Cameroni

A very strange piece, as it does not even mention in passing Bessent's many accomplishment, but I guess one should expect that.

Some people have been hurt, none so more than Elon Musk and Trum himself, whose companies lost billions in value. More people will get hurt. It will be for the greater good however. These tariffs are not for fun, there is a plan behind this policy. It was formulated by Bessent & Co in a paper, which seeks to offer ways to devalue the dollar and yet keep the dollar as the reserve currency. America should not fall into the trap which the UK fell into, going to war against its main economic rival, Germany. Yes, the UK succeeded in preventing German hegemony in Europe, but at the price of losing the empire, losing the power to be what it once was. Now it lingers as a dystopian haven for Turkish chicken shops and Turkish barbers, worrying about whether foreigners will continue to finance its economy. The USA is not the UK obviously, America is vastly more powerful and vastly richer, however, its Chinese competition is no joke either. Things are different now though, the US and China can't really go to war now, due to nuclear mutual destruction. Nevertheless, if the US does nothing, it will be a lot worse off than if it succeeds in putting China in its place, ie second place.

Indeed Trump could have done better in his first term, for instance he let China evade tariffs by going through Canada and Mexico. However, he's learnt his lessons, that is no longer possible. However, Trump has selected exceptionally able people in his finance team, for instance Scott Bessent. He worked for George Soros and was part of the team that structured the trade that broke the Bank of England. He also lectured on economics at Yale. People like this are formulating Trump's trade strategy. It is way too early to judge this policy, but it looks like it will succeed. We don't need luck, we just need Trump to stay alive and keep doing what he's doing. Success will follow as sure night follows day.

No, you Presnock don't have the slightest idea what is happening. Trump inherited a US economy that was completely castrated of its manufacturing capacity, a stock market where shares were massively overvalued, indeed for 15 years the Fed had been printing money and making cheap loans available thereby creating the core causes of inflation. That's right, wihile Covid and Ukraine contributed, the underlying root cause of inflation was the Fed itself, printing money and making cheap loans available for many years, thereby causing rampant consumer spending. In addition of course Trump inherited one of the greatest national debts the world has ever seen, accumulated by repeated Democrat administrations of the past. Indeed Clinton caused the 2008 financial crisis by making home loans available to the poorest blacks who should never have got a mortgage and in the end could not afford repayments. So let's not pretend Trump inherited this wonderful economy, he inerited a cauldron of snakes, an economy saddled with a myriad of structural problems, which now fall on Trump to fix, one by one. And to his great credit he is doing that, and taking a long term view. To spout utter nonsense like "Trump wants to destroy the economy" does not help your case. Of course Trump is trying to fix the economy, and you can't remove tumors without causing some incisions and pain. However, the end result will be a revaitalised US manufacturing base, a devalued dollar making exports more competitive and a global trade system that treats America more fairly. Trump is making America, and indeed the world, a better place. He is the right man at the right time and if you compare his presidency to Biden's, Trump accomplished more in 30 days than Biden did in a lifetime. One shudders to think what would have happened if Kamala Harris were president, as you and your fellow Democrat apologists wanted.

You could try Icon IT mall as well.

Yes, there a number of sad little haters on Asean. They get a little kick by posting a sad emoji..."I showed him, muahahaha", it's pretty sad really.

This is fanastic news. "Vietnam just announced they’re going to facilitate a billion-dollar Trump resort " Another luxury resort for us to go to in Vietnam. Trump just keeps making the world better and better and better.

