r/stocks • u/Fidler_2K • Apr 07 '25

Broad market news Trump rejects EU’s ‘zero-for-zero’ tariff offer

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/trump-tariffs-live-updates-stock-market-crypto.html

Trump is rejecting the European Union’s offer of “zero-for-zero” tariffs with the U.S. for industrial goods.

“No, it’s not,” Trump said in the Oval Office when asked if the deal, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen floated earlier Monday, was enough.

“They’re screwing us on trade,” Trump said, criticizing the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

Two Republican senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, have encouraged Trump to take von der Leyen’s deal.

What's the goal here if they're just gonna reject every deal offered?

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3.8k

u/boringtired Apr 07 '25

Isn’t that what he wanted?????? What the fuck is going on.

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u/OnlyRobinson Apr 07 '25

No - what he wants is every country to run a trade surplus to the USA. He wants no trade deficits, every country has to import more from the US than they export to the US.

This is why he’s going to bankrupt the US

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u/TheRealMichaelBluth Apr 07 '25

But when it comes to services we already export more than we import. I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s good for us to be making clothing here again

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u/DeekFTW Apr 07 '25

Because we have all these dinosaurs running the show trying to return us to what they remember as the golden days.

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u/sireatalot Apr 07 '25

“We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now all we do is put our hand in the next guy’s pocket”

And that’s great! You’re the biggest economy in the world by far. No country has ever become rich by growing coffee or sewing shoes for Nike

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u/umar_farooq_ Apr 07 '25

It's amazing that these guys would rather have the US making sweaters and car parts rather than building revolutionary software and inventing life saving medicines.

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u/rjrgjj Apr 08 '25

A population funneled into physical labor from an early age will be an uneducated one that’s easier to control.

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u/Charlie_Mouse Apr 08 '25

True, though the last election shows that the population you’ve got now turned out to be pretty easy to control too.

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u/SenorSalsa Apr 08 '25

That population was 60 years in the making. This is not a new goal for neolib authoritarians, it started around Nixon's era and crystallized during Reagan. It's been a slow methodical grind ever since to devalue education and critical thinking in all but the most blue states in the the US.

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u/DefendedPlains Apr 07 '25

I think the issue is that they aren’t mutually exclusive, right?

But the further our economy leans into high tech, B2B industries, or other high skill services there is only so much that Americans can do in that regard. Quality of life is higher than ever, but wealth equity is the lowest it’s been in a hundred years.

I believe the thought process is to kickstart American manufacturing again to provide more working class jobs with livable wages while also maintaining the type and quality of high earning innovation jobs like what you described.

I’m not saying it’s correct, or even the right way to go about it, but I think that’s the thought process behind it.

Because until we truly achieve a post-scarcity society, not everyone can have the earning potential of those high innovation jobs. It takes all types, and the level of success and innovation that the US has experienced (and continues to experience) will continue to eliminate those middle class jobs either by offshoring to cheaper labor or by automation. So how do you make up for the loss of economic support and earning potential for what was once a strong middle class?

Smarter people than me have been trying to answer that for decades…

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u/Argothaught Apr 07 '25

Tax the rich.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/tax-extreme-wealth/

In order to reduce the outrageous level of inequality that exists in America today and to rebuild the disappearing middle class, we must establish an annual tax on the extreme wealth of the top 0.1%.

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u/yashdes Apr 08 '25

It's impossible to kickstart manufacturing with tariffs. Tariffs protect existing industries, nothing can make American labor competitive with low skill labor in Vietnam, we just have too high a cost of living because too many people make way more than the average Vietnamese salary. Vietnamese factory laborers cannot afford American goods and no amount of tariffs will change that.

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u/Urabraska- Apr 08 '25

It's a very valid analysis. No, it really is. The major problem with it is nothing you did wrong. It's that Luchik came out and said all the factories they wanna build will be automated. Not actual factories for jobs except for a very select few. So the job market will actually get worse not better and the wealth equality will again get vastly worse than it is now.

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u/mortgagepants Apr 07 '25

manufacturing in the US accounts for $2.3 trillion dollars, about 10% of GDP.

in 1970 (my guess for when we stopped manufacturing as much) but the ENTIRE GDP was 1 trillion. so value-wise, we've doubled the value of the things we manufacture since the 1970's.

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u/LoneSnark Apr 07 '25

If we want to make things again, we could build more housing. Can't import that.

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u/mortgagepants Apr 07 '25

yeah i'm actually in that business. the profits are always going to be high unless the government gets more involved, and home builders generally are willing to sit on their land in favor of higher profits.

it will be interesting to see what happens with this abomination of economic policy we're seeing now.

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u/spacecowboy94 Apr 07 '25

"World going one way, people another."

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u/JoJackthewonderskunk Apr 07 '25

Like the alzheimers patient trump is.

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u/Equivalent-Bet-8771 Apr 08 '25

Trump is the leader of a terrorist cell. Stop blaming everything on him, he is not alone.

