Tariffs: three of the best

Nobody stops talking about Tariffs. In the economic world, in the trade world, in the world of markets and investments (and in your kitchen or garage or where you do your marketing), this will have an effect. Bear in mind that trade wars do real damage, and it is not as if we’re going to walk out of this with a clear ‘winner’ or a clean ‘loser’. We may only walk out of this with demolished countries, some more than others.

There is a reason why this is called a Trade War as it does damage like a war does.  It could kill people, like a war does.  It could wipe out countries, like a war does.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said the US-led tariffs could cause serious harm to developing countries and even trigger a humanitarian crisis.  He said this to WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during a video conference devoted to issues of protecting the multilateral trading system and responding to US actions. Wang Wentao’s statement was published on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

BRICS members have just called for a joint defense of the multilateral trade system

We saw this morning the ‘sneak’ change that so far, was not announced by anyone in the White House.  Yes, it is weekend, but after the immediate announcements this past week or so, and the continual amplification by the White House Blondy, this is different.  Again, uncertainty. We don’t know and an economic system cannot live in a continual state of ‘we don’t know’.

Smartphones and computers will be excluded from President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, according to new guidance issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The updated tariff guidance also carves out exemptions for a range of electronic devices and components, including laptops, semiconductors, solar panels, flat-screen TV displays, flash drives, memory cards, and solid-state drives used for data storage. (Yes, for China too).

Nobody is paying attention because if this can happen today, something else can be announced tomorrow. The trust base is gone, and countries will continue changing their trade patterns and hedge against the US.

Professor Richard Wolff explains again how it works and why the world’s economies could spend time ‘on pause’,  because of uncertainty.  (I grew up in a farming but also a business house, and one of the hard and fast rules was that cashflow is king).

Economist Richard Wolff offers a shocking warning to the empire as Trump’s tariffs devastate the US economy. This video discusses how Trump’s economic policy is facilitating the collapse of the US empire as China pursues economic policy that could be the nail in its coffin.

Seun Foo reports the chronicles. He tells the story:

Ben Norton has a more technical perspective on the issue of charging what is considered a ‘fealty to the emperor’. He explains the policy.

US President Donald Trump wants to use tariffs as part of a plan to save the dominance of the dollar as the global reserve currency. His top economic advisor Stephen Miran outlined the Trump administration’s strategy to force other countries to pay the USA to maintain its imperial financial and military order. Ben Norton explains the idea behind the hypothetical “Mar-a-Lago Accord”.