SMAI does amuse one, as SMIAI's ignorance is so staggering. So much stupidity in a few lines. Of course the key aspect of Bretton-Woods was not that it is a location in New Hampshire, but well done for googling that. SMAI has been on Google again. No, the key thing about Bretton-Woods was that it established a new financial order, replacing the previous one that was dominated by the UK. Obviously when I said that Trump aims for a new Breton Woods, I did not mean that the conference will be in New Hampshire, it will probably be at Mar a Lago, nor anything related to Gold. What I meant was that Trump is seeking to establish a new financial world order. In this new financial world order the Dollar will be devalued but will STILL be the world reserve currency. That is the aim. Quite a tricky one to pull off, but it could be done. The benefit will of course be that America's exports will become cheaper and more successful whilst the US retains the reserve currency priveleges. Bretton Woods's provisions held LONG AFTER the gold standard was abandoned by Nixon, as usual SMIAI's ignorance is embarassing and very obvious. Clearly Trump does not want to go back to the gold standard. Trump wants to devalue the dollar while still keeping the Dollar as the reserve currency. He probably also wants some things like VAT abolished. It's all in the paper by Bessent & Co, the former hedge fund manager who worked with Soros and lectured at Yale university on economics. You can see how Trump's policies are so good.

Thanks Mike, but some of the things you mention are not cards that Xi Jinping actually holds. For instance you talk about China holding US Treasury Bonds. However, China cannot sell them in large numbers as that would raise US interest rates and make the Yuan more expensive, which would impede Chinese exports which is not what China wants. You say China is not wholly reliant on exports to the US, there's the EU and Asean. However, the EU herself has slapped tariffs on Chinese products. So have Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil and many other countries. The reason is of course Chinese dumping, ie the Chinese flooding foreign markets with the results of their insane overproduction. In fact many Asean countries are now very afraid that a tsunami of cheap Chinese products will come their way since America closed its doors to Chinese products. So tariffs on Chiinese products from Asean countries look on the cards in the future. Vietnam has already said it will be willing to stop the practice of Chinese pass through exports to the US, as part of its negotiation offer to the US. Trump's tarffis have a beneficial effect for the US far and above money inflow, and they have a negative effect on China far and above the lost busines that would result in the US. China continues to be highly dependent on exports by the way. It is true that the Chinese leadership, for obvious reasons, has taken steps to reduce this dependence on exports, so it came down from 35% of GDP but even in 2023 the Chinese GDP still owed almost 20% of its GDP to exports. That is 3.4 trillion USD. So yes, if that were to fall away or significantly reduce it would be a major problem for China. Despite efforts to reduce this export dependency. The domestic market in China is very depressed at the moment, China is in deflation, part of the reason is China's wanton overproduction, for instance they have overproduced 1.4 billion housing units which are all unwanted and lie empty now. This has caused house values to fall in China, just as the Chinese middle class was startingj to buy houses, thereby lowering domestic demand. There is also the issue of Chinese women not having children and the graying of the Chinese population. As for the Belt and Road Initiative fostering international co-operation, it has also created major disputes with other nations. The Tanzanian president John Magufuli for instance said "the loan agreements of BRI projects in his country were "exploitative and awkward". He said Chinese financiers set "tough conditions that can only be accepted by mad people," because his government was asked to give them a guarantee of 33 years and an extensive lease of 99 years on a port construction. Magufuli said Chinese contractors wanted to take the land as their own, but his government had to compensate them for drilling the project construction. In fact BRI is largely a neo-colonialist project, a road that goes only one way, to benefit China. India for instance, a major opponent of China's BRI, has illustrated how China is using the "debt trap" to exploit African countries with BRI deals. Besides it is hard to see, how countries like Zambia, Romania or Bangladesh will be able to absorb significant amounts of China's insane overproduction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative Of course China will withstand the trade war, it will continue to exist, we have seen already how Russia was able to survive and grow even with crippling sanctions by the West. However, the question is how much would China have grown without the tariffs and trade war? There is no doubt at all that Trump is taking bread off of China's table and shaving many GDP points off China's economy.

It's not all illusory by a long shot. Some things WERE objectively better in the past. Air travel for instance, no micro-security checks, in the past air travellers were not treated like little children and had more freedom. The lack of overcrowding was better, much easier to get an appointment with a doctor, as some here have testified that's hard now. The British car industry was definitely doing better. A lot of things were better in the past. It's not all illusory.