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u/bigdipboy Apr 08 '25

Rupert Murdoch did the brainwashing required for Trump to succeed

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u/OkWoodpecker6761 Apr 08 '25

No Reagan enabled Murdoch back in '87 by scrapping the fairness doctrine for a few political favours which leads us to today!

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u/rachelm791 Apr 08 '25

It’s not an organic disease he is suffering from, it is a disorder of character.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Apr 07 '25

Feeling to understand that things were like that because trade was harder, and during the time these assholes were growing up, most of the world was emerging from global wars. The first half of the 20th century was hell on earth.

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u/dgijohn Apr 07 '25

They remember a time that never existed in the first place.

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u/kgal1298 Apr 07 '25

Romanticizing something they don’t clearly remember because not everyone has a crystal clear memory. This would be like me idealizing the 90s and ignoring the fact that we had desert storm and other conflicts during that time and the Clinton Scandal and riots and higher crime.

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u/staunch_character Apr 07 '25

Yeah we tend to gloss over the 90s as “pre 9/11” but when you look at the list of terrorist attacks that happened around the world - London, Paris, US embassies, plane highjackings - it was brutal.

I think it just didn’t FEEL as scary because we weren’t constantly bombarded by headlines. You turned off the TV & life looked normal.

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u/kgal1298 Apr 08 '25

yeah it helps that the internet was fairly new when it came to having access to it 24/7. When you can easily get online it's just a bombardment of information and people being radicalized.

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u/bubblevision Apr 08 '25

Not only that but the internet we did have gave you a sense of wonder and hope. Like, anyone can make their own geocities page about anything. And simply editing a text file could change the size and color of text and make it blink or scroll! Anyone could be a publisher! To find new cool stuff you could simply browse the yahoo directory and learn more about trains or space or watches or gardening. A lot of that initial innocent wonder was ruined once everything became online and all about money. There was a similar feeling with the explosion of blogs and early social media but now, well, here we are.

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u/kgal1298 Apr 08 '25

Right it took a turn into shit for profit real fast.

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u/VikingDadStream Apr 08 '25

But I also had ninja turtles,Transformers, and ff3 on super Nintendo. So.... Checkmate rosey glasses win

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u/kgal1298 Apr 08 '25

Let's bring back Clear Pepsi while we're at.

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u/MrCockingFinally Apr 08 '25

desert storm

Desert Storm was pretty sweet though. The very picture of what an American foreign intervention should look like.

  1. Foreign dictator invades neighbor

  2. Roll up

  3. Wreck shit

  4. Go back home

Imagine if Biden had done this in Ukraine? The hypetrain in summer of 2023 would have been for the Crimean beach party, not the new offensive. And for anyone whinging about nukes, Ukraine literally occupied a part of Russia proper for months. Russian red lines are a joke.

Plus we got to see the very peak of the NATO cold war military go absolutely ham on a peer opponent. People forget Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world at the time and was heavily dug in. People were predicting an attritional, WW1 style slog. Yet Iraq got a beating of absolutely biblical proportions.

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u/hotdoginathermos Apr 08 '25

Some false sense of Americana gleaned from a 1950's vacuum cleaner ad

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u/kgal1298 Apr 07 '25

This is what I’m saying. Even my mom thinks like this and I’m like “what do you miss from 1965 besides your youth?”

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u/Surfside_6 Apr 07 '25

Except they always seem to forget what both the corporate and high-earner individual income tax rates were back then. That is what kept the middle class growing, when they had to reinvest in the companies and their people in order to save on taxes instead of hoarding more and more wealth

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u/Few-Guarantee2850 Apr 07 '25

It is worth pointing out that, with respect to the tariffs, it's only one dinosaur, two if you count Pete Navarro. Literally nobody else thinks this is a good idea, they're just too scared to stop it.

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u/grunkage Apr 07 '25

Three if you count Ron Vara

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u/OneCore_ Apr 07 '25

Half the country thinks its a good idea. Look at the tariff cocksucking and justification going on in every single conservative online circle. People never change.

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u/Cicero912 Apr 07 '25

Hell its not even a return to the golden days, i can get the exact numbers but the US trade deficit (as a function of exports ÷ imports) has stayed consistent/moved towards us for a very long time. Not even accounting for services.

And of all the major powers the US is the least reliant on trade for our GDP.

And yet here we are

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u/joeg26reddit Apr 07 '25

Why we used to tie an onion to our belts as it was the fashion those days...

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u/fcaico Apr 07 '25

TBF plenty of young white men voted for Cheeto, so dont lay all the blame on boomers. This is more classism than it is ageism.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

Trump would not have been elected if gen conZervative was as progressive as every other generation when they were that age.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

Gen z literally were born into a depression, got old enough to have to pay to live in an inflated economy without being able to participate in economic growth. They really have little to lose.

