jts-khorat

I agree. To improve a country against the culture and wish of the locals has a strong whiff of colonialist thinking. White man knows better? Most Thais that I know are perfectly happy with the way things are, and I am talking a broad range of people from Isaan backgrounds to city people to wealthy, international Thais (many of which are studying here in Germany). Everywhere there is room for improvement, for sure (as I am living there, looking at you, Germany!). But the initial will to do it must come from the locals. And frankly: I was very happy with the Thailand I have been living in in the early 2000s, and likely I will be equally content with Thailand when I will be living here again in the next stage of my life -- maybe, because I bring my happiness with me in my head, instead of trying to define the happiness of all the people around me by my standards.

There is, of course, also always the option to distract the masses with an external threat, and the US is giving Xi a big target. Taking one or two shoals in the South China Sea? Attacking Taiwan or entering Siberia? Maybe even an attack on Diego Garcia, just to send a signal (even though that would smell a little bit too much like Pearl harbor, and I doubt that the Chinese are yet up for a total war)? The options seem endless for the Chinese, and indeed, they only need to span the time until the next election cycle, which is not long. I would give the Chinese an 80% chance to come out on top in a trade war, not just because they can deflect their internal public opinion easily, but also because the whole world is (trade-)fighting the Americans, while Trump is attacking China all on his own (keeping even 10% of tariffs is enough to rile up even the staunchest ally).

You can be very sure, as soon as the patience of the EU runs out, this is where they will put countermeasures up. Companies like Googe, Amazon, Oracle et al currently pay basically no tax in Europe... as soon as that changes, a USA without manufacturing will also loose their exporting service industry -- because moving services software and the data in a data center is comparably done in the blink of an eye.

Protectionist tariffs make sense, when there is something to actually protect. But producing industry has left the US decades ago. While this might be the plan (?) of Trump to bring it back, he is going about it the wrong way around. You would need years-long education programs, tax incentives, legal changes... and then you could rise protective tariffs. With tariffs in place without an industry to be protected, all he has done is raising costs for US consumers, and the relationship between the EU and China as the remaining lucrative markets getting a lot closer automatically, depriving the US of even more market share. In the end, I guess he will wobble on this policy as well, giving some countries "special relief" -- meaning, those companies who started the billion-dollar-investments to move back to the US will be wrecked latest then. All in all, it is a senseless act of vandalism, hitting the whole world -- but hitting Americans a lot harder. As such, I can sleep soundly, because at least the idiots who voted for him will be totally gutted. After that, maybe reason will come back.

Friends coming to Thailand had really good experiences with supplements containing Maca (together with some of the other herbal supplements already mentioned in this thread, and not mentioned: Tribulus). However, it is improving Testosterone production slowly and should be cycled as all those ingredients influencing the hormonal system. It must be mentioned here, it is obviously not an anabolic in the sense a bodybuilder would use, so do not expect outrageous results. Anyways, one could start to take such a supplement at least a few weeks before a holiday here, and stop usage afterwards again.

I would rather say, 340 million to go. Obviously, the original experiment has failed and produced 340 million "Americans". 77 million of those can go immediately, but I have not much hope for the rest. Maybe better to deport them all and start a re-colonization with fresh faces, maybe the second round will go better... /s as there are people on here on ThaiVisa who would take my sentences as non-satirical truth.

In the chart you have posted, you have the Dow Jones Futures, but Nasdaq and S&P show the closing number of yesterday. But even though you circled it, you do know that, right?

Is there not a silver lining? Without the FDA checking for health and safety standards in food and medicines, can the big Eropean pharma companies not test their new medicines much cheaper on the Americans? I know, there will be quite the human cost, but surely good results and breakthroughs! We might even be able to completely replace testing on animals... /s -- but with a kernel of angry truth.

I think it has been established now that Trump has not calculated tariffs from other countries, but trade deficit. The only way to reduce the trade deficit really fast is to make Americans consume less. I guess his tariffs are doing it, even though I do not imagine that this is really his plan. But as long as you guys are lapping it up, I am actually fine with the US having a much smaller ecological footprint due to everything coming to a standstill over there. Might just be the best thing that has happened to the world, at least in the long run.

Stock futures are in freefall, Dow currently down 2.7%, S&P500 3.9%, Nasdaq 4.7%, all falling fast. Tomorrow will be a bloodbath. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/02/business/us-stock-market/index.html

According to the Bangkok Post, the true numbers are as follows: But, as nobody knows how Trump got to his fantasy numbers, rebutting them is even more difficult, because you are not seeing a rational actor, but a destructionist.