Well, of course the industry sectors mentioned in the White House press release have dual significance, they would benefit denfense, but rebuilding a manufacturing base in autos, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, machine tools, basic and fabricated metals etc, would also benefit the peacetime economy, always assuming there are buyers of course. With these US tariffs there probably would be, as even China is scrambling to see what US products it can buy to keep the trade deficit down with the US. Many nations will do that just to escape tariffs in the future, so tariffs have effects over and above money infllow. I am a bit confused by this press announcement myself, since it mentions pharmaceuticals, but the US is already a world leader in pharma, with 6 of the top 10 pharma companies being American, including the very largest ones. But I guess the others are obvious candidates for improvement, autos in particular. The demise of Chrysler was heartbreaking to see. But then the same is happening in Japan, with Nissan now going to the wall, Sweden had it with Saab, and of course all of the UK's car companies went down or were bought by the Chinese too. No doubt there will be more pain in the auto industry thanks to the Chinese EVs. Yes, it's true that all European companies pay VAT too, but the US does not levy this tax on European companies, so you can see how Americans view it as unfair.complication of doing business in Europe.

Tightening the screws on Trump, lol, what screws? China doesn't have the cards. Of course they've anticipated a trade war, only a brain-amputated squirrel wouldn't have, after all they've had one already when Trump was in power. Trump is starting to panic, dream on. Trump wins either way, if China comes to negotiate he will win, and if China refuses then China will lose 400 billion USD in market share and willl lose several points off its GDP. Which is a major problem for China, as it already suffers from slowing domestic demand. And let's not forget its per capita purchasing power is only 13,000 USD, whereas the USD's is 89,000 USD, so the people of China are already considerably worse off than those in the West with much lower purchasing power, only 79th in the world. Factor in the real estate crisis, when China stupidly built condos for 1.4 bilion extra Chinese that nobody wants and which China now has to demolish to stop the rot in house prices. Add in the fact that Chinese women are refusing to have babies creating a demographic time bomb of epic proportions. Asian nations in SE Asia, and indeed elsewhere, are now terrified that China's overcapacity will mean a tsunami of Chinese cheap products will flood their markets. The EU, Turkey, Brazil have already put tariffs on China, more will follow no doubt. China will run out of bullets long before America does. They know they can't win this. They will negotiate.

How do you figure this? Falling domestic demand, women not having children creating a demographic time bomb, real estate sector crumbling, house prices falling, biggest market worth 400 billion USD taken away. How pray tell does Xi have the better hand, lol?

Lol, how is he wrong? He is executing a plan to reshape global trade, devalue the dollar and STILL keep it as a reserve currency. And in the process bringing competitor China to her knees, ie shaving points off their GDP, when they can least afford it. How is he doing anything wrong, pray tell? You're a just a biiased hater who can't see the big picture. America needed to rebuild manufacturing. Just as it needed to curb its bureaucracy. Everything Trump is doing is very good indeed. Inflation? You thiink you can pin that on Trump? Maybe look at the last 15 years. Not a chance. Insane policies? Reshaping global trade in America's favour is insane? Maybe if you're not mentally competent it can appear so. To the rest of us it is extremely sane. The stock market correctoin was just a correction, it wasn't even a crash technically. Besides the shares were overvalued, it had to come down. The bond market was spooked by the Germans announcing massive debt to rearm, nothing to do with Trump. It looks like indeed you don't understand what's going on and you're not a genius. That would explain why you're not in the White House and Donald J Trump is. And thank God for that.

Firstly the key industrial sectors, the ones necessary for war: "autos, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, transport equipment, technology products, machine tools, and basic and fabricated metals But also new emerging sectors necessary for war: "bio-manufacturing, batteries, and microelectronics to support defense needs" https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-national-emergency-to-increase-our-competitive-edge-protect-our-sovereignty-and-strengthen-our-national-and-economic-security/ Yes, the most attractive thing for now is Soybean feed for pigs and cows. A sad state US manufacturing is in. Trump has a point.