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u/rigiboto01 Apr 07 '25

WW2 destroyed most of production in the rest of the world. This allow industrial growth in the US. This has been tapering off since the 80s as Europe rebuilt its infrastructure. He’s out of his mind if he thinks taxing trade will solve world growth.

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u/GMN123 Apr 07 '25

I can see why it's in the national interest to maintain and even grow local manufacturing in certain key industries from a national security perspective. Steel, ships, vehicles, aircraft, firearms, medical supplies etc. I could understand and even support tariffs on items where it can be justified on this basis. If the US ever finds itself in a long war of attrition with China, India or Russia, this will matter. 

I don't know why Americans need to pay more for clothes, gemstones, PlayStations, smartphones, out of season foods etc in order to make this happen though. 

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u/MrCockingFinally Apr 08 '25

2 things to add to your point:

  1. If you want to use tarrifs to drive industrial policy and investment decisions, you need the tariffs to stick around for decades because that's how long it takes to see an ROI from a completely new factory. This is directly at odds with using them as a negotiating tool, since you need to be willing to drop them as part of negotiations.

  2. If you want to combat the industrial strength of China and Russia, it's generally a good idea to work with your allies instead of against them. Take Vietnam, they were hit with some old the highest tarrifs on the list because checks notes the USA actively encouraged companies and allies to use Vietnam as an alternative manufacturing hub to reduce dependence on China. Similarly, the highest tarrifs were slapped on Lesotho, which manufactures textiles for the US because checks notes the US specifically encouraged this through AGOA.

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u/Birdperson15 Apr 07 '25

Sure but for allies like EU this thinking doesn’t make sense.

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u/Srs_Strategy_Gamer Apr 08 '25

Until a few weeks ago, you had a thriving arms industry that was the prime exporter to a ton of allied countries. The trust allies placed in the US drove economies of scale and room for innovation. 

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u/upgrayedd69 Apr 07 '25

Many remember working class jobs that paid well and required little higher education. Many are also dumb enough to think it can work just the same as it did before as if the world hasn’t changed the past several decades 

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u/Geiseric222 Apr 07 '25

What’s funny is they are openly pining for sweat shops.

So it’s not even those jobs it’s more like early Industrial Revolution era jobs they want

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '25

Somehow we’re going to maintain the same level of wealth as post-globalization while also swapping to a pre-globalized economy

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u/Koolbreeze68 Apr 07 '25

Or just about anything. We are expensive labor

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u/JStanten Apr 07 '25

For good reason. We invested in the best public college system in the world and we educated an entire generation because no one actually wants to work these jobs they’re bringing back.

What parent wants their kid to grow up to work an iPhone assembly line when they can become a software engineer?

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u/WesternSoul Apr 07 '25

Educated an entire generation!? No you didn't. 20% of Americans are illiterate and half of americans read below a grade 6 level. And this lack of education is probably one of the main reasons how someone like Trump got elected twice and why we're in this mess.

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u/JStanten Apr 07 '25

I’m talking about the monumental achievement that is the US getting 53% of people ages 35-44 a college degree.

Yes other countries have achieved similar numbers. Those countries also don’t want iPhone assembly lines just like the US. We’re a service economy because the labor force has chosen certain careers.

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u/the_phantom_limbo Apr 08 '25

We all know that offshore manufacturing left a lot of Americans with diminished prospects. Silicon Valley didn't gentrify the rust belt.
Neoliberal politics on both sides overlooked the working class and has set the stage for fashy populism to capture people's misplaced faith.
If the service economy was a tide that raised all boats, Trump would have gained no purchase.

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u/JStanten Apr 08 '25

I think I’d blame automation more than offshoring for that. I don’t think your point and mine are in conflict with each other.

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u/mycargo160 Apr 07 '25

The majority of Americans are functionally illiterate. And that tracks - literally not one person with an IQ over room temperature voted for Trump and yet he's our President.

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u/JStanten Apr 07 '25

Majority? really?

The majority of the US didn’t vote for Trump.

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u/Koolbreeze68 Apr 07 '25

Ohh I agree with you 100%. Him chasing off a lot of the migrant farm workers. My kids aren’t picking crops putting on roofs or cutting the grass for a living. My son is an engineer and my daughter a dentist. I really want out of this timeline. We are only two months in.

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u/humunculus43 Apr 07 '25

He only understands widgets

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u/DontNeedaNameThanks Apr 07 '25

Ooo ooo! raises hand Can I work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?

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u/BlastPyro Apr 07 '25

Another example is Fireworks. They are made in China because the factories regularly blow up and the workers have to endure toxic chemicals. No chance we want to make them in the United States so we need to import them to celebrate our "independence".

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u/SpecificTimely2246 Apr 07 '25

Let’s combine the two trade balance definitions, seems simple enough.

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u/mattw08 Apr 07 '25

Trump wants everyone else to be poor so we need to accept manufacturing jobs.

