Investors and executives (and Maria Bartiromo) yearn for 'clarity' on tariffs. But withholding that clarity is what gives Trump leverage and attention.
I would like to know when and how we will have hit rock bottom hard enough to get congressional Republicans to check Trump’s stupid and damaging actions, including these tariffs. It seems obvious that relatively small scale policy changes during Trump I were muted by relatively competent Cabinet level officials, whom Donald Trump hated. He spent the intervening years calling these people “the deep state” and now has his preferred team of ignorant conspiracy theorists and sycophants. We can therefore expect everything to get worse. (Who wants to predict how many Americans will die of measles over the next four years?)
At the same time, we can’t count on people like Rich Lowry to assert that Canada isn’t our enemy for longer than a couple weeks before he feels compelled to construct a pseudo-intellectual justification for whatever Trump imagines as policy. I remember Lowry going from “obstructing aid to Ukraine would be very bad” to “obstructing the provision of aid to Ukraine is only a problem if it was congressionally authorized aid” to “okay, it was, but it’s fine because Trump didn’t SUCCEED in obstructing its delivery!” I haven’t checked back - I assume Lowry now says Ukraine has been unacceptably mean to Vladimir Putin.
So, what’s rock bottom for these people? Asking for a country (and maybe the free world).
Glad you have finally called out his stupid tariff drama. Worryingly, Republican congress folks from both houses except for Roger Wicker maybe have shrugged and tried to justify his whimsical behavior. This is just two months into his new administration. I am genuinely worried about where the country will be in 4 years.
For the past century the US has implicitly owned Canada. (Something you can take at will is yours even if it nominally belongs to someone else.) Trump is weak and has said that we *don't* own Canada. He has shrunk the US land area by about half. Sad!
I would like to know when and how we will have hit rock bottom hard enough to get congressional Republicans to check Trump’s stupid and damaging actions, including these tariffs. It seems obvious that relatively small scale policy changes during Trump I were muted by relatively competent Cabinet level officials, whom Donald Trump hated. He spent the intervening years calling these people “the deep state” and now has his preferred team of ignorant conspiracy theorists and sycophants. We can therefore expect everything to get worse. (Who wants to predict how many Americans will die of measles over the next four years?)
At the same time, we can’t count on people like Rich Lowry to assert that Canada isn’t our enemy for longer than a couple weeks before he feels compelled to construct a pseudo-intellectual justification for whatever Trump imagines as policy. I remember Lowry going from “obstructing aid to Ukraine would be very bad” to “obstructing the provision of aid to Ukraine is only a problem if it was congressionally authorized aid” to “okay, it was, but it’s fine because Trump didn’t SUCCEED in obstructing its delivery!” I haven’t checked back - I assume Lowry now says Ukraine has been unacceptably mean to Vladimir Putin.
So, what’s rock bottom for these people? Asking for a country (and maybe the free world).
Spot on. But I also wonder who in the inner circle might be profiting from some of these market movements and whether it's partially about that
How much of this Canada stuff is motivated by Trudeau foiling Trump's handshake back in Trump's first term?
Glad you have finally called out his stupid tariff drama. Worryingly, Republican congress folks from both houses except for Roger Wicker maybe have shrugged and tried to justify his whimsical behavior. This is just two months into his new administration. I am genuinely worried about where the country will be in 4 years.
For the past century the US has implicitly owned Canada. (Something you can take at will is yours even if it nominally belongs to someone else.) Trump is weak and has said that we *don't* own Canada. He has shrunk the US land area by about half. Sad!