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On June 08 2018 23:11 LegalLord wrote:
At this point I have to admit Trump probably has an about even chance of a second term. Best not to hope it will all go away any time soon but plan for the long winter.
I predicted Trump would serve the full 8 unless he lost the support of the base, and I think I've been borne out so far. However, one way to that could be getting into a proper trade fight with the EU.
As many people have pointed out, the EU's really good at winning those.
I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned.
The interesting moment will be when he actually has to go all the way. I kind of feel like he's going to be in that situation eventually. He's not even completed his second year and he's threatening full-on trade wars with China, Canada, Mexico and the EU. Sooner or later one of those countries are going to get sick of it and call his bluff. I think it's already quite obvious that nobody's impressed by him on the world stage.
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On June 09 2018 00:03 iamthedave wrote:
I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned.
I don't know, he's followed through on more threats than I expected. Iran deal, Paris agreement and now the steel tariffs. I don't follow the US domestic politics too closely but hasn't he been stopped by the congress on a few occasions?
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On June 09 2018 00:31 Longshank wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 00:03 iamthedave wrote:
I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned.
I don't know, he's followed through on more threats than I expected. Iran deal, Paris agreement and now the steel tariffs. I don't follow the US domestic politics too closely but hasn't he been stopped by the congress on a few occasions?
The US congress is run by a bunch of toothless cowards who are more focused on making sure nothing ever happens than being an equal branch of government. Their sole purpose in life is to make sure nothing happens, government fails and then blame government for things being broken so they can get reelected. They were never prepared for someone like Trump, who does not give a shit about the rules.
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On June 09 2018 00:03 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2018 23:11 LegalLord wrote:
At this point I have to admit Trump probably has an about even chance of a second term. Best not to hope it will all go away any time soon but plan for the long winter. I predicted Trump would serve the full 8 unless he lost the support of the base, and I think I've been borne out so far. However, one way to that could be getting into a proper trade fight with the EU. As many people have pointed out, the EU's really good at winning those. I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned. The interesting moment will be when he actually has to go all the way. I kind of feel like he's going to be in that situation eventually. He's not even completed his second year and he's threatening full-on trade wars with China, Canada, Mexico and the EU. Sooner or later one of those countries are going to get sick of it and call his bluff. I think it's already quite obvious that nobody's impressed by him on the world stage.
I think you very much overestimate how much anyone who would vote for Trump would care about anything EU related like that. That largely falls into the “don’t give a damn” class of political issues for his base and swing voters.
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Also they're loyal to him no matter what, so if you don't retaliate they'll go "oh look Trump is so amazing he's playing 4d chess", and when you retaliate they'll go "oh look at all those suckers abroad they hate the USA!!"
So you might as well proceed in the hopes of hitting the GOP donor class or local business in red states and hope that it accomplishes something
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Congress will start to care once people start losing jobs in their state. Because the next election will come and they will face a brace of candidates running on getting rid of the job killing tariffs platform.
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The EU can target the red states to try to force the Republicans to put pressure on Trump, but Trump can do the same in Europe, can't he? If China and Russia can buy themselves friends in Europe, why can't America? It can offer carrots like military bases in countries unfortunate enough to border Russia or loans to mediterranean economic tigers. It can also offer sticks like tariffs targeted at particular EU members or getting Turkey to "motivate" more refugees to seek better life in Europe.
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Well he already did, that's why we're in this situation. Europe didn't start this trade war. If Trump wants to escalate he of course always can but it will also increase the criticism at home, I'm not sure Congress is excited about an ever escalating trade war with America's biggest trading partners.
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On June 09 2018 03:35 Sent. wrote:
The EU can target the red states to try to force the Republicans to put pressure on Trump, but Trump can do the same in Europe, can't he? If China and Russia can buy themselves friends in Europe, why can't America? It can offer carrots like military bases in countries unfortunate enough to border Russia or loans to mediterranean economic tigers. It can also offer sticks like tariffs targeted at particular EU members or getting Turkey to "motivate" more refugees to seek better life in Europe.
Tariffs are normally set by congress. These tariffs were put in place by the White House using a post WW2 law that allowed the president to set tariffs due to a threat to national security. The legal reasoning behind this bypass of congress is pretty questionable. Using the same reasoning to go after wine from France would a bridge to far for everyone.
