Trump tweets: 'Trade wars are good, and easy to win'
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A day after announcing steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday thattrade wars are good, and easy to win.
Trump said on Thursday that the United States would apply duties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum to protect U.S. producers, although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.
When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win, Trumps tweet read.Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, dont trade anymore-we win big. Its easy!
Fears of an escalating trade war triggered selloffs on Wall Street and in Asia and Europe, hitting the share prices of steelmakers and manufacturers supplying U.S. markets particularly hard.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-trump/trump-tweets-trade-wars-are-good-and-easy-to-win-idUSKCN1GE1E9?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5a9935c304d3014498e7867b&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
Link to tweet
Freedomofspeech
(4,221 posts)What a dick.
joshdawg
(2,646 posts)Stuart G
(38,410 posts)paleotn
(17,876 posts)Hav
(5,969 posts)It's amazing that he can portray himself as a business genius, yet he still hasn't understood what a trade deficit is and apparently no one has told him yet. Either that or he thinks his followers are really dumb.
Yonnie3
(17,419 posts)Any one remember Nixon issuing an executive order freezing wages and prices? I recall the gasoline rationing very well. Although it wasn't about trade (it was about inflation) it is akin to this tariff. They think, if they don't like the data, make a rule directly affecting it rather than address the underlying issues.
bucolic_frolic
(43,027 posts)Trump's Simpleton Mind at work
A stable genius sees the world as cute and easy?
Really really demented and very uninformed
forgotmylogin
(7,519 posts)Which he was planning to accomplish the first day, nay, probably the first hour of his Presidency.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
"Now, I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject," he added. "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated." --Donald J. Trump
Nobody. Except for every single politician previously in the history of healthcare who came before him.
Vinca
(50,236 posts)I imagine Don is planning to have us declare bankruptcy.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,938 posts)tblue37
(65,212 posts)the right way to handle owing money.
OnlinePoker
(5,716 posts)Total debt is near $21 Trillion, China holds $1.18 Trillion and $1.06 Trillion.
http://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt
By contrast, Social Security alone (as of 2016) holds $2.8 Trillion. Here's a good breakdown on it. Of particular note is this section "...if you add up the debt held by Social Security and all the retirement and pension funds, nearly half of the U.S. Treasury debt is held in trust for your retirement. If the United States defaults on its debt, foreign investors would be angry, but current and future retirees would be hurt the most."
https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
paleotn
(17,876 posts)...for US producers of a wide range of products that include steel and aluminum components, making domestic manufacturing even less competitive globally. Of course, that's not counting retaliation by our trading partners, so higher costs for steel and aluminum components may be a mute point.
If the "tariff" only applies to unfinished steel, companies may be incentivized to shift additional manufacturing overseas, taking advantage of now, artificially low component costs and ship the finished goods to the US, to be sold by minimum wage retail staff. More "winning!"
Free trade, fair trade, protectionist, no matter our ideology, the economy is what it is. And the things we buy will now cost more thanks to a drugged up, dumb ass, with serious self esteem issues.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,938 posts)The Depression was caused in large part by the Smoot-Hawley Act which turned a stock market decline into a hole the country had great difficulty getting out of. It imposed duties and tariffs on 20,000 goods and international trade shriveled drastically as a result.
ProfessorGAC
(64,827 posts)This is the whole problem with everything that has gone on in the last 18 months.
A campaign based upon "we used to be good, but now we suck" (how patriotic) is now followed up by "we still suck and the only way we can win is by starting a fight".
Somehow, while maintaining status as the world's most powerful economy we suck so bad we need a trade war?
But, the lapdogs will eat it up because they're too dumb to remotely grasp the consequences.
rurallib
(62,373 posts)Most of the answers are supplied by presidential advisors Sean Hannity, Steve Doocey and Brian Kilmeade.
Response to demmiblue (Original post)
Post removed
displacedtexan
(15,696 posts)...baseball bats? Trump's stupidity doesn't exactly fall into the category of "standing up for the American worker," in my opinion.
TranssexualKaren
(364 posts)A terrible leader who does the right thing for the wrong reasons or a good leader who does the wrong thing for the right reasons (Obamas TPP)
eggplant
(3,907 posts)Trump stands up for American workers? On what planet?
TranssexualKaren
(364 posts)Of course he doesnt care about American workers, but perhaps the current meltdown in the White House (the only plausible explanation for this) can offer a chance at some more rational trade policies if were smart enough to see past our hatred for Trump.
djacq
(1,633 posts)Nitram
(22,755 posts)Makes no difference what the issue is or what the probably outcome will be. He thrives on the attention. "Will he or won't he? Oh, my god! He did!" He can't be happy about how it affected the stock market. Just a big naked blob of ID.
tblue37
(65,212 posts)dalton99a
(81,386 posts)https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/former-wharton-professor-trump-was-dumbest-gddam-student-i-ever-had
sinkingfeeling
(51,436 posts)stock broker suicides as 45* crashes the humming economy.
Rollo
(2,559 posts)The Bloatard has tweaked a path to national destruction.
Paladin
(28,243 posts)Trade wars are easy? In what universe?