because it was the most catastrophic self-destruction in history, feel good that a super poor country came "hat in hand".
stephc_int13
The deal he is going to offer to countries like Vietnam is to be part of a "club" of countries with special relationship with the US, and that will include accepting to tie up their currencies to the dollar and buying exclusively US weapons for their defense.
le-mark
> We are going to see a lot more chaos and weird moves during the coming ~weeks~ YEARS
Fixed that for you. It’s horrifying isn’t it?
superconduct123
Say hypothetically the Tarrifs are all reversed on Monday, does the market go back to normal?
vizzier
Seems doubtful. Trust is earned slowly but spent quickly.
Macha
Define go back to normal. Will it go up from where we are? Sure. Will it immediately return to its former highs, unlikely, the US government has now proven to be a lot more unpredictable and risky than the previous prices assumed. Will it eventually inch its way back to the highs, probably.
ThatMedicIsASpy
The current US government is a circus full of unqualified yes-people - the only thing that stops losing even more is to disband the circus.
krapp
No, why would it?
The United States has burned trust and credibility that can never be recovered. Its collapse into a pariah state like North Korea or Russia, cut off from diplomatic ties and trade and left by most of the world to decompose into an irrelevant husk is inevitable. The market will adapt, likely after years of global depression, with China and Europe competing to become the new global hegemon. The normal that existed prior to Trump, like all those jobs he promised, is never coming back.
If you see a Trump supporter, be sure to thank them.
ethics13
This is a bit of hyperbole. Market will normalize, the most extreme case which even the biggest critics of Trump argue, will be recession. Even that's a probability and not a certainty. How are you predicting Depression (global no less)?
Speaking as one of the biggest Trump critics.
ldng
Who would have thought ...
alabastervlog
[flagged]
Terr_
"Plus, I'm gonna declare that we're already in a secret war with a gang from Venezuela, and use that to kidnap latino-looking people off the streets, and if we find non-citizens--even if they're legally allowed to be here--I'll send them a gulag I rented from the dictator of El Salvador... So don't be mean to me."
"Oh, and you know that funding that Congresse passed a law to use somewhere in your state? You'll need to do a few things for me first..."
imperialdrive
He's never had alcohol due to a family with addiction problems, that's my understanding anyway. I kinda see your point though.
alabastervlog
My imagined normal government advisor-sort who's just (figuratively) awoken from a 20-year coma and is attempting to approach this situation, initially, as a normal interaction with a normal President is the one drinking and hitting the crack pipe by the end. I tried not to over-burden it with formatting, but may have gone too light and made that unclear.
jfengel
The drinker in that story is the OP, coping with the barrage of bad ideas.
Ensorceled
Pretty sure it's the unnamed guy that's doing the drinking in this scenario. No idea how you worked it out the other way.
i80and
The alcohol pouring is by the narrator in the vignette, not by Trump
russdill
Oh, and science? Education? Fuck 'em.
vessenes
I mean to be fair this was the campaign promise, not like a random decision post election. He’s implementing exactly what he said he would.
jiggawatts
You missed the really brilliant part: using tariffs to force unskilled and low-skilled jobs back onshore while simultaneously mass-deporting most of the unskilled labour force.
selimthegrim
Well you know, officer, I was going towards the brothel in order to get away from the brothel....
selimthegrim
Who knew the ghost of Christmas past for Trump was actually Marion Barry
18172828286177
Are these tariffs even popular in the US?
cj
No.
The uncertainty of what will happen 2-3 weeks or 2-3 months (or 2-3 years) from now is causing a lot of people to react very negatively to this, regardless of their personal politics.
layer8
From polls, a good half disapproves, while a third approves. The remaining sixth or so is undecided.
icedchai
Does anybody want this? Increasing costs and financial chaos aren't good for anyone. Congress needs to do their job and fix this: revoke (or amend) the "emergency" economic powers that allowed Trump to do this in the first place. I realize that is unlikely to happen.
I have very little understanding of geopolitics or economics, so these tariffs don't make sense to me, and they don't seem to make sense to most people.
What’s the best steelman argument for them?
I’ve read a bit of Peter Navarro and others who support this line of thinking, but I’m trying to understand: is there a coherent endgame here that benefits the country long-term, or is this just short-term political theater dressed up as strategy?
What would the best possible version of this policy look like if it were smart?