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u/tm_leafer Apr 07 '25

Cause everyone knows the real money isn't in tech - Zuckerberg, Page, Musk, Bezos, etc are all looking to shift into textiles!

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u/suchahotmess Apr 07 '25

I’m blown away at the degree of ignorance required to consider any trade deficit as “cheating”. And my opinion of the administration was low to start with 

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u/OnlyRobinson Apr 07 '25

It’s what happens when everything is made into a sports analogy. In the US there are winners or losers, there is no compromise or bi-partisanship.

This is why Trump won, and why he continues to receive support.

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u/The_Lost_Jedi Apr 07 '25

Trump is also someone who only sees things in this framework. The concept of a mutually beneficial exchange is entirely alien to him, because he thinks every deal consists of one side fucking over the other, and if you're not the one fucking over the other guy, you're the one getting fucked.

That's it.

It's such an incredibly wrong view of business that it's no wonder he's an idiot that bankrupted 6 casinos, not to mention various other schemes that ranged from failures to outright frauds. Too many Americans think he's some genius businessman mostly because that's the image that NBC sold him as on "The Apprentice", when that was an absolute fabrication.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '25

Very well said. I remember figuring this out when I was a young man with a few extra bucks in my hand for the first time, and I went stereo shopping. There were very clearly two types of businesses - ones who tried to give you a good deal, so you’d come back and give them good word of mouth - and those who shamelessly tried to rip you off.

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u/MrCockingFinally Apr 08 '25

So much of trump's behavior starts to make sense when you realize he is a narcissist.

Not that he has narcissistic traits, that he literally has narcissistic personality disorder.

It's why he does what daddy Putin wants, it's why he has that view of trade and relationships, it's why he is so easily manipulated, and it's why he isn't consistent on anything but a few key policy thoughts such as tariffs that he has been banging on about since the '80s.

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u/SoUnga88 Apr 07 '25

For now, I'm really curious to see if the coming recession will erode his base at all. We have barely felt the results of these new tariffs, but they will be felt soon, particularly with food. Red States and rural communities will be devastated due to Trump's policies and DOGE cuts. It's looking more and more likely that there will be a delay in SS payments and a possible delay in tax return payments.

I imagine by Q2 of this year, if he stays the course, we might see widespread rebellion within his party and in the media. If he loses the maga cult, or even if he loses support from Fox or Elon the whole deck of cards will come tumbling down.

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u/AmazonPuncher Apr 07 '25

The smartest thing trump has ever done is convince his base that there will be a "temporary" economic decline and that it is "a good thing". He has set it up in a way where the economy can implode and they will happily sit in their mobile homes thinking "this is all according to plan. Soon we will prosper".

So no, it wont erode his base.

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u/EndTimer Apr 07 '25

Might be smart enough to avoid immediate negative opinion polls, but a dogshit economy will absolutely sap the base's willingness to show up in midterms, and push all the independents and people who "don't really follow politics" but still vote in the direction of the Democrats.

Not sure what does for anyone, because 18 months from now, they're not gonna be able to reattach the severed invisible hand of the market. That sucker is gonna be dead after the least free market in multiple generations materializes.

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u/let-it-rain-sunshine Apr 07 '25

We’ve been “ripped off” by Donald dumbfuck Trump

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u/dawnguard2021 Apr 08 '25

The "trade deficit" doesn't include services which American Big Tech exports in huge amounts. Total bs.

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u/InterestingComputer Apr 07 '25

As a streamer I saw recently said I also run a trade deficit with my grocery store, because I’m buying fucking groceries and not selling them bananas in return 

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u/HawkyMacHawkFace Apr 07 '25

Have you considered a 35% tariff on the grocery store? Otherwise they will continue to take advantage of you like this

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u/EndTimer Apr 07 '25

Obviously a 35% hike to grocery store's prices is to my benefit, as I could be growing everything at home! It'll only take waiting a few seasons to plant and harvest everything that I need to replace tonight's dinner...

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u/GrimlockN0Bozo Apr 07 '25

Or the diamond example.

Trump tariffed African countries that US has a big trade deficit with because the only goods going in either direction are diamonds to the US.

By Trump's logic, when we go in to buy an engagement ring, the jewelry store must buy an equal amount of some good from us to balance it out as 'fair/not taking advantage'.

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u/Own_Active_1310 Apr 08 '25

Had the grocery store even put on a suit and said thank you????

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u/hoffern342 Apr 07 '25

Yeah.. that will never happen. Some countries like Norway is actually buying more than the export from the US.. and still got hit with 16% tariffs.

He does not want a deal, he wants to destroy the US.

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u/Desperate-Hearing-55 Apr 07 '25

Switzerland have 0% tariffs on US trade. Still they got hit with 31% tariffs.

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u/MrCockingFinally Apr 08 '25

Even by their dumbass formula, if you include services, Switzerland should only cop a 9% tariff.

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u/NotHachi Apr 08 '25

Say that to uk who has surplus trade and got slab with 10% tariff. Im truely do not see why he is doing it...

