Canada, Greenland, Mexico, etc - USA Tariffs / Trade War commencing March 2025 #4

[TootsieFootsie]

Sorry for that mistake

No biggie

 

[SusanDonim]

Some years ago I worked with import and export statistics.

You could spot the obvious reporting errors in trade datasets easily, such as exports of unlikely goods from uninhabited islands.

Often as simple as a dropdown menu item that was clicked incorrectly, then not picked up during data cleansing...

 

[Centaurus]

"According to research from Clarify Capital, 34% of Americans have stopped purchasing eggs as prices for the breakfast staple are becoming less affordable.

The study found that nearly 95% of Americans have noticed the significant rise in egg prices, with shoppers reporting their perceived average as $7 a dozen.

..... it seems that a large portion of Americans believe that the government, Democratic or Republican, is culpable for egg prices.

The US has turned to other countries .... in hopes of collecting more eggs, but has seen little success so far."

About a third of Americans stop buying eggs due to rising costs, study shows

Data says 34% of those in US stopped purchasing breakfast staple and won’t buy again until costs lower to $5 a carton

www.theguardian.com

I'm one of those people that stopped purchasing eggs. At almost $9 a dozen where I live, I switched to tofu scramble. I'll only buy eggs if I need them for baking, which isn't often anymore, and even then there are actually good substitutes for eggs.

Also, in preparation for tariffs, my company purchased and stockpiled as many supplies we could fit in our warehouse from China. And like every company, if prices increase, those increases will unfortunately be passed on to the customer. My daughter works at a major coffee chain, she's already hearing about the increase to import coffee beans...

It's pretty wild because the people I know that voted for Trump genuinely thought grocery prices were going down the 1st day he took office. LMAOOOO

 

[IzzyBlanche]

ANNNNDD the Dow continues its freefall.

 

[detective.moon]

China imposes a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products starting April 10​

MSN

if these tariffs were meant to just be a negotion tactic (with every country offering trump anything they can to avoid the tariffs)… it’s not working with china

 

[iamshadow21]

China imposes a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products starting April 10​

MSN

if these tariffs were meant to just be a negotion tactic (with every country offering trump anything they can to avoid the tariffs)… it’s not working with china

Meanwhile, Trump is celebrating.

Trump says China 'panicked' by slapping 34 per cent tariffs on US

The move to increase levies on US goods comes after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on countries including China.

www.abc.net.au

"China played it wrong, they panicked — the one thing they cannot afford to do!" he posted in capital letters.

In case anyone wondered if he was watching the Stock Market crash and second guessing. He's triumphant. I hope that's a comfort to everyone who's going to lose their shirts today and in the future.

MOO

 

[otto]

Was wondering how much input elon had in this, if any. Seems like something he would want to be involved with.

Moo

Chatbots ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok all agree on the calculation of "reciprocal tariffs" that was released by the USA government on April 2. The USA gov't may have used Musk's newly acquired Grok for the job.

I doubt that Trump, Musk, or their gang of fist-pumping bomb-dropping thugs have the arithmetic skills to calculate differences between tariffs, deficits, subsidies, trade barriers, import elasticities, tariff pass-through rates, bilateral trade deficits, and value-added tax. They lack skills and are lazy.

The USA gov't arrogantly presumes that the USA population is well-saturated with propaganda, and will do little more than blink at their reciprocal tariff. When the world reacts, it is assumed they suffer from "exploding heads" and "Trump Derangement Syndrome".

I believe that Chatbots were used to develop reciprocal tariffs numbers, which leads me to believe that many of Trump's orders or acts are similarly inspired by Chatbots. Calculations about Greenland's wealth, how to block Arctic shipping channels and global trade, which social infrastructure programs should be deleted, whether nuclear safety employees should be fired (they were), which environmental surveillance services are useless (hurricane monitoring) and so on. It's all so reckless that it lacks human logic.

 

[Kudzuu]

Until I see otherwise, I am convinced that tariffs on penguins could only be the result of faulty Artificial Intelligence software. I think Trump's tariff list was generated by software and without human review.

Unfortunately I agree. We are guinea pigs for Elon's next billion dollar business. Makes me sick.

 

[otto]

• China’s finance ministry on Friday said it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10.
• The ministry criticized Washington’s decision to impose 34% of additional reciprocal levies on China — bringing total U.S. tariffs against the country to 54% — as “inconsistent with international trade rules.”
• U.S. stock futures and European markets fell sharply on news of the reciprocal tariffs.

https://x.com/JakeSherman

China with 34% tariff on U.S. goods.
"Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was adding 11 American companies to its list of “unreliable entities,” essentially barring them from doing business in China or with Chinese companies. And the ministry imposed stringent limits on exports of certain rare earth elements that are mined almost exclusively in China and are used in everything from electric cars to smart bombs."https://nytimes.com/2025/04/04/bus

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/china-to-impose-34percent-retaliatory-tariff-on-all-goods-imported-from-the-us.html

Good to see that China is hitting the USA where it hurts. China has the largest supply of rare earth elements. Cutting off the supply to the USA means the USA will turn to criminal thievery to get what they want for future economic superiority, focusing more on Canada, Greenland and Ukraine.

 

[otto]

This, unfortunately, may not bode well for Ukraine or Greenland, in terms of what the US is trying to get from them. Meaning in the way in which they are trying to get these things, not if they were profitable agreements for Ukraine and Greenland.

imo

Greenland possesses deposits of rare earth elements, which are prized for their role in energy transition technologies but accessible in only a few locations worldwide. Link

Ukraine has significant deposits of rare earth metals. These are a group of 17 elements that are used to produce weapons, wind turbines, electronics and other products vital in the modern world. Link

Exactly. Cutting off the largest rare earth elements from the USA will make the USA more desperate, more willing to take unreasonable risks to steal what they want.

