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Great. Russia is suffering. I hope you realize that’s just an unintended and very foreseen consequence. It’s like, hey, that rat poison my dog ate cured her ailments. She died, so she now no longer has arthritis. Why didn’t someone think of doing that earlier.
Second, who cares about trade deficits. It’s meaningless without any context. We had surpluses with most countries during the Great Depression. Because we couldn’t afford anything. We now have a trade deficit with Switzerland because we have 40x as many people as them. We will never have a surplus with everyone unless we turn into a third world country or worse and can’t afford to buy anything.
Even if you give Trump the benefit of the doubt (hypothetically), and say that mass tariffs are somehow actually good, Trump is doing it recklessly and irresponsibly. People are losing trust in the US markets. We are losing credibility. We are a bad faith partner who doesn’t honor the trade agreements we signed. We are pissing off friends and allies.
We are going to lose markets for a generation or more because countries will just find other trading partners. Look at what happened in Trump’s first term. The US used to have a major soy bean market. We lost that because China retaliated to U.S. tariffs and imposed a 25% tariff on American soybeans. By the end of 2018, U.S. soybean sales to China had plummeted by 94% . We ended up spending a fortune subsidizing farmers. The soybean business in the USA has never fully recovered and China still gets most of its soybeans from Brazil now.
Meanwhile, you can be sure Trump and his cronies are making a fortune off the chaos:
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NO MALARKEY
You all are missing the forest for the trees. The Trump strategy: wreck the economy. That will surely lead to prosperity (we were doing fine by the way).
Try to justify it how ever you please and rationalize it. But at the end of the day it is just monumentally retarded on an epic scale.
Trump is committing economic suicide and you all are sitting here trying to explain it like it makes perfect sense if you just look at xyz numbers and abc metrics.
I’ll try to comment more in a few days — after I finish a major project — with more specifics. In the meantime, I will simply say that conducting a grand experiment with the entire economy is completely irresponsible.
NO MALARKEY
Oops. ICE Admits to “administrative error”.
In its court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
Who could have seen this coming /s. I have an idea: maybe give someone some due process before sending to a gulag.
The administration said it can’t doing anything about it now since he’s in custody of a foreign country — and has no intention to do anything, regardless.
NO MALARKEY
Mick, the March numbers are more likely a tailwind from the prior administration. As you well know, the hiring process takes months. Whatever job numbers are reflecting in March were the result of job postings and hiring that took place over the prior months.
Trump just started his economic terrorism. Give it a few months or look at the stock market, which is a leading economic indicator. Economics 101, week 2.
NO MALARKEY
You have a curious definition of “not standing up to” and “continues bending over backwards for…”
Where do I begin? I will have to post more another time, but just look at the latest economic “plan”. He put tariffs on most of the world, but (surprise) he left off Russia and it’s pet — Belarus. But sure enough, he put tariffs on Ukraine. Because of course he did.
Of course, you could say he didn’t need to put tariffs on Russia or Belarus because we hardly trade with them. But that explanation flies out the window when you see that he put tariffs on Nauru — that tiny island of a few thousand poor people that have almost zero GDP and no trade. He even imposed tariffs on an island inhabited mostly by American soldiers.
NO MALARKEY
Trump is an economic arsonist and you’re just casually trying to explain it away as if he has some rational economic approach. I mean, I don’t even know how to respond. It’s like trying to debate with someone who is defending a terrorist and expecting to have a reasonable conversation. I simply cannot fathom how you and others on the right don’t see how absolutely fucking insane this administration’s policies are — economic and otherwise.
Sorry Mick. I guess I appreciate the attempt to explain it, but I really hope you get out of whatever weird information bubble you and the others here seem to be in. The world is wondering what the absolute fuck is happening to America and you all on the right seem to think it all makes some kind of sense.