So in that sense, Trump is limited in what he can do without going through congress. The same with military bases, loans and other everything else.
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He probably can but the political landscape is vastly different in EU compared to the US. It isn't as clear which country he would target and what that would accomplish. The EU however knows exactly who to target, how to do it and why they're doing it. My understanding is that the EU can be much more effective with their tariffs than the US. But yeah, a trade war will cost both sides which is why no one but Trump and his followers want one.
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He can't.
I don't know who'd believe that french wine, german cars and greek feta are a threat to national security. You can sell steel to some degree, even though that already requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics - that doesn't go for anything else. If it's not a threat to national security, trump can't set them - congress has to. And that's pretty doubtful. There's still some reasonable people left there, i doubt that pissing off former allies even more for no apparent reason other than stroking drumpfs ego is a no-brainer in congress.
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On June 09 2018 04:10 m4ini wrote:
He can't.
I don't know who'd believe that french wine, german cars and greek feta are a threat to national security. You can sell steel to some degree, even though that already requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics - that doesn't go for anything else. If it's not a threat to national security, trump can't set them - congress has to. And that's pretty doubtful. There's still some reasonable people left there, i doubt that pissing off former allies even more for no apparent reason other than stroking drumpfs ego is a no-brainer in congress. And yet if he did I would bet it would require Congress to call him out on it and reel him back in. Which somehow seems unlikely to happen. considering the current Congress.
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On June 09 2018 02:40 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 00:03 iamthedave wrote:On June 08 2018 23:11 LegalLord wrote:
At this point I have to admit Trump probably has an about even chance of a second term. Best not to hope it will all go away any time soon but plan for the long winter. I predicted Trump would serve the full 8 unless he lost the support of the base, and I think I've been borne out so far. However, one way to that could be getting into a proper trade fight with the EU. As many people have pointed out, the EU's really good at winning those. I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned. The interesting moment will be when he actually has to go all the way. I kind of feel like he's going to be in that situation eventually. He's not even completed his second year and he's threatening full-on trade wars with China, Canada, Mexico and the EU. Sooner or later one of those countries are going to get sick of it and call his bluff. I think it's already quite obvious that nobody's impressed by him on the world stage. I think you very much overestimate how much anyone who would vote for Trump would care about anything EU related like that. That largely falls into the “don’t give a damn” class of political issues for his base and swing voters.
I think you every much underestimate how much damage would be done to those voters by the EU in said trade war.
Oh they might not KNOW that the US is getting smacked around by other countries, and it might not be sold to them as such, but they'll know things are getting worse, money's getting tighter, and that orange dude promised the opposite.
That, they will care about. And the people in the White House will know which particular trade war is responsible.
On June 09 2018 03:35 Sent. wrote:
The EU can target the red states to try to force the Republicans to put pressure on Trump, but Trump can do the same in Europe, can't he? If China and Russia can buy themselves friends in Europe, why can't America? It can offer carrots like military bases in countries unfortunate enough to border Russia or loans to mediterranean economic tigers. It can also offer sticks like tariffs targeted at particular EU members or getting Turkey to "motivate" more refugees to seek better life in Europe.
Nope.
The EU doesn't run as individual states like the US does. Put the squeeze on one and the EU as a bloc covers the shortfall financially. In terms of internal politics there's no way to laser-guide your targeting like the EU can do to specifically Republicans in specific states that are a bit uncertain. I'll need someone more informed on the specifics to confirm/deny this one but I think the EU also benefits from having more trading options, because the US buys more than it sells. So if you stop buying something the EU is selling, they're more likely to be able to offload some of it somewhere, if not as much as they'd like.
Trump can generically make life harder for the EU. The EU can make life harder for Trump's supporters in particular.
It's just an inherent weakness in the American political system. Because of how different states' economies work and how the global economy is built on international trade, you just need to target the specific stuff that's in the states of the Republicans you know are behind the trade war in the first place. All of a sudden, life is harder for the people of those states, they want it fixed now dammit, and the Democrat coming up can quite comfortably take advantage of the unrest.
I think elections happen slightly more often in the US as well, adding an extra layer of vulnerability.
