this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Summary

Global leaders criticized Trump’s new tariffs, which range from 10% to 49%, warning of trade wars and economic fallout.

The UK and Italy urged negotiation, while Brazil passed a reciprocity bill. China and South Korea vowed countermeasures.

Australia and New Zealand rejected Trump’s logic, citing existing trade deals and low tariffs. Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.

Financial markets dropped, oil and bitcoin sank, and leaders warned of inflation. Analysts say Trump risks fracturing global trade with little to gain economically.

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 34 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

There is simple logic in it. Punish everyone, and then let them come to you asking for exemptions. Then he can demand things in exchange. After that it's "Pray I don't alter the deal any further."

UK already asked for an exemption and he said they should buy chlorinated chicken first. If every country responds in the same way and gives in he's making bank. If they respond with a boycott on anything American, especially digital services, things get bad.

[–] turnip@lemm.ee 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Well if hes following Project 2025, which it seems based on recent comments by Elon Musk, then hes expecting other countries to remove all tariffs first. As you say, chlorinated chicken, but if you dont then you dont get to sell your healthy chickens to America, and all that money you owe thats denominated in USD becomes very hard to acquire.

Maybe the better option is to allow it but to label it with its harmful chemicals, let the free market decide, in a kind of democratic process of people determining their own marginal utility versus budget constraints. You can still buy cigarettes in the UK and Europe as well, so whats a bit of American chicken versus a lifetime of smoking?

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 1 points 2 hours ago

Then next Trump would just threaten with tariffs again until the labeling had been removed. Then he'll threaten again for their oversized cars. There won't be an end to this.

[–] Sizing2673@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Chlorinated chicken..?

Is that as mouth-watering as it sounds?

For when your food grows up in so much squalor that you need to dip them in chlorine to fake the bacterial culture tests.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Vlad Vexler makes the point that the point of is not at all economics but that it does have a basis in logic: it is about asserting that he can do this, that his political power is above economic rationality. It is a political move, not an economic play.

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[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago

UK and Italy are playing Trump's game. He doesn't negotiate. He demands tribute and only honours agreements if they are a win for him and he feels like honouring it at the time. Canada has a Trump negotiated trade agreement - the best agreement ever, in his parlance. It is apparently not worth the paper it is written on.
Countries must negotiate trade agreements - with everyone except the USA. And citizens must support their countries by not purchasing any thing from the USA. As for the few Americans that didn't vote for Trump, so sorry but your fellow Americans still fully support him. So it isn't "just Trump", it is America that is the problem. Trump is simply reflecting who the majority of Americans really are.

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 288 points 3 days ago (5 children)
[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 165 points 3 days ago (17 children)

ok, then...

i have a huge trade deficit with walmart.

i buy way more from them than they do from me ($1200-1500 a year vs $0); just like the u.s. buys more from many countries than those countries buy from the u.s.

like the leaky diaper's new ~~tariffs~~import tax, i should charge myself a ridiculously high extra tax on purchases from walmart until they buy $1200-1500 a year of some mythical product from me to even out the 'unfair' imbalance?

yea. that'll work.

[–] andallthat@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

the "logic" is pretty much as you described it. Only, after charging yourself with the extra tax on Walmart purchases, you obviously can't afford Walmart any longer, so you learn to make your own soap with ash and the fats of animals that you have started breeding in your own flat.

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[–] perestroika@lemm.ee 37 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Trump's government has made the US a village idiot - and if the idiot gets into a fight with the whole village, the idiot will have more bruises.

Why he does that - I don't pretend to understand.

[–] Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He's preparing for an authoritarian takeover.

Almost every dictator in history enacted massive tariffs so they had a way to control the economy. Loyal businesses are given tariff exemptions while all the other ones are suppressed. That's what Mussolini did, that's what Putin did and now it's what trump does.

I'll wonder if that "we need guns to defend ourselves against an oppressive government" statement was true.

[–] polycrome@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All the guns on the world won't do any good against a missile. Gun nuts are just waiting for an excuse to shoot their neighbors. Jokes on them because no gun can save them from getting 🗡 In their sleep or getting their food ☠️.

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[–] BenjiRenji@feddit.org 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The village idiot has more guns than the whole village together. So I'm not sure he will accept the bruises.

[–] wanderingmagus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

Until nukes start flying. I pray every day for the light of a thousand suns. We deserve it.

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[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 89 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Have we forgotten that he has done this each month since he was Inaugurated?

Today the stock market will crash on this news. The wealthy will buy on this massive dip, and in a few days, HitlerPig will announce that the countries on his list have responded to his tariff threats, so he is postponing them for a month or so.

The stock market will recover a bit, and the wealthy will make a fortune. In a month, he'll do it all over again.

It's deliberate market manipulation.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 152 points 3 days ago (10 children)

I hope the EU reacts with something non-tariffy. Like forbidding US online platforms to serve ads and collect personal data, with severe punishments if they still do.

[–] wuzzlewoggle@feddit.org 90 points 3 days ago (5 children)

I recently read an article that suggested the best retaliation would be to stop enforcing US intellectual property in the EU. One of the biggest exports they have is media, if we would stop enforcing their copyright it would cost them a lot of money.

