Are we winning yet?

Palm Sunday and speculation abounds that Trump will declare martial law on Easter to deploy troops to the southern border.  His administration seems to have a knack for invoking old acts, in this case the 1807 Insurrection Act, to justify their heinous policies.  So far, the Supreme Court has been very accommodating as they upheld the Trump administration's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to detain and deport what they regard as dangerous immigrants.  Autocracy appears to be the logical next step.

He's certainly managed to put everyone on guard, but so far he hasn't exactly followed through on his initiatives.  All his talk of tariffs to rectify what he regarded as a massive trade deficit blew up in his face last week when the Dow tumbled 5000 points.  He very quickly pulled back on the tariffs which even his DOGE efficiency expert called "dumb as a sack of bricks."  Musk was referring to Pete Navarro out of deference to Trump.  Petey was the supposed "architect" of this plan, which used some highly questionable math that resulted in a war of words on X.  Yet, Trump seemed to put all his stock in Petey until his own Secretary of Treasury began to worry about the massive sell-off of government bonds, and urged the president to pull back, which he did the next day.  Trump tried to project himself as the Hero of Wall Street when the Dow regained almost 60% of its losses, but it was his dumb tariff plan that led to the sell-off in the first place.

Trump did leave the levies on China but then Tim Cook had a chat with Donald and urged him to exempt smartphones and other electronic equipment as this would drive the costs immeasurably higher.  An I-phone 16 already sells for $1600 and would more than double under the tariffs, prompting Apple to airlift shit tons of their products before the deadline.  Sensing that this might do further market damage, Donald exempted smartphones and other popular electronic equipment from his massive tariff on Chinese imports.  It really makes you wonder what these tariffs are all about?

They seem mostly designed to make countries pay deference to him.  Trump proudly boasted that more than 70 foreign leaders had already contacted him saying they would be willing to negotiate tariffs. He then paused the tariffs to give time for his trade negotiators to work out favorable deals.  One of the prime targets is Vietnam, which makes much of the clothes for all the iconic American brands.  What Team Trump doesn't seem to understand is that Vietnam will always export more than it imports as Americans want their relatively cheap Nikes.  If Trump were to impose a 46% tariff, Air Jordans would skyrocket in price.  Needless to say, shit tons of Nike products were airlifted to the US before the trade deadline as well.  Not that it mattered in the end.

In fact these gimmicks seem nothing more than an insatiable need to draw attention to himself.  Now he's pushing a nuclear deal with Iran, which he trashed during his first term in office.  I suppose this way he can make it his own.  Not something his nemesis Obama had initiated.  Once again we see Witkoff at the center of these talks.  A man who is truly dumb as a post, but has been relegated with sensitive negotiations in Israel, Russia and now Iran.  He's already admitted being duped by Hamas.  You think he is going to do any better with Iran?  Yet, Republicans do nothing despite what has become a very volatile situation.

At this point, Republicans are the only ones who can contain Trump.  He's completely gone off the rails and will do whatever it takes to save his ass, as his poll numbers have plummeted as well.  Economists have downgraded the threat of a recession now that the Dow has climbed back over 40,000 but it is still a very shaky market.  After all, he only put his tariffs on "pause."  If he doesn't get the deals he likes, he will probably reinstate them, bad math and all.

A large number of economists spoke out against the tariffs, including those Petey had footnoted in his proposal.  Tariffs should be targeted, not applied across the board as one economist noted.  The point is to single out countries where you have a trade imbalance you think you can rectify, not turn the whole world against you, which is exactly what Trump did.  After all, Republicans were the ones who wanted this global economy so that they could outsource industry and bring the costs down to American consumers.  

For example, Vietnam makes a huge amount of clothes, shoes and handbags for iconic brands like Nike and Tommy Hilfiger. It does so because it keeps the costs of these products relatively affordable to American consumers.  As such, Vietnam imports cotton and plastics from America to help make these products.  It's a win-win proposition even if Vietnamese exports greatly exceed imports.  But, Petey just looked at the bottom line rather than take stock of the whole situation.  He saw this massive trade deficit and decided to tax it, seemingly oblivious to the impact this would have on American consumers.

This was also the case with China, where many American industries outsource their production.  But, Trump turned red when China pushed back and kept increasing the levy until it reached the insane rate of 145 percent.  China wasn't intimidated, it just continued to raise its US tariff in turn, leaving Trump even more red-faced. What Trump and Navarro didn't seem to take into account is how much of the national debt China owns and once it started selling off government bonds panic set in.  Not only China but Japan too.

With these tariffs, Trump had effectively turned the world against the US so that Japan and South Korea were willing to join with China in striking back at the US.  Together they represent a huge chunk of the world's economy, offsetting America's imperial place.  The EU similarly operated from a position of economic power in striking back at the US with tariffs of its own.  

This is not what you want to do.  The US is in a fragile place with its massive debt burden and making enemies of friends isn't going to help matters.  But, that's not the way the Trump administration works. They seem to think they can bully the world into bending to its wishes. Not only is this not a good Easter lesson but as the bond sell-off showed, a piss-poor strategy for taking on the world.  

I would like to think clearer heads prevailed but I fear all we are experiencing is the eye of Hurricane Donald.  The ill winds will circle back around as Donald isn't one to back down.  He truly believes he is king of the world even if nothing is currently going his way.