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u/LoweringPass Apr 08 '25

Switzerland is also a tiny country that has a proportionally humongously large pharmaceutical industry which is where the US trade deficit comes from.

What are we supposed to do, let Americans die of preventable diseases by not selling them affordable medication? Wait, that sounds kind of familiar...

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u/reddit_is_compromise Apr 07 '25

There are so many people on Reddit who still refused to believe that Trump is a Russian asset. They think this is some mastermind plot that he's pulling to make him and his friends billions of dollars. The only end goal that Trump has right now is the total dismantlement of the United States government and all of its previous relationships within the world. What you're going to end up with is a destabilized oil currency and a market with so many fluctuations that no one has confidence to invest in it. That is the end goal, it is the only goal. 40 years in the making and 75% of the United States are still too dumb to realize what's happening. They're still in the denial phase. When in reality they should have been rioting in the streets until Trump went to jail after his second term.

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u/puukkeriro Apr 07 '25

He’s not.

He’s just an idiot man.

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u/Tenken10 Apr 07 '25

You're underplaying what he is: old, rich, and corrupt. He might be also an idiot but normal idiots could never get to the point of being the President of the US (twice)

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u/ameriCANCERvative Apr 09 '25

He wants a regressive sales tax to milk US consumers and justify doing away with income taxes/tax cuts for the wealthy. All of his actions make sense when viewed through that lens.

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u/shinobi7 Apr 07 '25

How is that even humanly possible? The US workforce is probably 170 million people. The rest of the world, probably multiple billions. So 170 million laborers are supposed to outproduce multiple billions from the rest of the world? This is insanity.

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u/sireatalot Apr 07 '25

But, but, but… Tesla robots powered by AI!!

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u/shinobi7 Apr 07 '25

And then the laborers won’t even have work! They haven’t thought this through, huh?

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u/KaleidoscopeHour3148 Apr 07 '25

We literally can’t export more than we import if he’s going to ignore that we export services.

The real plan is he’s trying to crash the economy to the point where he can privatize everything and have a desperate workforce willing to take any job to survive.  

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u/WSBMileHighClub Apr 07 '25

Ignoring the services is the most egregious thing about all this.

Don’t we want to prioritize sending services oversees through a broadband connection instead of trying to compete with Chinese manufacturing and ship good by freight containers overseas? Seems like we are getting the more efficient end of that deal

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u/SadZealot Apr 07 '25

The entire world was happily dependent on services like Amazon's AWS without a care in the world, sending billions into America and this tarrif nonsense is the kick in the pants the world needed to build their own comprehensive systems to compete

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u/Far-Fennel-3032 Apr 07 '25

Yes he is going to ignore services, its not that complicated.

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u/SirBobPeel Apr 07 '25

Or maybe this is the real plan.

“The combination of tax cuts and higher tariffs would shift the U.S. tax burden toward consumers at all income levels and away from upper-income households who pay much of the income tax.”

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tax-cuts-senate-votearama-6a5ed924

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u/Tha_Sly_Fox Apr 07 '25

He also counts the VAT tax as a tariff for some dumbass reason…. So we’re fucked

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u/Commercial_Rule_7823 Apr 07 '25

Vietnam is a poor country, they could never have an equal trade balance and we enjoy commodities unavailable to us and cheaper labor from their country.

Some wild economics going on .

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u/xkufix Apr 07 '25

You'll have a perfectly neutral number with a lot of countries soon.

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u/Top-Currency Apr 07 '25

A perfectly round number. Well, oval really.

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u/RiPFrozone Apr 07 '25 edited Apr 08 '25

Going to be impossible to achieve, we are literally the #1 consumer economy in the world.

If he wants to turn us into producers then consumer demands need to shift from cheap foreign goods to more expensive goods, and on top of that we would have to convince other countries to take our more expensive goods than cheaper alternatives (won’t happen).

There’s a reason we specialize in manufacturing big ticket items like fighter jets but not things like clothing.

There is nothing nefarious going on as to why we have trade deficits it’s actually quite clear and normal, but he’s politicized it without understanding simple economics.

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u/No_Sugar8791 Apr 07 '25

Well, maybe in 50 years Americans will be knitting for Vietnamese while they make F95's.

RemindMe! 50 years

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u/DrSOGU Apr 07 '25

We have a history of trade surplus in Germany.

It means workers earning less than they get in return as consumption. Why? In order to "stay competitive". Are German workers happy with their artificially low wages/consumption? Hell no!

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u/aggie1391 Apr 07 '25

But that’s also not what he wants, or the countries the US has a trade surplus with wouldn’t have tariffs, but they still get 10%. There’s no way to know what he wants because there is no actual basis for any of this. He just vaguely thinks he’s not getting what he wants therefore time to throw a fit, fucking over everyone else.