As a final point, by and large most EU countries have reasonable faith in their media; if the media tell them (truthfully) that those fucking Americans are trying to intimidate them into doing their bidding (with additional evidence of American fuckwittery helpfully provided by your supposed 'ambassadors'), then you better believe people are going to dig their heels in to spite your government. It's something that goes both ways, but American media is much more fractured and sensational.
I don't know how many American news sites are going to make 'TRADE WARS HEAT UP' their main story for very long. It's kind of a fundamentally boring topic that's perfect for European news but doesn't work so well in ratings land.
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On June 09 2018 04:18 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 04:10 m4ini wrote:
He can't.
I don't know who'd believe that french wine, german cars and greek feta are a threat to national security. You can sell steel to some degree, even though that already requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics - that doesn't go for anything else. If it's not a threat to national security, trump can't set them - congress has to. And that's pretty doubtful. There's still some reasonable people left there, i doubt that pissing off former allies even more for no apparent reason other than stroking drumpfs ego is a no-brainer in congress. And yet if he did I would bet it would require Congress to call him out on it and reel him back in. Which somehow seems unlikely to happen. considering the current Congress.
While I'm not sure; I think that if Trump did suhc a thing then someone could file a lawsuit to block the action; and there's enough people who'd be hurt financially that someone would have grounds for such a suit. As a matter of policy the courts are very deferential to a presidential determination of national security, but that deference does have limits. The courts are definitely willing to block Trump.
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On June 09 2018 04:18 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 04:10 m4ini wrote:
He can't.
I don't know who'd believe that french wine, german cars and greek feta are a threat to national security. You can sell steel to some degree, even though that already requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics - that doesn't go for anything else. If it's not a threat to national security, trump can't set them - congress has to. And that's pretty doubtful. There's still some reasonable people left there, i doubt that pissing off former allies even more for no apparent reason other than stroking drumpfs ego is a no-brainer in congress. And yet if he did I would bet it would require Congress to call him out on it and reel him back in. Which somehow seems unlikely to happen. considering the current Congress.
No, i do think that they'd do it.
Trump might underestimate the rest of the world/WTO, i don't think that goes for every politician in the US. There will be people that understand that the US will lose a trade war. That's inevitable. Especially one that they started illegally.
Sure, it'll hurt all of us, but in the end, it's the US that will lose. While being a strong economy, it's not stronger than the rest of the WTO combined. Not even close.
That's of course me assuming that there's some people with integrity and a shred of sense left in the US government.
Who knows? It might actually be a good thing, to some extend. China and Europe already are intensifying commitments and investments (of course there's still stuff to iron out, but already china is more reliable than the US as a partner), with the UK leaving the EU there's finally a path to reel in chinese steel dumping.
Of course, there's also russia. I actually wouldn't really have a solution there, but if push comes to shove, i'm pretty sure that things can be ironed out there too if the commitment is made on all sides - which of course currently it isn't. Lets not act like Crimea will ever go back to the Ukraine, so there really isn't a point of prolonging what inevitably is gonna happen anyway - people will start to improve relationships with russia sooner or later anyway. This potentially accelerates it by a big margin.
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On June 09 2018 04:58 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 04:18 Gorsameth wrote:On June 09 2018 04:10 m4ini wrote:
He can't.
I don't know who'd believe that french wine, german cars and greek feta are a threat to national security. You can sell steel to some degree, even though that already requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics - that doesn't go for anything else. If it's not a threat to national security, trump can't set them - congress has to. And that's pretty doubtful. There's still some reasonable people left there, i doubt that pissing off former allies even more for no apparent reason other than stroking drumpfs ego is a no-brainer in congress. And yet if he did I would bet it would require Congress to call him out on it and reel him back in. Which somehow seems unlikely to happen. considering the current Congress. No, i do think that they'd do it. Trump might underestimate the rest of the world/WTO, i don't think that goes for every politician in the US. There will be people that understand that the US will lose a trade war. That's inevitable. Especially one that they started illegally. Sure, it'll hurt all of us, but in the end, it's the US that will lose. While being a strong economy, it's not stronger than the rest of the WTO combined. Not even close. That's of course me assuming that there's some people with integrity and a shred of sense left in the US government. Who knows? It might actually be a good thing, to some extend. China and Europe already are intensifying commitments and investments (of course there's still stuff to iron out, but already china is more reliable than the US as a partner), with the UK leaving the EU there's finally a path to reel in chinese steel dumping. Of course, there's also russia. I actually wouldn't really have a solution there, but if push comes to shove, i'm pretty sure that things can be ironed out there too if the commitment is made on all sides - which of course currently it isn't. Lets not act like Crimea will ever go back to the Ukraine, so there really isn't a point of prolonging what inevitably is gonna happen anyway - people will start to improve relationships with russia sooner or later anyway. This potentially accelerates it by a big margin.
