Why are they trying to sell these tarrifs as “AI generated & very complex” when it is basically just the trade deficit with the countries? Or am I wrong?
Yes, you’re right. It’s the trade deficit in dollar devided by the exports from a particular country to the US and divided by 2. And if it’s lower than 10% it’s set to 10%.
I think they are lying to create a narrative where the tarrifs are a just answer to supposedly existing trade barriers. Kind of like when the Nazis invaded Poland and lied about “finally shooting back”, as if the other side had started it.
Yep, the formula is (exports+imports)/imports
It has nothing to do with currency manipulations or other bs trump said
Yeah, it really is that absurd.
As you might have guessed this formula does the most harm to poor/over-exploited/developing countries which export large amounts of cheap products to the US, but have weak consumer economies that can’t realistically support buying much from the US. This is why Viet Nam is possibly facing the worst of it, due in part to the big currency gap with the VND, but also because we have capital controls (big W) which work like a check-valve here which make it difficult for money to be sucked out of the economy.
This is literally the reward these countries get for selling cheap coffee and rice to an empire that wants to import cheap coffee and rice because they can’t even produce it themselves. I do suspect this new trade war is a mostly a bully tactic to bring people to the table to negotiate to buy more US products, but 1) the US produces fuck all and 2) does the US really fucking think this will make Cambodian people start importing Cybertrucks? Does it not even occur to anyone in the US how unrealistic that is?
Death to amerikkka.