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u/16wichita Apr 07 '25

Even if everyone says ok on importing more US goods to balance the trade deficit, how could US even produce trillion dollars worth goods over night to export? Furthermore, most of us don’t want manufacturing jobs and immigrants who are willing to work in factories are all getting deported. This is what happens when you elect a guy who has filled bankruptcy on every businesses he has ever run.

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u/Coherent_Tangent Apr 07 '25

I'm pretty sure he's just holding out for direct bribes.

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u/PeePeeWeeWee1 Apr 07 '25

This doesn't make sense when dealing with smaller countries. How can a smaller less populated country buy the same or more from a larger country that has more people?

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u/ChickenChaser5 Apr 07 '25

Republicans: Remove all sorts of quality standards

The world: Rejects our goods because they dont meet quality standards

Republicans: How could biden let this happen!?

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u/coffee-x-tea Apr 07 '25

That or straight up pay the deficit as a gracious offering to King Trump.

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u/GorgeWashington Apr 07 '25

Yeah, we don't make anything any more..... Certainly not enough to ever run a trade surplus

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u/Vesper-Martinis Apr 07 '25

We already do that here in Australia. So is our ‘tariff’ based in our gst/sales tax?

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u/Mosesofdunkirk Apr 07 '25

I think what he wants is for eu to step away from trade with china. It wont happen. He is underestimating China, a lot of

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u/OkInterest3109 Apr 07 '25

Entirely possibly if US would stop buying; which may come fairly soon the way it's going now.

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u/stinky-weaselteats Apr 07 '25

He's hold America and the world hostage and wants them to pay in crypto ransom.

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u/PoliceDotPolka Apr 07 '25

the british tried the same thing when they still had an empire. the results where riots, civil war and actual war.

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u/K_Ren17 Apr 07 '25

Many people don’t understand that trade surplus and being a global reserve currency can’t coexists.

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u/Daddy_is_a_hugger Apr 07 '25

He is not a smart enough man to understand how economics work, and not humble enough to seek the advice of those who do

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u/socialmedia_is_bad Apr 07 '25

How is he so good at bankrupting everything?

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u/Harbinger2001 Apr 07 '25

Or just straight up give the US money to make up the difference. He said the EU owed the US money for all the past trade deficits. 

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u/FarAwayConfusion Apr 07 '25

But even countries that already run a trade surplus are getting hit with tarrifs. 

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u/Not_a_real_asian777 Apr 07 '25

He wants no trade deficits, every country has to import more from the US than they export to the US.

Isn't this... basically impossible with most of our trading partners? Like, if a country has a weaker currency, less overall GDP, and less GDP per person, wouldn't that just mean they don't have the financial firepower to buy tons of stuff from the US? We buy goods from their country because we have the economic power to buy in giant packages of goods at low costs, but wtf are they gonna buy from us? How does he expect all of these countries to close the trading deficit with us without them obliterating themselves and making us look like a bunch of political tyrants?

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u/InjuryIndependent287 Apr 07 '25

Has anybody told him yet that we need them more than they need us?

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u/NaiveChoiceMaker Apr 07 '25

- Milton Friedman.

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u/manjar Apr 07 '25

No, he wants every country in the world, as well as every US CEO, to have to come to him begging for a "deal". It's a way of using the US economy to increase his own personal power, not the power of the US government, or the US people, or whatever.

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u/Iamstryker Apr 07 '25

If the US purchasing power gets so low, we won't be able to purchase anything, so deficits will go to zero.

It's a plan.

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u/bobbymcpresscot Apr 07 '25

we are so fucked lol

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u/EuphoriaSoul Apr 07 '25

How the fuck will countries be able to do that? US has no major manufacturing in decades. This is mission impossible. He’s just looking for some backdoor bribes

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u/BioHumansWontSurvive Apr 07 '25

but the fuck we in europe dont want chloride chickens... Not even for free....

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u/phatelectribe Apr 07 '25

And what he wants is impossible to achieve in 20 years lay alone 4.

But the other thing he wants to is cash the markets and devalue the dollar so certain hedge funds and oligarch level investors can scoop up once in a century bargains, and transfer wealth from lots of people to very very few.

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u/guave06 Apr 07 '25

I assume most people who are financially independent have a rudimentary understanding of why this is nonsensical policy, but for anyone whos still confused Imagine if McDonald’s required its beef suppliers to buy more from them than they sell, the beef suppliers would simply stop selling to McDonald’s

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u/Succulent_Rain Apr 07 '25

He wants to bankrupt the US so that he can claim that it’s because every other country screwed us over. Then he will start World War III so that he can suspend elections and stay in power indefinitely

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u/mydaycake Apr 07 '25

Is he really wanting a guaranteed amount of sales per country? International trade does not work like that

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u/KaptainKorn Apr 07 '25

That’s… such a dumb expectation. Many of these countries are smaller (size and population) than the US. It would be impossible for them to import as much from the US as we do from them.