You think we are reshoring jobs? Come on. Take a big picture view. Don’t just look at a few examples (which are usually bullshit, by the way; was it Toyota that announced a “new” plan, after speaking with Trump, to move a factory to the US? They were already planning to build it here, but just rewrote the press release to stroke Trump’s ego.). Take a broader view of the world. They are refusing to do business with us. They will reciprocate tariffs. They are refusing to come to America now (tourism is expected to be WAY down). Canadians are booing us at events. They are not stocking their shelves with American goods. Europe is looking at us like a pariah. Australians wonder what has happened to US. Etc., etc…. Do you live in a bubble? Do you not see this in your news media? Do you see it happening and just not care because all of our allies and partners are now “bad”? I just don’t understand what you guys are smoking.
We will re-shore 100 jobs and lose 10,000 others. What a great strategy.
Just 8 eight weeks ago we had a normal and well functioning economy. You all talked yourselves into some frenzy about how it was actually just terrible (“poison pilled” was the word).
I hope it’s *only* a recession. It will probably be much worse. But like January 6th, you all will quickly talk yourself into believing it’s the Dems fault.
NO MALARKEY
Liberation Day. Liberating us from our 401K’s ? Liberating us from the world economy? Liberating us from our friends, allies, and trading partners?
You’ll lose a million in your retirement funds and other assets, but hey — you will pay a few thousand less in taxes when Republicans pass that tax cut for the wealthy. What a bargain.
Of course, that tax cut will just get subsumed by inflation (can’t wait for the stagflation). But Trump is playing 4D chess, so I’m sure it will all be fine.
NO MALARKEY
I’m guessing Obama didn’t staff it with idiots who are taking a hatchet to important programs they knew little or nothing about.
Should there be some cuts? Probably. But not the way they are going about it.
NO MALARKEY
Also, your premise is wrong. CNN provided live coverage of multiple Trump rallies that year. For instance, it broadcasted rallies live on June 18, June 22, June 28, and July 9.
https://www.aol.com/fact-check-cnn-aired-several-142354369.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
That claim seems to stem from misinformation or disinformation on Twitter (sorry, “X”) not surprisingly. Musk’s own Grok LLM recently determined that Musk himself is the largest spreader of misinformation:
i would suggest getting off that platform or take heavy dose of skepticism when reading crap from X.
NO MALARKEY
Obviously I’m speculating. But what else would explain Trump’s obsequious behavior and pro Russian politics. I suppose he’s just a willing Russian stooge, which is worse. At least he would have an excuse if Putin had some dirt on him.
Trump said he’s “pissed off”. I guess that’s not obsequious. But it’s about the least threatening choice of words I can imagine. Let’s see if Trump actually stands up to Putin or if he continues bending over backwards for him.
NO MALARKEY
This is a nothing burger. And Putin knows it. Trump is pro Russian / anti-Ukraine. Trump will forget about it in 5 minutes. Putin knows that he is the dominant figure in the relationship. He was asserting his dominance and reminding Trump that he has dirt on him — just as he did when he released naked pictures of Melania after a phone call with Trump didn’t go as well as he liked.
Give it a couple days and Trump will be back to gargling Putin’s balls. He’ll probably lift the sanctions on Russia soon and make up some BS excuse to blame it on Ukraine.
Just take a wider view of the relationship. And when you view things through the lens of Trump being pro Russian / anti-Europe, you will realize this is just a bit of temporary theater.
I really hope I turn out to be wrong about this. You’re welcome to bookmark this and remind me that I was wrong about this. I will gladly admit I was wrong if that turns out to be the case. But it’s highly unlikely Trump will do anything but support Russia in the long run (or even the near term).
This is like if Mussolini got irritated by Hitler. At the end of the day they are on the same side, so it will blow over. I’d even go so far as to say that in Trump will eventually try to sanction the EU or European countries rather than Russia. Bookmark that too. Again, I hope I turn out to be wrong. But I can see that happening with this adminstration.
