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Trump has introduced a 10% tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory.
The only inhabited island there is Diego Garcia, home to 4,000 US service personnel, so Trump has put a tariff on a US Military base.
Bigly genius…
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BTW It seems a lot of those 'what they charge us' figures are nonsense.
90% of what Trump says is nonsense or just plain lies.
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Whilst accurate, may I ask what the relevance is to the BIOT, whose only inhabitants are 4,000 US Service personnel (and a handful of British Military liaison personnel)?
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“For all intents and purposes, the US is now a rogue nation when it comes to trade,” said Michael Gasiorek, the director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex.
“I don’t think there is a global trade war going on. The US is fighting a trade war with everybody but the others are keen to co-operate even more.”
You now have China doing this:
Quote:
China has launched a charm offensive to woo European officials and companies, to the point of inviting the heads of Mercedes and BMW to meet Xi Jinping.
EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has been on a recce mission to Beijing to explore a Sino-European truce to reorder global trade.
Lastly, an interesting take on the legality:
Quote:
Trump’s tariffs are, of course, unconstitutional. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,” and for good reason.
If true, expect challenges in the Federal courts ..
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Indeed, throughout the world there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now, there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing. And today many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot-Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.
You see, at first, when someone says, ``Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,'' it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works -- but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is: First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.
"People who don't know history, are doomed to repeat it"
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BTW It seems a lot of those 'what they charge us' figures are nonsense.
Here's the formula.
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Here’s what the White House and its crack team of trade investigators seems to have done: Take the US’s goods trade deficit with any particular country, and divide it by the total amount of goods imported from that country. Cut that percentage in half, and there’s the US’s “reciprocal” tariff rate.
We can confirm this fits* the numbers for the first 24 countries listed, which we checked by hand because we could hardly believe it and also because we refuse to use AI for anything. Kudos to @orthonormalist and James Surowiecki, who both put it together, more or less.
Let’s look at Bangladesh as an example. The US imported $8.4bn of goods from Bangladesh in 2024, giving it a $6.2bn trade deficit with the country. 6.2 divided by 8.4 is 0.738.
And what do you know? The White House says that the country has “charged” 74 per cent “tariffs” against the US, “including currency manipulation and trade barriers”.
One country was noticeable by its absence from the "reciprocal tariffs" list, even though the USA had a $2.5 billion goods trade deficit with it in 2024…
U.S. total goods trade with Russia were an estimated $3.5 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million, down 12.3 percent ($73.5 million) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $3.0 billion in 2024, down 34.2 percent ($1.6 billion) from 2023. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Russia was $2.5 billion in 2024, a 37.5 percent decrease ($1.5 billion) over 2023.
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Liz Truss and Donald Trump are in a bar.
Liz "When I was Prime Minister, I crashed the economy and devalued the £ by 5%!"
Donald "Hold my (alcohol free) beer!"
I took my pension out of 100% equities the other week in anticipation of this idiot being an idiot. Might look to put it back soon on the assumption they'll come to their senses when the reality kicks in....
In a letter sent out Thursday morning, Stellantis’ North American COO Antonio Filosa said that despite seeing market growth since January, the company would idle its Windsor Assembly Plant for two weeks and its Toluca Assembly Plant for April and temporarily lay off 900 workers.
"With the new automotive sector tariffs now in effect, it will take our collective resilience and discipline to push through this challenging time,“ Filosa wrote. ”But we will quickly adapt to these policy changes and will protect our company, maintain our competitive edge and continue delivering great products to our customers."
The layoffs will impact workers at the Warren and Sterling Heights stamping plants, as well as workers at the Indiana Transmission Plant and the Kokomo Transmission and Casting plants.
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