You do understand there are other ways to influence and bias trade than just tariffs, right? I already gave one example, the subsidized airlines in the Middle East. No tariffs, but it's still disadvantaging our airlines.
In other countries VAT is universally collected, so it seems fair, yet the taxes are used to subsidize specific industries.
Yet another way is the artificial devaluing of a currency. If you don't think this matters, watch what the Fed does when they think a nation is not playing by the rules.
As for trade deficits, they are not inherently bad, but remember that they are only possible because there is a global reserve currency, the dollar. But the reserve currency is made unfathomably complicated by the Eurodollar system, which is way, way beyond the scope of this conversation.
It's just not as simple as "trade good, tariff bad." Sorry.
I don't think formula they used to come up with the tariff numbers makes sense, but it's pretty obvious they weren't meant to. The order from Trump was probably "just come up with something and hit them with huge tariffs. They'll come to the table." And so far he was right.
Oh boy. You think that's compound interest? Strange that happened during the lowest rate period in the last 50 years. This was asset inflation, pure and simple, made possible by expanding the money supply rapidly and funneling the money through the banks.
You aren't thinking about this clearly. If the *percentage* of wealth held by the top 0.1% is expected to continually increase, exactly what happens as you follow the graph out over time? They just eventually reach 99.9%? What do you think happens to the social order? The nominal amounts can change but the percentage of wealth controlled by a given percentile should be relatively constant.
Completely depends on how tariffs are used. Either Bessent or Lutnick mentioned a separate tariff strategy akin to pre-WWI America where tariffs rather than income taxes were the primary revenue source. Removing all income taxes below $150k income and using tariffs instead. This is a step closer to a sales-tax-based system instead of income, and I'm a huge supporter of that.
But that all depends on Trump having a stable policy. Doubtful, but we won't know until the "reciprocal" tariff war phase of the plan is over. We'll see.