Trump is back…the “Now What” thread

Doesn't that assume that they exist in the first place?

Did you read Mr. BR's post # 2248?
Deceptive, because many or even most countries, like Australia, have zero "tariffs". Yet they have an across the board import tax of 10%, and a customs duty of 5% outside of the commonwealth. This is leftist, word game BS. A rose by any other name.

Saying Australia has zero tariffs is a lie when you understand that calling taxes different names does not change the actual "cost" to the importer.

Saying that Trump's policies are anti-free trade on the right is coming from anti-Trumpers, period.

There is a .gov website and several private ones that show the cost of exporting American goods into every country on earth. It's not that this information is secret, it's that people who aren't in export are fucking ignorant.

@Mr.BR does have a point about not wanting to make all the low cost, low end products out of SE Asia and China. Many of those are super-poluters as well, which we also don't want.
 
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Trump likes the word "Tariff", and maybe he shouldn't. What the administration should be saying is "cost of importing American goods".

No one should be fooled by the miriad of technical terms denoting different taxing schemes unless they are paid in earwax or pooka beads. When there are actual American dollars changing hands it is all a scam.

Our government scams us as well by naming the bazillion different taxes we pay all different names when any idiot knows that there is no difference between one dollar and the next. It is all completely fungible and you are getting lost in the weeds with all these distinctions without a difference in COST.
 
VAT is not a tariff. VAT is imposed when value is added (the v and the a). It is imposed on domestic producers the same as on imports.

In other words, Trump is just wrong when he claims VAT is a tariff. If you are making the same claim, then you are wrong, too.

There is no general 20% tariff on USA produced cars imported to the EU, either. It is 10%. The USA charges a 2.5% tariff on EU cars imported here.

None of this is a 39% tariff.

Do not give cover to liars by being complicit with them in sharing lies.

"Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord"
Proverbs 12:22

Politics are no excuse.
But if goods coming from the US don’t have VAT, and are now subject to a VAT, you can call it whatever you want, it’s still an artificial financial penalty placed on US goods.

I’ve dealt with VAT most of my life, since I’ve lived back and forth between US and Europe, as well as Asia. People with only theoretical arguments and limited or no experience with these things need to step back and let the big boys handle it.

You’re trying to nitpick how many pieces of silver Judas sold us out for and I’m saying Judas is a traitor. Why run cover for the status quo of people who have betrayed the US as policy, when someone finally comes in and aggressively starts fixing it? Weird
 
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I understand negotiating.

But not lying.

Nor do I cover for others when they lie, even if they are my own political party.

Truth matters.

Misrepresenting things undermines the point. It undermines the president's credibility, and, by extension, the credibility of the United States.

Shhh!

Do NOT ever say that!

To suckle at the teat of the cult of He Who Can Do No Wrong, one must exhibit purely dichotomous thinking and NEVER question any domestic or foreign policies!

For you are merely a Democrat or Republican, a Liberal or a Conservative, a mere cog in this greater bipolar machine…

…Never once think that you are an AMERICAN, for that is irrelevant! :ROFLMAO:

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But if goods coming from the US don’t have VAT, and are now subject to a VAT, you can call it whatever you want, it’s still an artificial financial penalty placed on US goods.

I’ve dealt with VAT most of my life, since I’ve lived back and forth between US and Europe, as well as Asia. People with only theoretical arguments and limited or no experience with these things need to step back and let the big boys handle it.

You’re trying to nitpick how many pieces of silver Judas sold us out for and I’m saying Judas is a traitor. Why run cover for the status quo of people who have betrayed the US as policy, when someone finally comes in and aggressively starts fixing it? Weird
Being insulting with your statement about "big boys" does not change objective reality. VAT is charged on their own domestic goods, so there is no advantage or disadvantage to the VAT on imported goods. There is no "penalty," as you claim.

A tariff is completely different, and if you were such a "big boy," the concept would not be hard to grasp.

Tariffs are charged on certain imported goods and raise the price as compared to domestically produced goods. This is the reason the US has for a long time had a 25% tariff on imported pickups, to raise the price of the imports and protect GM, Ford, and Chrysler pickups' market share.
 
When a leader is making critical moves, he doesn’t need do-nothings in the peanut gallery critiquing them.

Command decisions are what we screen and hire leaders for, and all the previous ones have failed us tremendously in this space.

Whose idea was it to continue Bretton Woods after 1991, for example?

Remember there are armies of foreign lobbyists who manipulate and bribe our Congress and professional political class, in the best interests of their nations.

No real American supports that, and voters have been left with 2 choices between political stooges lobbied by these foreigners for generations now.
 
More importantly, the VAT has nothing to do with the 39% claimed on the President's chart. We already know how it was calculated. Why are you trying to pretend that it was calculated some other way?

39% is not a tariff in the EU on imported American goods. Stop lying.
 
Being insulting with your statement about "big boys" does not change objective reality. VAT is charged on their own domestic goods, so there is no advantage or disadvantage to the VAT on imported goods. There is no "penalty," as you claim.

A tariff is completely different, and if you were such a "big boy," the concept would not be hard to grasp.

