President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[BlueK]

More on Trump taking the economy into an abyss;



The health of the US economy is looking less and less stable by the day.

Layoffs are rising. Consumer spending — the backbone of the economy — unexpectedly dropped in January. Consumer confidence has plunged. A key GDP forecast suddenly turned negative. And extreme fear is back on Wall Street, with stocks sliding last month.

Despite the murky picture, President Donald Trump continues to inject chaos into the economy with almost-constant tariff threats.

Now he’s just hours away from lobbing tariffs on not just one or two but all three of America’s biggest trading partners.

Starting on Tuesday, Trump has vowed to impose a 25% tariff on imported goods from Mexico and Canada, and to double tariffs on those from China to 20%. However, what ends up going into effect could significantly change down to the wire. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNN’s Pamela Brown and Wolf Blitzer on Monday he expects the president to make a final decision “this afternoon.”


https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/econo...omy/index.html

[beefytee]

Hey, if he tanks the economy enough, inflation won’t be a problem!

[BlueK]

Hey, if he tanks the economy enough, inflation won’t be a problem!

Stagflation.

[BlueK]

Here is an interesting analysis about Trump and his love affair with the idea of tariffs. This has a good chance of blowing up spectacularly in his face.

Some excerpts:

Trump’s decision to press the button, after previously delaying the duties on US neighbors a month ago, reflects a duel between his political heart and his head.

The often-volatile president has seen tariffs as an almost supernatural economic tool since his deals as a real estate mogul in the rip-roaring 1980s. Alongside immigration, the conceit that foreign nations are constantly ripping America off forms the foundation of his political career.

“It’s going to be very costly for people to take advantage of this country. They can’t come in and steal our money and steal our jobs and take our factories and take our businesses and expect not to be punished,” Trump said Monday. “And they’re being punished by tariffs. It’s a very powerful weapon that politicians haven’t used because they were either dishonest, stupid, or paid off in some other form.”

Trump’s faith in tariffs survives every warning by economic analysts that consumers rather than rival trade powers will pay for them.

Tariffs – a device used for generations earlier in America’s history but that was largely phased out in the 20th century – are stamped in the DNA of Trump’s “America First” movement. Their implementation against Canada mirrors the worldview behind his eruption at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week. For Trump, all foreign policy is a monetary transaction in which the United States is either winning or being taken advantage of. This mindset precludes the idea that America has friends or allies with common interests. Instead, his use of tariffs to try to wring concessions from Mexico and Canada on immigration shows that his White House views them not as an exclusively economic tool but as part of a deeper national security arsenal.

Trump has placed himself in a political box. If he imposes tariffs, he’s playing with fire. If he doesn’t, everyone will think he’s always bluffing, and he’ll dent his own economic leverage.

Even if he relents, Trump’s constant threats are darkening an unsettled environment for investors and consumers.

For all its legendary resilience, the US economy is flashing weakness. Consumer confidence is tumbling along with consumer spending. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow model on Monday projected a 2.8% decline in growth for the current quarter.



https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/polit...ble/index.html

[USUC]

What a spectacular own goal. Luckily for Trump, nothing is his own fault.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Trump's lifelong worldview is that life is a zero sum game, and you never want to be thought of as a loser. It's why he has told his partners in golf matches that the other guys are cheating and that's why he does it. He assumes others are always ripping him off, so he does unto others....

In other news, will tonight's speech unveil the health plan that he has been promising us for ten years? You know, the one that is always a week or two away from being announced? Why not unleash his brilliant Muskrats on putti9ng the final touches on that plan instead of going after the federal workforce?

[BlueK]

Trump's lifelong worldview is that life is a zero sum game, and you never want to be thought of as a loser. It's why he has told his partners in golf matches that the other guys are cheating and that's why he does it. He assumes others are always ripping him off, so he does unto others....

In other news, will tonight's speech unveil the health plan that he has been promising us for ten years? You know, the one that is always a week or two away from being announced? Why not unleash his brilliant Muskrats on putti9ng the final touches on that plan instead of going after the federal workforce?

I won't watch. Just hearing his voice makes me want to

[chrisrenrut]

Sound up

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[Jeff Lebowski]

This is such a great idea. 500% tariff on Teslas. Please make this happen.

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[RC Vikings]

Trump will tank the market, put us in a negative growth and force the Fed to lower rates in order to keep us from drowning and then tell us how much we will all benefit with these lower rates while at the same time spending much more for it. So much for the soft landing the Fed was working on and by all accounts was doing a good job of achieving. I won't listen to him tonight, I can't stand listening to him talk about how great he is.

[Northwestcoug]

This is such a great idea. 500% tariff on Teslas. Please make this happen.

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I crossed the border yesterday and watched one of the Canadian news shows. One of the economists said basically the same thing. Retaliatory tariffs aren't just going to hurt US consumers. For now most of the tariffs are strategically planned, liked on Kentucky whiskey (red state). But I just saw Ontario doubled the electricity price on their northern US state customers.

[Maximus]

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[LVAllen]

Andrew Feinberg, WH Correspondent, The Independent: "On Tariffs, you just said we charge 'them,' as in we charge China, but the tariffs are paid eventually by American importers and consumers-"

Melon Felon: "No they're not, I think they're paid for by the country."

Pure idiocy.

[USUC]

Hot damn, this is WILD.

Trump thinks he's going to bully his way out of this.

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And then you have people believing this nonsense.

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[BlueK]

Trump will tank the market, put us in a negative growth and force the Fed to lower rates in order to keep us from drowning and then tell us how much we will all benefit with these lower rates while at the same time spending much more for it. So much for the soft landing the Fed was working on and by all accounts was doing a good job of achieving. I won't listen to him tonight, I can't stand listening to him talk about how great he is.

The problem with tariffs is that they push up prices while slowing or decreasing economic growth at the same time. Normally when economic growth slows or contracts, the fed lowers interest rates. But if you have an inflationary environment because of the tariffs, lowering the interest rates contributes to that and pushes more inflation. It will be a mess the fed won't have the tools to do much about. Next Trump is dumb enough to force through price controls and everything disappears off the shelves as a result. Hello Venezuela.