How is it illegal? Bad idea? Yes. But I don't see how it's illegal?
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If you're a member of the WTO you subject yourself to WTO ruling and you cannot pass tariffs willy-nilly. Of course the WTO has no mechanism to enforce other than cooperation, but if the US is going to break WTO rulings left and right they're effectively out.
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5930 Posts
On June 09 2018 02:40 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2018 00:03 iamthedave wrote:On June 08 2018 23:11 LegalLord wrote:
At this point I have to admit Trump probably has an about even chance of a second term. Best not to hope it will all go away any time soon but plan for the long winter. I predicted Trump would serve the full 8 unless he lost the support of the base, and I think I've been borne out so far. However, one way to that could be getting into a proper trade fight with the EU. As many people have pointed out, the EU's really good at winning those. I don't think Trump is going to fall into that trap though. He's a master of bluster. He'll always threaten and so rarely follow through on the threat. But he's created an environment where him making the threat is equivalent to following through on it as far as his supporters are concerned. The interesting moment will be when he actually has to go all the way. I kind of feel like he's going to be in that situation eventually. He's not even completed his second year and he's threatening full-on trade wars with China, Canada, Mexico and the EU. Sooner or later one of those countries are going to get sick of it and call his bluff. I think it's already quite obvious that nobody's impressed by him on the world stage. I think you very much overestimate how much anyone who would vote for Trump would care about anything EU related like that. That largely falls into the “don’t give a damn” class of political issues for his base and swing voters.
They probably should care since it'll have huge impacts on local producers and manufacturers. Steel and aluminium prices have already skyrocketed and both quality and quantity are insufficient right now for a lot of industries. There's already complaints and reactionary price hikes from US manufacturers because they're seeing these changes in real time and are struggling to maintain their profit margins.
Mexico's retaliatory tarrifs on pork products are expected to completely tank produce prices in the US because of a predicted domestic oversupply. If its anything like produce oversupply in Australia, farming co-op boards are going to be supplying suicide helpline pamphlets with their reports because that's suicide rates in farming communities skyrocket when farmers can't make a living off their produce.
People might suffer from cognitive dissonance but it doesn't take much to put two and two together.
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Should care? Certainly. Would care? Far less likely. The economic reasons for the decline of their local industries are largely beyond their understanding, and the issues are far more deep-seated than localized problems like this supply shock or that scuffle in the political arena.
Not to mention that politically targeted trade restrictions directed towards those regions, if they do have that effect, will lend themselves excellently to a “I will fight and defeat these dangerous countries” narrative that provides a convenient explanation for the decline. Attempting to defeat Trump with politically targeted retaliation towards his base definitely won’t have the kind of effect you hope for.
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On June 09 2018 11:08 LegalLord wrote:
Should care? Certainly. Would care? Far less likely. The economic reasons for the decline of their local industries are largely beyond their understanding, and the issues are far more deep-seated than localized problems like this supply shock or that scuffle in the political arena.
Not to mention that politically targeted trade restrictions directed towards those regions, if they do have that effect, will lend themselves excellently to a “I will fight and defeat these dangerous countries” narrative that provides a convenient explanation for the decline. Attempting to defeat Trump with politically targeted retaliation towards his base definitely won’t have the kind of effect you hope for.
Except that it'll turn the Republican Party against him out of fear of losing re-election in their states due to a tanking economy, one of the most important indicators of someone on a losing campaign.
Doesn't matter how deluded the base gets; the senators are going to feel the sting eventually, and they're the ones who'll pressure Trump to stop things.
There's no realistic scenario where the US 'wins' this trade war.
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