 

[iamshadow21]

Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street

Economists say levies of between 10% and 50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn

www.theguardian.com

Trump later said: “Every country is calling us. That’s the beauty of what we do. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favour they would have said no. Now they will do anything for us.”

Everything really does look a nail when you're a hammer.

MOO

 

[otto]

If people figure out that prices are going to go up, I wouldn't be surprised if there might be a rush on supermarket, grocery stores for a start. Then non food items.
Trying to get what's left of products at the old price.

The thing is though, I think his followers truly believe that Trump will make prices go down.

They do believe that this is short-term pain, and soon they will have so much money they won't know how to spend it (to quote Trump).

They have forgotten that, during covid, when prices went up due to supply shortages, those prices never went down. They remain at the higher price today. Another price hike during the USA global trade war means higher prices that will result in a permanent higher cost of living.

 

[otto]

Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street

Economists say levies of between 10% and 50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn

www.theguardian.com

Trump later said: “Every country is calling us. That’s the beauty of what we do. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favour they would have said no. Now they will do anything for us.”

Everything really does look a nail when you're a hammer.

MOO

Trump attacks every country for no logical reason, and then those countries try to talk to him about it. Trump sees this as countries asking for favours. What a crazy way of thinking.

 

[Lyanna]

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-tariffs-news-04-04-25/index.html

Donalds got his priorities right I see. Economy is taking a battering and he rolls of to Mar A Lago for some rounds of golf. Ffs.

Moo

 

[iamshadow21]

Trump attacks every country for no logical reason, and then those countries try to talk to him about it. Trump sees this as countries asking for favours. What a crazy way of thinking.

People who've dealt with him have basically said there's no point trying to talk him round or negotiate with him. And these aren't randoms, they're former heads of state.

MOO

 

[otto]

This is so dumb it's mind blowing. The USA has the third largest population in the world. Therefore the USA needs a lot of stuff from other countries. Because the USA needs so much stuff from other countries, Trump says the USA is cheated. Trump wants countries like Canada, with 40 million people to import enough stuff for 340 million people from the USA. Then he believes all is fair. Lunacy!

When the USA was caught using monkey-logic for arithmetic, they lied and used Greek symbols in an equation to bamboozle, but they were caught lying again.

"The White House's own fact sheet about the calculations reveals that the administration's new tariffs are based entirely on eliminating trade deficits — which is not what Trump's chart claimed to be measuring.

The tariffs were calculated using a formula that takes how much a given country sells to the U.S. (exports), subtracts how much that country buys from the U.S. (imports) to calculate the trade deficit, and then divides the trade deficit by that country's exports to the U.S. ... "If you look at the formula, it's literally one variable divided by another variable, times 0.5. You could write this on the back of a cracker"

"What they're basically saying is ... what we are going to do is assume that if you are selling a lot more to the U.S. than you are buying from the U.S., you must be doing something unfair," he said."
...

Calling these "reciprocal" tariffs just isn't accurate, Grozoubinski said, as they're not connected to any tariffs placed by other countries.
...

"The best analogy I've managed to come up with for all of this is like if you got to the pearly gates of heaven and St. Peter said, 'I am going to evaluate whether you've lived a righteous enough life to get in here.' And then all he actually did was divided your speeding fines by your parking fines to arrive at a percentage of righteousness."
...

After he explained that the "fake tariff rates" were just trade deficits divided by exports, White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai replied with a denial.

"No we literally calculated tariff and non tariff barriers," he wrote, sharing a complicated-looking mathematical formula. But once the Greek symbols were stripped away, it outlined the same thing Surowiecki had described.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-fake-tariff-rates-1.7501604

 

[iamshadow21]

US-Australia beef: what you need to know about tariffs and the meat trade war

Donald Trump has singled out Australia for not importing American beef. But do we even need it and what will US tariffs mean for our producers?

www.theguardian.com

What's the beef about beef? Or, everything you wanted to know about trade in beef from Australia to the US - and why it doesn't flow the other direction - but didn't know to ask. (It's actually pretty interesting.)

MOO

 

[otto]

People who've dealt with him have basically said there's no point trying to talk him round or negotiate with him. And these aren't randoms, they're former heads of state.

MOO

Trump used unrelated number to make false statements about tariffs. Then he argued with people who see through his nonsense. He went so far as to dishonestly use a formula with Greek symbols that he doesn't understand to really confuse people. Still, no one is confused, so he goes golfing.

No point in having a conversation with someone like that.

All those people who voted for him must be easily confused by arithmetic formulas that use symbols rather than numbers.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

Rut-roh, Trump is losing Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz speaks out against Donald Trump's tariffs: "tax ...

The Texas Senator said he is "not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers" and hopes the tariffs are "short-lived."

www.newsweek.com

 

[otto]

US-Australia beef: what you need to know about tariffs and the meat trade war

Donald Trump has singled out Australia for not importing American beef. But do we even need it and what will US tariffs mean for our producers?

www.theguardian.com

What's the beef about beef? Or, everything you wanted to know about trade in beef from Australia to the US - and why it doesn't flow the other direction - but didn't know to ask. (It's actually pretty interesting.)

MOO

It's just like Canadian dairy products. Canada doesn't need USA dairy products, and that makes the USA angry. Australia doesn't need USA beef.

USA dairy is low quality and contains artificial hormones to increase milk production. USA cattle cannot be certified as born in the USA.

If the USA improved animal health and food quality, they wouldn't have a problem. As long as the USA puts profit above food health, they are out of step with much of the developed world, and no one wants their animal products.

The USA gov't wants to force other countries to accept low standard and low quality food, and the world does not want it.