NO MALARKEY
@cardcrimson: please re-read my last comment. There’s nothing ludicrous about acquiring Greenland. Sounds great. Let’s negotiate. If the price is reasonable and if they are agreeable to it, then let’s do it. The point both you and Mick completely missed or ignored: you don’t threaten friendly, peaceful, democratic allies as a negotiation tactic.
Going back to WW2, we historically had as many as 47 military bases on Greenland, depending on how you count. With one or two exceptions, we gradually shut them all down and withdrew for various reasons. Some were unnecessary due to technology advances, priorities changed, etc. But we were not forced out; we weren’t expelled. And if we want more military bases there, Greenland would almost certainly come to some reasonable arrangement. We do not need to threaten them. Do you not see how imperialistic and insane that is?
Regarding Mick’s point about failing to meet the 2% defense budget, I agree. I’ve argued on other platforms (and maybe here) that Trump happens to be right about that — and Europe needs to increase their spending. However, that is not an excuse to threaten annexation of their territory by force. You want to give them a deadline? Fine. Tell them we will withdraw from NATO if they don’t meet these obligations by such and such date. How about 2027? But you don’t just start threatening military aggression. I mean WTF. How do you guys not understand this? Or if you do, maybe you can agree that it’s fucked up.
@Mick: two other points about the 2% thing:First some history and context about that number: The 2% of GDP defense spending target for NATO members is not a legal requirement but a political guideline introduced in 2006 to encourage adequate military investment. It gained prominence after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, when NATO leaders at a Wales Summit agreed to aim for 2% within a decade. At the time it was framed as an aspirational goal rather than a binding obligation. In 2023, at the Vilnius Summit, NATO updated the language to call the 2% a “minimum” spending level, but still without enforcement mechanisms. Spending has indeed increased significantly in recent years — though most NATO countries have still fallen short of the target. As much as I agree they should increase their defense, NATO membership does not require countries to meet the 2% threshold, and failing to do so does not violate any treaty obligations.
Second: when it comes to the recent conflict in Ukraine, Europe collectively has spent significantly more than the USA in the last few years. You want to criticize them about budget obligations? Fine. But they are stepping up more than the US financially now.
Of course, the rationale for abandoning Ukraine and Europe is not actually about this 2% budget thing. That is just a red herring. If it were an actual imperative, Trump and the people in his administration would not be supporting the party in Germany which advocates for less defense spending. They would not aim their most vocal criticism at Poland, which spends more than double the 2% and more than the US, as a percentage, on defense.
NO MALARKEY
First, I posted that four times because the platform glitched. My browser just hung when I tried to submit. I waited a minute and checked the website from a different device and it wasn’t showing up. So I tried posting again…. Rinse and repeat a few times. Don’t blame me. This isn’t the first time it’s happened here. https://currenteventsboard.com/forums/topic/test/
I don’t know if my account gets flagged for moderation or if the backend infrastructure supporting this site has issues.
Second, buying Greenland is perfectly fine. Sounds great, for the right price. And if they agree to it. But threatening a NATO ally and a friendly country is insane. Do you not understand that is what Trump is doing when he says he’s not ruling out military force? Even if it’s just a negotiation tactic, that is completely beyond the pale. That is not how you treat friendly countries, allies, partners.
I have to believe that there’s some part of you that understands how batshit insane this is. How corrosive it is. How fucked our economy would be if we actually initiated a hostile action against our closest allies. And I don’t just mean Greenland and Denmark. I mean the alliance of democratic nations who would turn on us economically (they already have over the idiotic tariffs, but it would ramp up exponentially).
I mean who the fuck behaves like this besides Russia? Do you go to your friends house and say, “that’s a nice piece of property. I’d like to buy it from you because my family needs it more than you. And if you don’t sell it to me, I’m not ruling out arson or some other malicious tactics.”
Even if we don’t use force, just saying shit like that is historically insane.
NO MALARKEY
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