Tariffs are charged on certain imported goods and raise the price as compared to domestically produced goods. This is the reason the US has for a long time had a 25% tariff on imported pickups, to raise the price of the imports and protect GM, Ford, and Chrysler pickups' market share.
This is pretty easy:

Do you support the status quo, the continued fleecing of American taxpayers, or do you support realigning the system to represent our interests?

What have you got against re-shoring American manufacturing?
 
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This is pretty easy:

Do you support the status quo, the continued fleecing of American taxpayers, or do you support realigning the system to represent our interests?

What have you got against re-shoring American manufacturing?
So . . . if I do not support the status quo, I must support the President's lies and your lies to cover for him? Those are my only two choices in the entire universe?
 
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one victory. roberts is still a corrupt scumbag and sided with the left wing judges.

They’ve had Roberts by the short and curlies for decades, because he illegally adopted his Irish kids through a kid-laundering network from Ireland to South America, so they could get them into the US.

The first major red flag was his last-minute switch on Obama’s cursed ACA, where the case was taken to SCOUTS as being unconstitutional forcing people to purchase a product or service they might not want. Roberts was set to strike it down, then puzzlingly pulled a switch in its favor, shocking even the Dems.
 
They’ve had Roberts by the short and curlies for decades, because he illegally adopted his Irish kids through a kid-laundering network from Ireland to South America, so they could get them into the US.

The first major red flag was his last-minute switch on Obama’s cursed ACA, where the case was taken to SCOUTS as being unconstitutional forcing people to purchase a product or service they might not want. Roberts was set to strike it down, then puzzlingly pulled a switch in its favor, shocking even the Dems.

One might remember there was this "unexplained breaking / burglary" at the Roberts house,
Then suddenly he started doing whatever the Democrats and deep state wanted...
 
Sorry, but the American President is not immune from criticism. You must be thinking of some other political system and some other country.
I just don’t think you comprehend or recognize the gravity of our strategic situation.

You still appear to believe we have wiggle room to let our Nation get bent by all our “allies” and trade partners, while the core employment vehicles for the middle class have been lost to overseas cheap labor that isn’t so cheap anymore.

Since you appear to have it figured out, what’s your proposal for re-shoring our jobs and keeping US manufacturing at home?
 
More importantly, the VAT has nothing to do with the 39% claimed on the President's chart. We already know how it was calculated. Why are you trying to pretend that it was calculated some other way?

39% is not a tariff in the EU on imported American goods. Stop lying.
What are, if any, tariffs on American goods?

R
 
They’ve had Roberts by the short and curlies for decades, because he illegally adopted his Irish kids through a kid-laundering network from Ireland to South America, so they could get them into the US.

The first major red flag was his last-minute switch on Obama’s cursed ACA, where the case was taken to SCOUTS as being unconstitutional forcing people to purchase a product or service they might not want. Roberts was set to strike it down, then puzzlingly pulled a switch in its favor, shocking even the Dems.
he's also been to epstein's island (allegedly). perhaps that's one of the reasons why we haven't seen the fucking files yet.
 
I just don’t think you comprehend or recognize the gravity of our strategic situation.

You still appear to believe we have wiggle room to let our Nation get bent by all our “allies” and trade partners, while the core employment vehicles for the middle class have been lost to overseas cheap labor that isn’t so cheap anymore.

Since you appear to have it figured out, what’s your proposal for re-shoring our jobs and keeping US manufacturing at home?
i think you are right in that tariff,VAT,import tax are just semantic distinctions with definitions vague enough to hide the penalty imposed on American exports. now to stir the pudding.
have read most of your comments and replies re Ukraine,most of which i disagree with. not the point. you have never answered my question about what you think we should do with it and why. if you object to the penalties imposed on US imports,about everywhere,what is your justification for sending billions into a cesspool where most of it is stolen,laundered back to the MIC or spent on anything the Z crew can get away with. not to mention our spending prob trillions over time on Europe and Israel.
just saying.but,i don't give shit what the jews do in Gaza,W.bank,Syria,Lebanon,wherever. just don't think we should support them with $,air strikes,intel or anything else. def goes for Ukraine and Europe in general. don't give a shit what Putin does anywhere in Europe. you admit that they have been shafting us for decades. actually since at least 1917,but earlier really. so why piss more billions down that sewer. which.BTW,Trump continues to do. that i don't get. he really could stop the war in about a week. look up what Macgregor has advocated in regards to Ukraine and our border.

BTW fuck Ukraine
 
Why run cover for the status quo of people who have betrayed the US as policy, when someone finally comes in and aggressively starts fixing it?

Well yeah I voted for him to fuck shit up just didn't think he'd get started this quickly.

Wall Street and the Global Economy deserve a kick in the balls. We've lived under blatant market manipulation for so long that we sincerely believe it's the natural order of things to have a DOW that is pumped up through the roof while most Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
 
More importantly, the VAT has nothing to do with the 39% claimed on the President's chart. We already know how it was calculated. Why are you trying to pretend that it was calculated some other way?