Now you Trump supporters talk about "survival". Really, that is what you wanted, to barely survive a world-wide crisis of your won creation? You are more happy to experience self-inflicted pain than I thought. I guess you guys will also be happy to work until your last day for a dollar a day in a sweatshop factory relocated from Bangladesh, just to make Trump happy. You truly are weird and funny folk!

How will that change the trade imbalance that Thailand has because the US imports all kinds of cheap electronics? How much wine do you think the Thais drink? And do you truly believe that Trump will reduce tariffs because of such a tiny, minor gesture? I do believe that many Americans are thinking much too simplistic to even grasp the size proportions this problem has, worldwide.

You are talking about China in the future tense, and you might just be rihgt. But what Trump does is in the present tense, so this leaves a country like Thailand absolutely no alternative than moving closer to China as the only other available market with potential. I find it incongruous that there are so many Americans that cannot see, that if you piss off literally the whole world at the same time, that this can only alienate everybody and make the US weaker. I would have thought that its actual citizens might wanted to have preserved their way of life instead of sabotaging it themselves. But hey, we all know the state of education in the US.

This might even be worse than keeping to the crazy tariffs. Imagine you are a multinational company, maybe a large car manufacturer. You start the horrendous investment to relocate a car factory from the Thai Eastern Seaboard to the US, start building, start hiring. Then, from one minute to the next, the tariffs are gone again. You are out of pocket by the billions of dollars. The time frames needed to make a policy like that of Trump work is counted in years, maybe decades. A guy changing his opinion with every social media post he makes will simply wreck everything, because nobody can trust his word.

I have told many people -- like you -- that found their new and exciting retirement in Thailand quickly boring and depressing: you stay in your own head, in the end, it is you who comes with you. If you cannot find something that motivates you, fills your time and makes living worthwhile, then even a place like Thailand will not help you overcome your internal issues. But, I am saddened to say, there is a big likelihood that you also will not be happy in most other places on the planet. Find a way to be happy, then choose the proper surrounding to live it out. Not the other way round. Just my 2c.

Again, look at why there is a surplus. You cannot "negotiate less" of it, a country would simply have to import more. What are the goods that Thailand could import more, specifically? What is the US producing that it could sell in Thailand better than before?

So indeed, you have simply no answer at all. Figures.

To remove the trade imbalance, which goods would you want to have Thailand importing more? American cars? They are produced right here in Thailand at the Eastern seaboard. High-end electronics? Where are the consumers in Thailand for it? Have you ever thought about this, are you able to answer any of those questions? So far I have seen hundreds of your posts which contained literally no information. Quite like your master Trump.

The majority of the trade surplus with the US from Thailand is agricultural goods and electronics. I guess, the American consumer will still buy shrimps and tropical fruit from Asia, because that is where they come from. The Chinese are currently hoovering up whatever they can, so I am not worried about Thailand in this regard. And with regard to electronics, they are produced in Thailand because wages here are a fraction of what American workers would get; so again, it will be very difficult to remove those goods from the American markets (without making everything excessively more expensive). This will hurt the Thai market more, but it is something the Americans force upon Thailand, nothing can be done about it. Sometimes it helps to look at the detail, instead of just trusting the slogans.

Globalism was a slow process developing over decades. Trump tries to reset this within days/weeks. Just getting planning permission for a factory takes years, developing a single production line and building it until it produces the first widget several more (I know, I work in Industrial Automation). Even if one would see his policies as having an actual plan behind it, manufacturers cannot react within a time frame which makes relocating to the US feasible. They either go bankrupt or disengage from the American market, if the cost cannot be passed on to the American consumer.

Again, show us the source where Trump gets his crazy tariff numbers from. I think it does not exist, because it is just one more of his untruths.

I rather guess that nobody in their right mind will ever buy American weapons again, if they can be switched off unilaterally, while Trump hits the buyers on top of it with his tariffs like they are literally the enemy. This alone will cost the American economy hundreds of billions.

Is it true though, that Thailand has an average tariff of 90% or even just 72% on US goods? I call bullsh*t. Wherever Trump has the numbers from, I could not find a single statistic that comes even close to those numbers. So maybe it would be nice if one of his followers could enlighten us with such a source? This is what the Bangkok Post had to say: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2993202/us-tariffs-expected-to-dent-thai-gdp

Good luck then, that Thailand has the largest consumer market right at its doorstep, China. Maybe it does not need American consumers at all; there will be a time of pain though, sure, but in the long run it is the USA that will hurt the most if it detaches from the whole world as a market.