Amateur Hour!
The Trump Clown Show Rolls On, NZ Politicians Take Notes
Overnight, Donald J. Trump, America’s 47th President, and only the second President since 1893 to win non-consecutive terms, rolled back more of his “no exemptions, no negotiations” & “no big deal” tariffs.
Smartphones, computers, and other electronics1 are now exempt from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China; they retain the 20% tariff2 - but this is the second huge u-turn in days.3
Earlier this week, Apple’s Tim Cook had his people air charter in ~1.5 million iPhones4, from India to the US to “beat the tariffs”.
Headlines that the consumeristic American market might have to pay US$2150 or even US$3,500 for a top model iPhone, up from US~$1000 now, has been hitting consumer confidence.
Toasters, a staple in every household, are also going to be hit hard.
Right now 99% of America’s toasters are made in China because the cost of production in the US is too high. Manufacturers would have to sell them for 10 x the current price to make money.
Toasters sold in America now
It’s amateur hour, and the clowns are in charge.
Which normal government wouldn’t have done some analysis before hand before exacting such ridiculous demands?
Which normal decision makers wouldn’t have cared about facts before proceeding?
Hold that thought, Aotearoa New Zealand.5
Trump dreams of Americans taking back the jobs China ‘stole’ from them. He’s doing the same with undocumented immigrants, arresting and departing them en-masse, despite them greasing the wheels and powering the jobs that Americans simply refuse to take. It’s an open secret: 3/4 of Americans admit the same. Generations of American Presidents have facilitated this structure for the same reason.
America also possesses neither the manufacturing capacity, logistics, technology or infrastructure to replace China. Nor do the Rust Belt Trump supporters who found themselves left behind, ever want to be cleaners or factory line workers:
That type of work takes a different mindset, discipline, willingness.
This week, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said Trump was taking the US back to the 19th century, and was damaging America’s staunchest competitive advantage: Its universities and research centres.
Wait, what?
Stiglitz also pointed out that Trump and his Administration resent the rise of China.
But the politics of the new right is precisely that: the politics of grievance, fear, anger.
Road cones, woke, expert, Europeans, Chinese, Māori, We pay more, We deserve more, We despise you, How dare you try to rise to my level, blah blah blah.
Talk about not counting your blessings, and shooting yourself in the foot.
Over the last century, America has built one of the most dominant, and self-advantageous systems in the world.
Its traditional status as the central currency of the world means that most economies follow its lead on interest rates, it’s able to borrow money at low rates and power its spending that has fueled growth, and it’s able to demand returns for every US$1 it prints for free.
Former French finance minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing once called the US’s position an “exorbitant privilege” because the US would never face a balance of payments crisis. Unlike other countries, their imports are purchased in their own currency.
Unsurprisingly Trump is destroying a century of unprecedented soft and hard power for the USA.
USAID, which Elon Musk & Trump dismantled, putting the most vulnerable people in the world at risk, and condemning many to die, wasn’t only about charity for America. It was about exerting influence, gaining power, and leverage.
Most Presidents were clued in enough to understand this.
It’s hard to imagine how we could find a more stupid and amateurish clown show on the road.
It’s the new-right wing government way, isn’t it?
I was pleased to see two papers cover similar themes to what I’ve spoken about this weekend:
How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs (NYT - No Paywall)
‘A new golden age’: how rightwing media stuck by Trump as global markets collapsed (Guardian - No Paywall)
Trump is doing what no other country or foe has been able to from within: Destroy America and make Americans a laughing stock around the world.
Instead of “How to Make Friends and Influence People”, Trump is presenting a double hits classic: “Masterclass in Buffoonery and Enemy Making”, as well as “How To Take ‘Great’ & Dismantle It For Destruction.”
America has a trade deficit with China, which in itself is not a bad thing given the nature of the economies and their respective specialisations - but its services surplus is higher for China and many countries.
In other words, America’s tech, banking, media, retail, professional services, medical and travel etc. is the real powerhouse of the US economy - and it employs ~80% of America’s workforce.
Exports of these services brought more than $1 trillion into the United States last year. And America held intellectual and leadership dominance, global goodwill, relative trust and unparalleled dominance in technology.
To put this at risk is another level of buffoonery we can only see in the Clown Act of the Century.
Trump has long railed against China. He first hinted at running for President in the 1980s and in his various runs, has invariably railed against China. But its tariffs against China will hit itself much more than his supposed ‘enemy’. It wil demolish many American enterprises.
His latest u-turn means 22% of Chinese imports are now exempt from Trump’s grandstanding 125% tariffs.
But posturing is really all that buffoons know - Trump’s says he’s still waiting for President Xi to “pick up the phone” and call.
Xi won’t.
After all, Trump’s making China better again.
Real Talk: Real Agendas
Of course, it’s too easy to dismiss Trump only as an ignorant buffoon. But the other side to him and his cohort is that these people are laser focused on their personal agenda and self-gain.
In other words, what’s amateurish to the world is irrelevant to Trump. That’s why Navarro said the stock market turbulence was “no big deal.”
It’s not to them. In fact, many of them are profiting off of it - and there may be more of that to come.
The Financial Time’s Edward Luce penned a good article in 2018 painting the serious and damaging changes Trump oversaw during his first Administration, who while hevowed to “drain the swamp”, instead “sold it to the highest bidder(s)”.
”The circus act children love the most is the one that is meant to distract them. When the clown comes out, the kids have eyes for nothing else. Little do they notice the scenery changes in the background….
Donald Trump is the circus maestro of our age. Since the US president took office, he has upended America’s regulatory culture. Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, described it as the “deconstruction of the administrative state”.
Most of us are too entertained to pay close attention. Much as the media love to hate Mr Trump, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Traffic is booming. Advertising dollars keep flowing in.”
Nothing’s really changed, has it?
It’s the same in New Zealand, but on a smaller scale.
Where NZ First and ACT garner headlines for outrageous words and acts, including the Treaty Principles Bill and attacks on woke and DEI and Green MPs, the real show takes place - tax cuts for the wealthiest, privatising our health service, doing the big banks’ bidding, cutting environmental protections, rewarding donors, cutting regulations that cut costs for big business while endangering children, implementing libertarian values, selling our sensitive lands and assets, and removing Te Tiriti from 28 laws.
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