EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 4916
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26003 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23458 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15723 Posts
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KwarK
United States43203 Posts
On April 10 2025 01:18 Mohdoo wrote: So are the current tariffs between USA/China effectively embargoes? Is there anything that still gets purchased when it has a 104% or 84% tariff? It feels like that is probably a huge enough tariff for trade to effectively be eliminated. I don’t think so, because there’s so much without alternative suppliers. Especially in the case of US consumers because the US also tariffed every other possible supplier and seabird. If my phone screen breaks and I’m ordering a replacement then I’ll pay $20 as easily as $10 because I’m not buying a new phone over $20. Trade ecosystems take decades to grow, there’s no alternatives to continuing to use the existing ones other than going without. Chinese industrial parks are a dense ecosystem, it’s not just the factory, it’s the rail lines from mines, it’s the company making spare parts, it’s the company making cranes, it’s the deep harbour, it’s the shipping fuel depots, it’s the warehouses, it’s the technical colleges training people who will work in that ecosystem for decades to come. It grows over time to achieve maximum economic efficiency. You can’t simply throw down another factory somewhere else and compete because their tariffed factory buys raw materials cheap at the end of the rail line from the refinery whereas yours are a special order transported the hard way. Your factory goes down if critical components fail, theirs does not. You have to pay a huge premium to create a labour pool that does not currently exist, they’ve grown theirs. There's an engineering subdepartment of the University of New Mexico that is specialized in microelectronics fabrication, as close to cutting edge as you get outside of Taiwan. It gets a chunk of money from the state budget each year because it produces graduates who have an extremely niche set of skills and there's a fair bit of microelectronics tech going on in New Mexico. Last year Intel announced a $3.5b upgrade to their Rio Rancho fab for example. That investment is the fruit of seeds planted over a decade ago with things like that engineering program. They could have picked another state but they couldn't be sure of getting the process engineers trained on photolithography and vapor deposition in another state without paying an absurd premium to poach them and relocate them. Imagine we make a colony on Mars but still import beef from Earth. In the early days of the colony some bright spark proposes sending a few cows to Mars so that they can get their own beef. They don’t consider the lack of feed for the cows. Or the lack of soil for the feed. Or the lack of atmosphere for the soil microbes. Or the lack of farmers on Mars. Or the lack of fence post suppliers on Mars. Or the lack of trees to make fence posts from on Mars. Or the lack of veterinary supplies on Mars. Or the lack of pharmaceutical factories making veterinary supplies on Mars. They just strap some cows on a rocket and assure you Mars will be great again. The economic ecosystem matters. There's not really any price that will make the Chinese manufacturing parks noncompetitive with the US, only a price that will make consumers forgo the goods entirely. What it'll take to enable the consumers to buy from elsewhere is time, deliberate investment, stability, and careful planning. And we're 0 for 4 on those. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15723 Posts
At the very least, there ought to be 1 other valid option that's ~20% more expensive. There will always be a best/cheapest exporter for a certain product, but until we reach a point of complete human unity, this extent of specialization appears to be really dicey. | ||
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Vivax
22089 Posts
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/ Technically he‘s creating more demand for treasuries, not for investments. So it really makes no sense to pretend this would bring manufacturers home or make them more competitive. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21950 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:18 Vivax wrote: The last trade war with China required 23 billion in bailouts for farmers.Most of his measures seem aimed at reducing the national debt. China and JP have been selling treasuries over the past 10 years while Euros and Canada acquired it. I wonder if it‘s related to what he‘s doing. https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/ Technically he‘s creating more demand for treasuries, not for investments. So it really makes no sense to pretend this would bring manufacturers home or make them more competitive. Please tell me again about how Trump is going to reduce the debt by starting a trade war with the entire world. | ||
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Yurie