I wonder how they would rate your reporting. Lowest of the very very low. Lol.

At the moment indeed the US exports of aircraft, agricultural products and commodities do not figure uppermost in Trump's thinking. Trumps agenda is to rebuild America's manufacturing base from the bottom up, so the lower dollar should help those new manufacturing sectors that Trump hopes to revive. It is clear that he is not happy with the US merely making aircraft and weaponry for export. In a way Trump wants to chinafy the US. It does ignore the demand side a bit. Just as China is finding out that there is finite demand in the world markets for the avalanche of Chinese products, the demand for US products will be finite as well. The thing is many countries now WANT to buy American products just to avoid tariffs in the future. Even China. Their complaint is there' s nothing to buy right now. So in a way tariffs themselves will benefit US exports.

Yah, that sums it up. And given the USA's national debt, and the future lower demand for American debt, money printing by the Fed is certain to continue. So inflation will continue.

Exactly right, because many central banks followed the US lead in printing money and making cheap loans available. Japan didn't, and had much lower inflation. What a shock.

Yes, an excellent summary of the Chinese problems by this Indian professor. Of course if you're reflexively anti-Trump you have to make China into an innocent victim and powerhouse, but neither is the case. I really think this second trade war will see the US come out on top.

This Indian guy is not biased, he's telling it like it is: https://swarajyamag.com/economy/chinese-economy-a-fragile-giant-behind-the-roaring-dragon

Actually I'm very right about China's lower purchasing power per capita. In terms of per capita purchasing power, the US significantly outpaces China. In 2024, the US had a GDP per capita of $86,600, while China's was $13,445 (US dollars). This indicates a much higher standard of living and buying power for the average American compared to the average Chinese citizen. While China's economy is large in overall size, its per capita income remains lower, reflecting a difference in income distribution and economic development. Those Chinese peasants JD Vance mentioned. Due to the vast population of China, more than four times the US's population, the difference between these two countries is very high in terms of per capita income. The per capita income of the United States is 6.68 and 3.29 times higher than that of China in nominal and PPP terms, respectively. The US is the 6th richest country in the world, whereas China comes in at 73rd rank. On a PPP basis, the United States is in 9th position, and China is at 79th.. It's not even close. https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-china-economy.php

Firstly, the Chinese cannot sell their US Treasury Bonds, as that would raise interest rates in the US and make the Yuan more expensive, the opposite of what China wants. Secondly, China's "booming" is not as booming as the Chinese claim. They lie about GDP figures. The Chinese themselves admitted this long ago. In fact there is a slow down in domestic demand in China, rising unemployment, and crippling real estate crisis. The latter exacerbated by the fact that the Chinese have stupidly built housing for another 1.4 billion Chinese, which nobody wants. So now they have to demolish these empty condos, to stop the rot in house prices. China is also highly dependent on foreign investment. So they can't antagonise foreign companies too much, or this investment will dry up. China is a colossus with clay feet. To the extent it does overproduce, this overproduction is in itself a problem for China as we saw with the insane amount of empty housing. But also abroad many countries now fear being swamped with cheap Chinese prodcuts due to America's closed door for China. Plus, the demand for Chinese goods is limited, it is inot infinite. The world can only absorb so much Chnese low priced product. So, clearly it is China that is in a worse position. The US, whose per capital purchasing power is 87000 USD or thereabouts is still vastly greater than China's 15000 USD. From the outset the Chinese market is less attractive than the American one.

Exactly right. Neither Trump, nor Biden actually, were to blame for inflation. Whilst Covid and Ukraine did have an effect, they too are not the root cause of inflation. The root cause of inflation has been the Fed printing money and the banks making credit easily available, leading to exacerbated consumer spending. This, alas, is the unexciting real cause of inflation. Printing and spending. https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/inflation-moving-target/ As long as the Fed will continue to print and consumers will continue to consume, inflation will continue.

Devaluing the dollar is what Trump WANTS. To help US companies increase its exports. Looks like you're not clear on what's happening.