Posted on 04/05/2025 10:43:37 AM PDT by Mariner
US President Donald Trump on Saturday doubled down on the sweeping tariffs he unleashed on countries around the world, warning Americans of pain ahead, but promising historic investment and prosperity.
The comments came as Trump's widest-ranging tariffs took effect in a move that could trigger retaliation and escalating trade tensions that could upset the global economy.
"We have been the dumb and helpless 'whipping post,' but not any longer. We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"This is an economic revolution, and we will win," he added. "Hang tough, it won't be easy, but the end result will be historic."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Leading, right out there in front.
6 months or around there.
Once we shedd ourselves of these leeches, especially the EU, we’ll be way better off.
Wow, So Trump “ Unleashed” These tears on the world, huh? It’s weird for a second. I thought that we were just responding to tariffs that the world.” unleashed.” on us.
Weird how the headline in wording doesn’t really capture that dynamic does it?
As if AP was not bad enough now we get BS from AP France.
We think Americans are “tough”.
I think we’re about to find out.
We don’t need most foreign imports. Few things we cannot grow or produce here. Coffee, not enough from Hawaii, some kinds of fruits, chocolate, some spices and some herbs. The basic and beyond basic items we have for the most part. Foreign meat? It sucks, except for maybe Polish ham, but the Polish have been very cooperative. Wine? we don’t need the snooty French or Italian stuff, plenty of excellent vineyards all over the U.S. Beer? Nope, some very good microbrews here. Cotton? Wool? Oil? What do we really need from other countries that we can’t produce or substitute for?
smart businesses knew they were coming; I know somebody with a very small scale manufacturing operation who told me two months ago he was stocking up on materials from China . The supply chain will shift, hopefully toward domestic supply.
I’m with you all the way on this issue, President Trump. Bring those jobs back here, and I’ll buy from them.
Its hard for people to hang tough when there’s a wicked combination of inflation and debt to cope with. And now a sharp drop in the markets which generally leads to a negative wealth effect.
Not blaming Trump for the inflation and debt, but his big tariff rollout comes at a time when the American consumer was already under duress. A more gradual approach to addressing the tariff imbalances may not have been so disruptive, and therefore less painful. Many retirees and near retirees with 401k’s and such are feeling the stress this week, especially those with marginal assets.
My friends there’s no guarantee the tariffs will work but we can agree it’s necessary.
I was a buck sargent in the AF-1970’s. Too many career NCO’S(lifers) didn’t like us being non-commissioned officers with our attitudes. Heard it for years “Something’s gotta be done”. Now buck Sargents with 3 stripes are called ‘senior airman’. Bush.
It takes a while but eventually the majority comes around.
To quote Ross Perot from his first infomercial, “It will be tough but it will be fun!”
Donald Trump, since the 1980s, has complained about the US as the world’s trading patsy.
There is zero chance PDJT will reverse course.
Rather than slam Trump, I suggest we ask why Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Bammy didn’t put Americans first.
He needs to realize there’s people in his party that got really wealthy off china and he is pretty much by himself on this. He needs the market to stabilize and a few of these countries announcing trade deals with him and people will give him more time.
I might be a bit numb to the whole thing because, I retired four years ago and my retirement plan was not to have a lot of investments, but to be debt free and own my own home in an area with very low property taxes.
It means I have everything I need including chickens, a garden, four cars, and 32 acres, and pay the price of a loaded medium pizza in property taxes every month, and my monthly cost of living is less than half our SS check.
i.e. I have no money in the markets. I consider it gambling.
But yeah, this will hurt people. It will bring pain in a “pay me now or pay me later” sort of way. And I think a lot of his tariffs will not happen because a lot of countries will “blink”. And that means more of our product sold in those countries. Which will increase employment.
But if I was hurting because of this, I’d think about cutting out the trips to starbucks and McDonalds, and get rid of Cable. That is all easy for me to say because for the last 20 years I’ve said that if the rest of the country started spending money the way my wife and I do, the economy would collapse overnight.
And yet the Lord provides and there is nothing we want, and not much we need. But it took leaving Seattle for rural Kentucky. I couldn’t live on my SS checks in Seattle, even with no debt.
Will the voters hang tough, though? That’s the part of the equation I have absolutely no confidence in…
“there is nothing we want”
***********
Then you are rich beyond measure.
A lot of our fellow Americans live life as though its a competition of who can accumulate the most trinkets. But after awhile all your material possessions wind up owning you.
I would bet that Trump already made numerous trade deals, with agreement in the major principles and terms, in the weeks leading up to the tariff announcement last week. They’re now working on the finer details of these agreements. It would be too risky politically to initiate all these tariffs on the same day without numerous deals already in hand. That would be too much of a political gamble even for a risk-taker like Trump.
President Trump needs to announce one of these deals with a major country on Monday morning before the stock market opens, including relocation of manufacturing facilities to the USA, and big cuts in tariffs by both nations. If the stock market continues falling, there’s a definite risk of a negative wealth effect resulting in a substantial drop in retail sales, especially sales of new cars and trucks. That could cause a recession this year. So now is the time to take action to stabilize the financial markets, and defend the 5000 level on the S&P 500 index. An official bear market in the S&P 500 starts around 4900, so if I were Trump I’d make sure the S&P index stays above 5000. This selloff has been unusually fast and stunning to investors, so now is the time to stabilize the stock market and prevent a recession.
Then we need the Fed to start cutting interest rates again to bring back the home building and automotive industries, increase the supply of homes, and cut the inflation rate of houses and rents. Lower inflation then leads to a positive circle of more interest rate cuts, less interest expense on national debt, lower budget deficits, and stronger real economic growth and employment. Go Trump...MAGA!
Good for you. I’m envious.
But speaking of cable, I haven’t had it since the 1980’s and have saved thousands of dollars. I’m also debt free and drive a reliable used car that I paid cash for.
My only regret is I should have bought gold years ago.
One more thing that I strongly recommend is for the Treasury Dept. and SEC to take a look at who was doing all the stock selling last Thursday and Friday (yesterday). That was an awful lot of selling considering that everybody knew well in advance that these tariffs were going to happen. It was clear to the markets that Trump was not going to call off the tariffs at the last minute. The SEC should specifically look for government-funded traders in foreign countries that are affected by the new US tariffs, and look at whether these traders were dumping and short-selling large amounts of stock last week. Certain foreign governments may now be attacking our financial markets in an attempt to pressure President Trump to drop or substantially cut the new tariffs.
If Treasury and the SEC find evidence of heavy short-selling by foreign traders, then they could do something like limit the short positions held by people who are not US citizens. Maybe limit their short positions to only 5% of total equity in their brokerage account. For example, if they have $3 million of cash in their account (not counting cash received from short sales), then their total short positions would be limited to only $150,000. This kind of restriction on short selling could force a lot of buy-ins by foreign short sellers who are attacking our markets to pressure us into dropping tariffs. We could give them until market close on Friday to buy in their short positions.
If I ran the Treasury Department, I’d be taking a long, hard look at this over the weekend. Then possibly announce restrictions on short selling by foreign accounts early next week. A forced buy-in could be a big help in avoiding an official bear market in the S&P 500 index.
In conclusion, Go Trump, MAGA!
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