39% is not a tariff in the EU on imported American goods. Stop lying.
What are, if any, tariffs on American goods?

R
May have missed your reply.


R
 
May have missed your reply.


R
There is no simple answer. It is different for different goods, just like US tariffs are different for different goods. None of it is 39%, much less is that an average. They range from 1% to as high as 25%.

I think the point is being missed here.

It is not 39%! Nobody seriously contends that it is.

The President's administration came up with a formula having nothing to do with tariffs and then claimed it is a tariff of 39%. Now everybody is running around trying to justify that lie. Why? The administration could have just come out and said what this 39% number represents and why it is important instead of lying about it.
 
i think you are right in that tariff,VAT,import tax are just semantic distinctions with definitions vague enough to hide the penalty imposed on American exports. now to stir the pudding.
have read most of your comments and replies re Ukraine,most of which i disagree with. not the point. you have never answered my question about what you think we should do with it and why. if you object to the penalties imposed on US imports,about everywhere,what is your justification for sending billions into a cesspool where most of it is stolen,laundered back to the MIC or spent on anything the Z crew can get away with. not to mention our spending prob trillions over time on Europe and Israel.
just saying.but,i don't give shit what the jews do in Gaza,W.bank,Syria,Lebanon,wherever. just don't think we should support them with $,air strikes,intel or anything else. def goes for Ukraine and Europe in general. don't give a shit what Putin does anywhere in Europe. you admit that they have been shafting us for decades. actually since at least 1917,but earlier really. so why piss more billions down that sewer. which.BTW,Trump continues to do. that i don't get. he really could stop the war in about a week. look up what Macgregor has advocated in regards to Ukraine and our border.

BTW fuck Ukraine
If Putin had been able to steamroll through Ukraine, it would have presented the appearance of strategic capability to the Eastern European nations (who actually have been investing in their defense), because they still have pictures of their family members that were murdered by Russians from the last times (Winter War 1939, WWII, Hungary 1965, Czechoslovakia 1968).

The billions in US aid have mostly been older weapons stockpiles scheduled for destruction assigned a monetary value we already paid, remember? It’s actually a net-gain for us in weapons disposal, not that comrade Biden jumped on that opportunity anytime soon. There was still corruption through CIA and USAID, who have been used by NGOs for personal gain as a rule ever since JFK was assassinated. They will do that with any conflict as long as they are allowed to.

The Eastern Europeans, especially Poland, are stuck between a weak European core run by male feminists and stupid women in their parliaments....and adventurist Putin to the East. Not a good position to be in right now.

This is why Finland and Poland quickly invested so much in their national defense in the 1990s. Finland replaced their aging fleet of SAAB Drakens and MiG-21Fs with F-18C/D (not F/A-18, a side note but interesting to dive into), while Poland replaced their MiG-29s, Su-20s and Su-22Ms with F-16C/D Block 50/52s.

Meanwhile in Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and France, they drug their feet developing Typhoon and Rafale, which are at end-of-life relevancy for modern air combat. Now Finland and Poland are F-35 customers, looking to replace or augment their 4th Gen fleets of fighters. Because Germany never invested in a Tornado replacement, they had to order F-35s too. This was after they fired their Luftwaffe Chief many years ago when he recommended they invest in the F-35 program ASAP.

I would absolutely love to debate Col MacGregor. He’s an Army Armor officer who thinks tanks and artillery are central to modern combat power. That hasn’t been true since Korea at the latest. It shifted during WWII in favor of air power, and the US is without peer in that space.

He is painfully-uneducated about the overall US force structure, where our centers of strength are, and how we actually fight. This is especially-alarming because he was front-and-center in Desert Storm’s Battle of 73 Eastings. He was in the last war where the US military actually was let off the leash a little, so he should know, but he either doesn’t or misrepresents his statements about modern US military force structure.

You will notice though that he reverts to expressing US combat power in artillery and armor terms. These are really after-thoughts and dinosaurs left over from early 20th Century institutional inertia. While 73 Eastings was the most decisive armor victory in the history of armor warfare, F-111Fs and F-15Es could have attrited the same number of tanks in relatively short order.

The F-111F attrited more tanks than the A-10A did in Desert Storm, in 1/4 the sorties flown by A-10s. What we have nowadays are far more-capable than F-111Fs, 1980s-era F-16s, early F-15Es, and A-10s.

McGregor is not comfortable speaking on air power because it isn’t his career field, so he defaults to silly discussions about how many artillery shells we can produce and at what rates. It’s embarrassing.
 
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There is no simple answer. It is different for different goods, just like US tariffs are different for different goods. None of it is 39%, much less is that an average. They range from 1% to as high as 25%.

I think the point is being missed here.

It is not 39%! Nobody seriously contends that it is.

The President's administration came up with a formula having nothing to do with tariffs and then claimed it is a tariff of 39%. Now everybody is running around trying to justify that lie. Why? The administration could have just come out and said what this 39% number represents and why it is important instead of lying about it.
The point is even if it's 1% what are we charging them?
Something tells me zero until now.
I don't care how accurate, I care if it is one sided deal.
Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

R
 
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