A wee bit of truth to water down the tariff hysteria
Never mind the damage that Biden and Obama
and the Bushes did to our national economy. What Trump is doing with these tariffs is — we’re told by our marxist media and their elected allies — EVEN WORSE.
Free trade is what it’s all about — we’re told. We send them stuff, they buy it. They send us stuff, we buy it. *Easy, peasy. Right?*
Actually, NO.
We’ve all heard the stories about foreign tourists returning home from visiting the US with suitcases stuffed with American jeans. Stuff like that is done because, in their country, American jeans are either (a) really hard to find, or (b) absolutely unaffordable. Other countries’ oppressive regulations and tariffs have made it harder and harder over the decades to sell American-made goods overseas. Foreign-made goods — as any regular visitor to Wall-Mart knows — don’t experience the same level of difficulty in the US.
When Donald Trump ran for reelection in 2024, he pledged to level out the playing field in international trade. We rewarded him with four more years to do just that –among other things. As a tactic to gain leverage in negotiations with other countries, the Trump team proposed tariffs on goods imported into the United States.
You could hear the sphincters of every corporate lobbyist in DC collectively tighten upon that announcement. When those folks get anxious, the elected whores they own and control also start getting nervous. *OMG. What IF the Japanese get mad and slap another 100 percent tariff on our imported goods?*
For the longest time, we’ve been just quietly accepting and tolerating the regulations and tariffs on goods we export to these countries. It sounds like things are a-changing.
Here is a chart showing the punitive costs countries have been assessing against American goods vs. what Trump is proposing to assess against their stuff. The baseline — minimum — tariff amount is 10 percent. (Trump has pledged that – in most cases – his assessments will not exceed half of what the other countries are doing to our stuff.)
Wasn’t it Indiana Jones who warned against bringing a knife to a gun fight? It appears Donald Trump is approaching these trading partners with something to make them reconsider their special relationship with our country. Doing business with the US has been very very good for a lot of companies and a lot of countries. There aren’t many who would just walk away from it.
The tariffs give Trump’s team some ammo. *If you’ll take some percentage points off your rate, we can do the same with ours.* (See how that works?)
We’re already hearing word that many countries on the above list are seeking meetings with Team Trump to talk about trade. *Imagine THAT.*
Donald Trump is a master negotiator. He wrote a pretty successful book about the practice.
Of course, the Democrats, the know-nothing media, and Thom Tillis‘s RINO cabal are all shedding crocodile tears and doing their best to scare the hell out of people. Here comes the trade war, we’re told. *Do you know what this is going to do to our campaign warchests?*
The folks hollering about a possible trade war and the possible damage Trump’s tariff foray might cause are the same people who have taxed and spent our national economy into the debt-ridden disaster it is.
It’s time to listen to somebody else.