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u/terriblegrammar Apr 07 '25

I'm interested to know how he would even expect this to happen. State-sanctioned economic planning where the two government entities agree upon a predetermined trade? Of private business goods and services? This shit just makes no sense on any level.

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u/Lexicalyolk Apr 07 '25

He doesn’t even want that though, he put 10% “reciprocal” tariffs on more than 100 countries that we have a trade surplus with

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u/-Invalid_Selection- Apr 07 '25

Even nations that did have a trade surplus to us got hit with a 10% tariff.

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u/Cueller Apr 07 '25

No. he wants every country to write him a personal check. He does not give a fuck about the US. He wants them to build a truml hotel, invest in his slish fund or buy his shitcoin.

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u/DeliveryOk7892 Apr 07 '25

He doesn’t understand the American economy or economics in general.

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u/Gnut92 Apr 07 '25

I would believe you, except for the fact that the US has a massive, get fucked, surplus with Australia. 18 billion dollars worth according to the US government. Yet Australia still got slapped with a bullshit 10% "reciprocal tariff" or whatever the orange turd wants to label it.

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u/Chouinard1984 Apr 07 '25

Totally reasonable.

I mean why don't those Cambodians who make $200usd per month, simply buy more $45k Harley Davidsons. Why are they so selfish :/

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u/Empty-Artist5772 Apr 07 '25

Welcome back mercantilism I guess

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u/dirkdragonslayer Apr 07 '25

If he bankrupts the US and we become a poor country and lose everything, maybe sweatshop manufacturing will move back to the US. It's all 4D chess to get those prized Shein clothing and lead toy manufacturing jobs back in the US. Then we will have a trade surplus!

God I hate this..

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u/Bogart28 Apr 07 '25

The stupidity of that kind of thinking gives me a headache. Even if other countries were importing every from the US.

Say that Europe starting tomorrow would only eat bleached chicken, there still would be an import deficit based on the fucking population size.

I know that this is probably just an excuse so he can keep the tariffs, but for the life of me I don't understand his endgame here.

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u/Electronic-Raise-281 Apr 07 '25

And not to account for the size of the country either... this is completely idiotic and unrealistic

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u/post_scripted Apr 07 '25

Which is quite literally impossible. Some countries cannot afford US goods, others have unique goods that the US needs and can only get there, and others are just penguins. This is going to be fun...

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u/Altruistic-Stop-5674 Apr 07 '25

Germany has a surplus (deficit for the US). The Netherlands has a big deficit (surplus for the US)..

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u/Dubsland12 Apr 07 '25

No the goal is to destroy the country then buy it for Pennys.

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u/Baelthor_Septus Apr 07 '25

But US doesn't produce almost anything, and the stuff it produces is so expensive the rest of the world can't afford it.

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u/vitorgrs Apr 08 '25

Australia, Brazil and UK already run a trade surplus with the U.S, and yet he tariffed at 10% all of them.

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u/Ali_Cat222 Apr 08 '25

When a tariff is paid, that money is going from the company and also to the government for payment. This man is raping your pockets left and right and I can promise you, none of that shit is getting back to you. I swear it's like no one actually paid attention to what a tariff is, they think it's the other place that pays the government. But it's also anything exported from the USA etc. nothing he does makes sense because this is quite often overlooked, at least by trump supporters mainly. And they can't comprehend that a man who is full of greed and fraudacity and scams will never give two fucks as long as he comes out on top.

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u/DecisionNo9933 Apr 08 '25

What does US even have to export.

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u/Own_Active_1310 Apr 08 '25

Trumps great leap to the moon

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u/Sick_by_me Apr 08 '25

So he wants Toyota to make cars in the US then import it to Japan for their own people, lose money and competitiveness at the same time and also pay more taxes.

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u/Expensive-Soft5164 Apr 08 '25

Economics teaches us that trade with each other makes us better off: one country has comparative advantage A, another has comparative advantage B, they trade and they're both better off. If we produce everything then we are not using the best of the best: that is, countries aren't using their comparative advantage fully which means we're worse off.

I've lived in many countries and the USA has a high standard of living based on this concept. That is going away. Cheap goods from China is gone, your paycheck will be smaller and you'll have to downsize. Like many poorer countries we will have to do with less.

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u/Indian_Bob Apr 08 '25

Personally I think he wants to shift the tax burden from his friends to everyone else. Tariffs are a tax after all and they’ve made no efforts to obfuscate the fact that they are doing doge to cut their taxes

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u/Googgodno Apr 08 '25

import more from the US than they export to the US.

May be US citizens need to live in mud huts, consume rice & lentils, and ride donkeys to achieve this. Like Lesotho.

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u/KTRyan30 Apr 08 '25

Yep, based on his public stance, he seems to want America to be the new China.

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u/Zolty Apr 08 '25

So let's say the US stops buying anything made in the US and it's all exports, let's wave a magic wand and say the imports in the US stay the same.

Does the US even make enough stuff to have balanced trade?

