I love it when a plan falls apart. “The T-Team.” Someone is obviously trying to wake these ideologues up. First he capitulated on tariffs. Then he declared that the farmers and hotels actually need immigrants to help make reality function. Now he will impose tariffs of 145% on Chinese goods, but only on some.
It’s an epic mess of their own making and could in fact undo their despicable plan to turn America into a fascist theocracy. This time it was supposed to be different, more organized, not just shooting from the hip. Project 2025 and Steve Bannon had years to prepare and get their ducks in a row. One fatal mistake and all of a sudden everything looks a little bit less certain.
Trump did the same with Iran. He destroyed a relatively good agreement and is now scrambling to make a new one. What’s the other option, go to war with Iran? Even people like Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk think it’s a terrible idea. Trump ran on a anti-war peacemaker platform. If he isn’t careful the very diverse Maga coalition might just come crumbling down sooner than expected.
People are tired of being bullied and treated like shit. America can and should expect resistance, both externally and internally. Large parts of the world don’t respect America. Fear is not the way to get people to cooperate. They should seriously stop reading the Old Testament, it messes with their minds. The whole God the Father thing is so yesterday.
UPDATE – 13/4: Well, well, well.
In a US customs messaging note quietly slipped out in the early hours of Saturday, a series of numbers were listed as exempt from the 125% tariff on goods entering the country from China. The code “8517.13.00.00” means very little to most of the world, but in the US customs list it represents smartphones.
The inclusion meant the number one Chinese export to America by value last year was exempted from the import taxes, alongside other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards. In the context of the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just days ago announcing that part of the point of escalating tariffs on China was to bring back iPhone production to the US, this was a stunning about-turn.
The US has now excluded the single biggest Chinese export, and certainly the most high-profile finished good from tariffs, without publicly announcing it at first.
‘Art of the Repeal’ – This is all moving rather quickly now. Weekend reports in the US press claim White House trade hawk Pete Navarro is being sidelined too, in favour of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Navarro was the author of the infamous equation that set so-called reciprocal tariff rates in proportion to the size of a country’s trade surplus with the US, calling it “the sum of all cheating”. Bessent is now leading negotiations with trade partners seeking to avoid the reapplication of those rates after the 90-day pause.
There is a big question after 10 days of chaos. What is the incentive for other nations to offer much here? The Trump administration is clearly spooked by the bond market reaction to the president’s trade plans, and questions surrounding the safe haven status of US debt for investors. In trying to stave off effective interest rates on bonds rising to 5%, the US needs deals more than just those in surplus countries.
Indeed this weekend’s broad range of exemptions are in and of themselves an astonishing U-turn on the principle embodied in the notorious tariff chart held up by Trump in the Rose Garden. Just under a quarter of China’s total exports are now exempt from the 125% tariff, according to Capital Economics.
The consultancy suggests there are other big winners from the exemptions, with 64% of exports to the US from Taiwan, 44% from Malaysia, and just under 30% from both Vietnam and Thailand now also exempt. The 10% universal tariff is now riddled with exemptions, and the biggest carve outs are for many nations with massive trade surpluses from electronics manufacturing.
The White House has gone from clearly suggesting there would be no negotiation on the baseline 10% tariffs to offering exemptions to the very products causing the deficit the entire policy was supposed to solve.
This is a lot more than a “row back”. Some have called it the “Art of the Repeal”. The 4D chess has been replaced by someone playing one dimensional checkers, but unable to tell the difference between opposing pieces.
The US is now negotiating with the bond markets, and itself. The rest of the world will just see how this plays out now. – Faisal Islam Economics editor•@faisalislam BBC
Apr 12, 2025 7:57:09 pm
