The pounding of the 10-year Treasury caused a 90-day respite in the highest tariffs, and then yesterday we learned of a huge carve-out for China's highest ticket item, tech devices. And now, 24 hours later and before the markets have reopened, Lutnick undercuts the tech exemption.
There was a great, humorous Jimmy Breslin novel about the New York mobsters entitled, "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight." So long as we having warring advisors like Lutnick, Bessant, Musk, and Hassett, we will have chaos.
Big corporations, the biggest and fastest-growing employers in our economy, will freeze hiring if they have no clarity. And clarity seems farther away now than it was on the morning of April 2.
The churn stops after all the deals have been made. No one likes uncertainty, so everybody ought to hurry up and make deals. Trump is in control and I’m fine with that.
“”Virtually all semiconductors are made now in Taiwan and they’re finished in China.....”
What, exactly, is this finishing?
Building circuit boards?
Well there goes the market and bonds back down into the bottom of the toilet on Monday.
They need certainly to function. This idiot, Lutnick pulled the rug out before they even got a chance to become meaningful.
Why didn’t 47 say that these exception were temporary to begin with? Everyone was cheering, now we could be headed to recession territory simply because the clown show can’t get its messaging straight.
There’s about a $900 billion/year problem. Companies are going to have to make major adjustments.
The motor vehicle industry should be made internationally cash flow balanced.
The US must have the ability to make aluminum alloys for warplanes.
The US must have the ability to make steel for motor vehicles.
Other products might be allowed to use lower cost imported steel, with tariff credits after some of the products are exported.
We want our manufacturers to have low-cost raw materials. Raw materials are mainly those sold by weight.
The same export tariff credit will apply to industrial components of say LCD screens for Apple iPhones that may put together in CA and then sent overseas.
The US must have the ability to make drugs to keep its citizens alive and off the disability rolls.
Solar cells are going to be essential as oil in the coming years. They need to be made in the USA.
Semiconductors are an essential technology. We should be making what we use.
If food is good enough for the Trump dinner table, it’s good enough for any dinner table.
No foreigner wants to pay a 10% base tariff, therefore tariff-free barter should be allowed.
The clarity is completely there, Miami Rebel.
Build in America, and there are no problems.
[Certain dollar amounts on apparel, electronic and stuff typically sold below any possible US production amount
should be tariff exempt, not never the whole item regardless of cost. We don’t need to be importing $1,000 cellphones that
could be made in the USA for far less.]
[My suggestion below]
The Secretary of Commerce may by regulation provide tariff exemptions up to the following amounts:
1. $100 on a laptop or personal computer
2. $60 on a smartphone
3. 10 cents per square inch of LCD screen
4. $45 per hard disk drive
5. $1 per first GB of solid-state memory and 20 cents for each additional GB
6. $5 on a shirt, blouse or dress
7. $4 on a pair of pants or skirt
8. $1 on an undergarment
9. $10 on a suit
10. 10 cents per inch of sewing, up to $2 on shoes and any other worn garment including dolls clothing
11. such amounts on kitchen appliances that do not exceed
80% of values of competitively priced basic models as of June 1, 2023
12. such amounts on hand tools, powered and unpowered, that do not exceed
80% of values of competitively priced basic models as of June 1, 2023.
“The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
Like new Marines in North Carolina, they’ll learn.
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime
You’ll find
You get what you need”
https://genius.com/The-rolling-stones-you-cant-always-get-what-you-want-lyrics
Y’all commentors have it all wrong!
US industries outsourced because EPA and state regulations
made with no regard whatsoever to cost/benefit trade off studies, caused our stuff be to expensive too produce here at home.
We have plenty of rare earths in the USA but Government won’t allow people to mine them.
We have plenty of energy in the ground, Coal, Oil, Natural gas Just try to get a permit to extract it.
Our problem is political, not practical limitations.
It is the Federal government Primarily run by career Democrats, both elected and non-elected.
Our competitors know this.
Trump has to quit letting different admin officials speak differently about ANY tariffs. He should designate the one and only one person to speak about tariffs publicly, and that person should be required to consult with speficic other administration people before they speaks, and all others need to defer press questions about tariffs to that one person.
The uncertainty is what is roiling the markets - as investors try to determine future effects of tariffs on companies, or not, if resolved, and causing companies to delay decisions because of supply chain uncertainties.
“50 years ago this weekend the Government announced that the pound would be devalued by 14%. This decision – previously politically unthinkable – was taken after fending off a number of earlier currency crises.”
“Chancellor James Callaghan released a statement at 9.30pm on Saturday 18 November 1967 stating that the Government had decided to lower the exchange rate from $2.80 to $2.40 per £1, a 14.3% change. Interest rates were raised from 6.5% to 8.0%, cuts to defence budget announced, and banks and the stock exchanges would be closed on Monday.”
“Prime Minister Harold Wilson gave an address on TV and radio to the nation....He railed at the “successive waves of speculation against sterling”, and said no international loan could be agreed given the conditions on economic policy that may be attached to them.”
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/pound-in-your-pocket-devaluation-50-years-on/
Remember a 14% devaluation has a greater impact than a tariff increase to 10%.
Watch Season 3 of “The Crown” to see why trade deficits matter.
Your prison is self made.
We are liberated.
You never will be at this rate. If you even want to be. And you should want to.
The entire administration, Trump included, shouldn’t be saying anything on tariffs other than we are negotiating deals with other countries. Between Lutnick and Navarro, those two are single handedly creating chaos with their statements.
“Virtually all semiconductors are made now in Taiwan and they’re finished in China.”
It seems we are talking about two distinct topics: A) made in Taiwan, B) finished in China. I don’t know what they mean by finished. I expect they could be finished somewhere else than China.