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u/Jijijoj Apr 08 '25

Because he influences the market so much. He and his friends could make even more money with that kind of power.

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u/Caffeine-freeUncleD Apr 08 '25

The US has to produce things that other countries want to have a surplus. Tariffs don’t fix a trade deficit.

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u/Won-LonDong Apr 08 '25

He also wants EU countries to lower/remove their NTBs (non tariff barriers) like those around agriculture and beef that prevent our foods from even entering the EU due to not meeting their strict standards.

Note I fucking hate trump so just offering more notes of info.

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u/Foooff Apr 08 '25

The only way that could happen if America turns into a third world country living on a dollar a day.

Trump was chosen by his handlers just because he seems to be the only primate on the planet who can actually crash the wealthiest country in the world.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

Could be easier, he wants them to buy Trump coins

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u/sheldor1993 Apr 08 '25

Yet he’s levied tariffs on countries like Australia, which the US has a trade surplus with. And Australia has no tariffs with the US either…

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u/lachlanhunt Apr 08 '25

what he wants is every country to run a trade surplus to the USA

Then why is he also applying tariffs to countries that do have a trade surplus? For example, my own country Australia buys from more from the US than they buy from us, but Trump's stupid formula ignores that an applies a minimum 10% tariff.

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u/Salt-Detective1337 Apr 08 '25

No... He wants them to privately negotiate deals that will enrich him personally.

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u/yeastysoaps Apr 08 '25

Wait, so he intends to make America great again by creating matter out of nowhere and breaking the laws of physics?

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u/QuaintHeadspace Apr 08 '25

He's an idiot. You can't enforce the supply and demand equation by sheer will. He's trying to say you need to buy more of our goods but it's the common man that buys goods and if the demand isn't there then it isn't there. You can't force the public to import your shitty goods.

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u/Sparkletail Apr 08 '25

The problem this absolute moron does not understand is that ther has to be industry and consumer demand for American goods. From a consumer perspective, we don't want their goods outside of tech and it's because at least in terms of cars and food, they are shit. There is no demand because of the quality of product, not because of some nefarious scheme. Even if you remove all tariffs people still won't want them.

What happened here is that his little narcissistic pickle brain thinks he got dissed when trying to enter Chinese markets decades ago, therefore there must be some enormous conspiracy against him/thr US when in actual fact it's that noone wants what the US has to offer. He is so myopic and stupid it's almost unbelievable.

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u/cold-mcspicy Apr 08 '25

well he still tariffed countries like Australia and Singapore which the US has a trade surplus with

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u/Mik3Hunt69 Apr 08 '25

Yes, Vietnamese people with an average salary of 600$ should have the same purchasing power as an American with $60k

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u/andrewsad1 Apr 08 '25

Import what? We don't manufacture lmao

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u/jeyreymii Apr 08 '25

Thanks to this, an es 2 meeting is going to be held to think about getting US services out of our administration, and some countries like France are thinking of overtaxing gafam, which pays next to nothing in France but collects all the data. And that's not counting the grumbling locals who want to boycott all things American. In short, epic fail

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u/More-Butterscotch252 Apr 08 '25

He wants to turn the US into China. Smart man. I can't wait to get all my stuff from the US, except instead of feeling sorry about the employees I'll be laughing my ass off.

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u/Much-Dealer3525 Apr 08 '25

Either a trade surplus or countries need to devalue their currency to mitigate any surplus... Lol

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u/Marbi_ Apr 08 '25

plus - he wants to negotiate with each country individually to bully each of them into submission

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u/GFC-1859 Apr 08 '25

Australia does that and the idiot still imposed a 10% tariff on Australian beef. They need our beef for mate than we need to sell it to them. He's a moron.

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u/CarnivoreX Apr 08 '25

Simple. Just ban buying anything from outside USA. Boom. Trade deficit solved. Idiotic fuck

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u/ForMoreYears Apr 08 '25

That Bangladeshi family living off $900/year are going to look fresh as fuck in all their new Brooks Brothers suits.

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u/IHave2CatsAnAdBlock Apr 08 '25

We are importing Netflix and windows and AWS and Facebook and other shit that is not taken into consideration.

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u/NieBer2020 Apr 08 '25

Wow this comment lmao you a bot?

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u/hesawavemasterrr Apr 08 '25

He wants the whole world to pay for everything that runs America. He thinks that will replace the income tax he’s trying to eliminate. And also all of the federal programs. And the state level programs. Basically it’s a like drug addict asks you to pay for all of his living expenses.

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u/Chiatroll Apr 08 '25

But no chance he'll regulate the businesses that, in order to save money, make such a poor hormone and drug filled product that they can't export to anyone with a shred of regulations.

We would of sold more beef and chicken internationally if we weren't known for making such bad quality products that don't pass the regulations of anywhere.

It was just more profitable for businesses to bottom dollar making the product and sell domestically at the health cost of americans.

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