11927 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:18 Vivax wrote: Most of his measures seem aimed at reducing the national debt. China and JP have been selling treasuries over the past 10 years while Euros and Canada acquired it. I wonder if it‘s related to what he‘s doing. https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/ Technically he‘s creating more demand for treasuries, not for investments. So it really makes no sense to pretend this would bring manufacturers home or make them more competitive. Why reduce taxes if you want to reduce national debt? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act that is a massive tax reduction for the rich in his last mandate period. Tariff increase is a massive tax increase on the low/medium income people. | ||
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Vivax
22089 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:22 Gorsameth wrote: The last trade war with China required 23 billion in bailouts for farmers. Please tell me again about how Trump is going to reduce the debt by starting a trade war with the entire world. Hey I could be wrong. I‘m trying to make sense of the madness just as much as you are. Finding a perspective that suggests there‘s a hint of making sense in what he‘s doing. Clinging to a slight hope that it‘s not just plain incompetence. Does he cater to billionaires only or is there some motivation to change stuff for the general public ? | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21950 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:29 Vivax wrote: Trump thinks a trade deficit is a check the US sends to countries who import less US goods then they export to the US.Hey I could be wrong. I‘m trying to make sense of the madness just as much as you are. Finding a perspective that suggests there‘s a hint of making sense in what he‘s doing. Clinging to a slight hope that it‘s not just plain incompetence. There is no 4d chess, there is no hidden plan that makes it all make sense. The US elected an utter moron who has absolutely no sense about how anything works what so ever and who refuses to listen to everyone with even the slightest bit of a clue. its very likely this entire 'plan' originated from his son in law reading a book written by another idiot who supports its conclusions with a fake alter ego's non existent 'analysis'. Yes it is this stupid, yes it is utter and complete incompetence that is undoing 80+ years of Pax America in a forthnight. | ||
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Billyboy
1237 Posts
I look forward to posts about how brilliant a move this.... | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway749 Posts
I'm glad he paused the tariffs, but what will he do tomorrow? Fuck us over again? Change his mind? Edit: will we see some FOMO rallies tomorrow? | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18112 Posts
On April 10 2025 01:52 Mohdoo wrote: If our global trade ecosystem is so specialized China and the US will still be buying stuff from each other with that kind of price increase, I am somewhat glad this is all happening. I understand the whole idea of "tomatoes grow better here, so we grow tomatoes. Our neighbor grows lots of lumber, so we buy their lumber", but there is a point at which specialization becomes an extreme liability. This is all of course totally stupid and bad. But based on what you are saying, the current system seems really risky and unhealthy. At the very least, there ought to be 1 other valid option that's ~20% more expensive. There will always be a best/cheapest exporter for a certain product, but until we reach a point of complete human unity, this extent of specialization appears to be really dicey. I mean, yes, there is a point where specialization becomes a vulnerability. And that's where tariffs (or high quality control laws) start to play a role. If you want to foster your own industry in a critical area, you can subsidize it, you can tariff foreign competitors, or if it's already established, but in danger of getting overwhelmed by cheap but inferior competition, set up quality standards. Trump rants and rails against the ban on US beef in the EU. There's no ban on US beef. There's a ban on beef that is over the legal limit of hormones and antibiotics. That just happens to include all US beef. Argentina and Brazil have no problem exporting their high quality beef to the EU, but they take care to grow cattle that complies with the EU's quality standards for beef. Similarly, China moaned a load about a ban on childrens' toys in the EU. There was no ban on Chinese childrens' toys. There was a ban on childrens' toys made of cheap shitty plastic that leaked dioxins. And I'm not saying tariffs are never a good idea. I've brought up Brazil's tariffs on the aerospace industry before, and the critical role that played in Embraer's success. Similarly, if Trump wanted to work on on-shoring critical industries like car manufacture, he could tariff car imports, and explain that foreign cars are getting more expensive in order to protect and grow the local industry. Or microchips. But