[–] Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 47 points 3 days ago (19 children)

You don't even have to go that far. Just adopt sane copyright laws, like copyright only lasting the life of the artist.

[–] huquad@lemmy.ml 32 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Thats still too long imo. Patents are 20 years, so should every IP protection.

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[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 46 points 2 days ago
[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago

Dead horse economics:

Wake up you lazy horse!

[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Someone asked chatGPT how to apply tariffs to give America an equal playing field and it spit it a formula that looks shockingly similar to how trump calculated the tariffs

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Try grok and you'll get an exact match.

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 105 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Shortly after Trump’s announcement, the British government said the United States remains the U.K.’s “closest ally.”

I'm sorry TERF island, that's not gonna keep Trump from stabbing you in the back too.

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[–] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

You know what's fun? Cancelling stuff and citing the reason as 'tariff-related inflation'. It's too new and there is no response script yet, so customer service doesn't really argue.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 104 points 3 days ago (3 children)

If I was Prime Minister, I'd impose a retaliatory tariff of 9000% just because it's all just this stupid.
Call it the Goku tariffs, but drag it out over an hour or two with a lot of screaming.

[–] Tempus_Fugit@midwest.social 69 points 3 days ago (9 children)

Wouldn't it have to be 9001%?

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[–] bearenbey@lemm.ee 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.

Ahahaha. For a day, I want to be inside his head and see the world through his eyes. It would be the most valuable insight for humanity... If only to learn exactly what not to do.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

No thoughts. Only anger at being confused.

More then racism, Trump's appeal is being a simple answer to a complex question. Which happens to mean racism when applied to race relations, but also harebrained economic policies or injecting bleach into yourself. This is the same man who used a sharpy to change the path of a hurricane on a map rather then admit he misspoke.

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[–] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 29 points 2 days ago (3 children)

None of Trump's policies have any basis in reality

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[–] pr0sp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So, now $1 per banana is now real, wow. A complete bunch on my country costs that... We are banana exporters we are the banana republic...

[–] jasparagus@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?

https://youtu.be/Nl_Qyk9DSUw

[–] N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com 90 points 3 days ago (5 children)
  1. Order tariffs
  2. Make everything more expensive for everyone everywhere
  3. Piss off the entire world and invite countermeasures
  4. ??????????????
  5. MAGA
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[–] falkerie71@sh.itjust.works 87 points 3 days ago (17 children)

Putting tariffs on Norfolk Island and Heard and McDonald Islands are particularly funny considering Heard and McDonald Islands only has penguins living there lol.

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[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 50 points 3 days ago (4 children)

They’re AI generated tariffs. He asked Grok and these are the numbers it spat out.

[–] Zaraki42@lemmy.ca 39 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He's imposing tariffs on uninhabited islands... what a fucking moron...

[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 55 points 3 days ago (6 children)
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[–] dryfter@lemm.ee 82 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"No basis in logic"

No shit, this whole administration has no basis in logic. Just look at Project 2025 and the progress they've made on it in a little over 2 months.

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[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No basis in logic if he were actually trying to do what he says he is. He's not. They make perfect sense if the goal is to destabilize the country. We elected a fucking Manchurian candidate twice, and the in-between term was spent on a bunch of business as usual and not setting up protections in case it happened again. This country is fucking done.

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[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 79 points 3 days ago (10 children)

and the price of bitcoin dropped 4.4%.

I cannot express how much I hate that this appears in a serious economic article.

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[–] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 46 points 3 days ago

All the goods that Trump excempts from tarrifs is tipping his hand. If I were one of these countries like Taiwan where semiconductors are exempted, I would apply an export duty equal to the tarrif on other goods. If you want to tarrif me fine but you're going to have to commit.

[–] Litebit@lemmy.world 40 points 3 days ago (1 children)

no tariffs on russia, only sanctions?

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[–] HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee 22 points 2 days ago (8 children)

I saw someone say it seems that the tariffs were calculated by dividing our trade deficit by their exports to us and cutting that number in half. Another person analyzed his charts and concluded they look a lot like they were generated by AI.

So, there is, literally no basis in logic. Either one of Trump's minions calculated what it would take to recoup the difference in the trade deficit and just wrote it down and he announced that as the new basis for international trade, which has never, ever been done, for the reason that it is fucking idiotic, or he asked Gemini how to execute his already objectively stupid policy and wrote an Executive Order making it the law.

And the fact that we are forced to accept people on the Internet's guesses about how he calculated these numbers may actually be worse than the fact that just about every product on the market more complex than a stapler just jumped about 30% in price.

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[–] StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't buy that Trump has anything to do with the logic behind this world-destabalizing shock and awe spectacle.

The conversation would be different if people stopped attributing authorship to him and acknowledged the massive decades-old machine using him as a mouthpiece.

But it sure makes people feel smart though. Gives them something to meme about while the people who planned this get the real dirt done. Maybe he'll misspell a country name next... Do another ad for Leon's dinkeys, Israeli beans or something. Stoopid Donald got poopy pance. lol.

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