tariffing everything across the board doesn't protect critical industries, it's just an indiscriminate tax. There's no incentive to the car industry to move plants back to Detroit, because there's no other incentives to help them do so. There's no skilled engineers, and there's definitely no high quality steel mills, so they'd have to import steel, with a tariff, or work with a local steel manufacturer. Setting up that infrastructure is going to take a decade, and the tariffs aren't going to last a decade, so they'll just tough out the tariffs and keep their factory in Mexico, where, in a few months when the tariffs are gone, the labor will still be skilled and cheap, and they have the supply lines worked out. Finally, there's subsidies. The US is pretty huge on subsidizing key technological areas: AI is the newest area, but farming has been subsidized for decades, as they also have in the EU. Medicine is also a big beneficiary of government subsidies, and I'm not talking about the day-to-day, but rather the development of new medicines and devices. All the tools to foster a homegrown industry are there, have been there for centuries, and aren't going anywhere, but that is NOT Trump's goal with these tariffs. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26003 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:46 Timebon3s wrote: If Trump played broodwar, which race would be play. Question for Artosis. I'm glad he paused the tariffs, but what will he do tomorrow? Fuck us over again? Change his mind? Edit: will we see some FOMO rallies tomorrow? He wouldn’t even play, he’d sit around slamming TL and Reddit with threads theorycrafting about balance and his suggestions to redesign the game. And everyone would finally unite, Zerg, Protoss, Terran or even stinkin’ random players to all say his ideas are fucking shit | ||
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KwarK
United States43203 Posts
On April 10 2025 01:52 Mohdoo wrote: If our global trade ecosystem is so specialized China and the US will still be buying stuff from each other with that kind of price increase, I am somewhat glad this is all happening. I understand the whole idea of "tomatoes grow better here, so we grow tomatoes. Our neighbor grows lots of lumber, so we buy their lumber", but there is a point at which specialization becomes an extreme liability. This is all of course totally stupid and bad. But based on what you are saying, the current system seems really risky and unhealthy. At the very least, there ought to be 1 other valid option that's ~20% more expensive. There will always be a best/cheapest exporter for a certain product, but until we reach a point of complete human unity, this extent of specialization appears to be really dicey. 1. This is exactly why strategic tariffs to protect against critical vulnerabilities exist. You pay more for domestic steel because if you close the steel plant then you can't reopen it because the coal mine that provided the carbon also got closed and the rail line between the two got closed and the workers moved away. You don't go for max economic efficiency in every scenario. 2. This is why you have a network of friends. It would be extremely expensive to protect everything all at once, to build enough slack capacity to meet every possible need, to subsidize every industry. But you don't need to because you can cover each others' backs. You don't attack everyone at once. 3. This is in part deliberate because interdependence fosters peace and communication. NK can do what it likes because NK doesn't have skin in the game, there's no benefit to peace for them. China isn't food secure which means China can't do what it likes. | ||
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Doublemint
Austria8635 Posts
what madness will come next week... + Show Spoiler + | ||
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Slydie
1927 Posts
90day pause. Better than nothing, but how are you supposed to run a business when the rules are flipped every hour? I guess his supporters are still somehow happy, until they realize how much of they stuff is Chinese, or have Chinese parts or raw materials | ||
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Zambrah
United States7382 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:46 Timebon3s wrote: If Trump played broodwar, which race would be play. Question for Artosis. I'm glad he paused the tariffs, but what will he do tomorrow? Fuck us over again? Change his mind? Edit: will we see some FOMO rallies tomorrow? Trump would absolutely be a Terran player and he'd be roleplaying himself as Mengsk the whole time, angry that the Communist Protoss Immigrants keep beating him | ||
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Impervious
Canada4211 Posts
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KwarK
United States43203 Posts
On April 10 2025 03:14 Impervious wrote: So, uh, does that mean Trump caved? I'm sure Oblade will be along soon to let us know that backing down on his flagship policy is actually a kind of winning. | ||
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