Donald Trump

[pipbarber]

I think comprehensive trade deal negotiations are traditionally measured in years to complete. Add to that the incompetence and inexperience of Maga people, and a drastically depleted legal department and no trade deal will ever really get done.

On the other hand, Trump is so desperate to announce a deal he might be taken advantage of by a canny trade delegation - something to look out for i suspect.

[stevebrooks]

I think comprehensive trade deal negotiations are traditionally measured in years to complete. Add to that the incompetence and inexperience of Maga people, and a drastically depleted legal department and no trade deal will ever really get done.

On the other hand, Trump is so desperate to announce a deal he might be taken advantage of by a canny trade delegation - something to look out for i suspect.

Consider this:

The negotiation process for the USMCA took several years, with key events like the signing of the agreement in 2019 and the ratification process culminating in its implementation on July 1, 2020.

The USMCA was essentially a copy of NAFTA, which itself took 2 years to negotiate, Trump essentially tore them up in a single day, and then expects to get replacements for an entire planets worth of trade agreements. They had existing free trade agreements with 20 countries, and Trump wants to negotiate agreements with the remaining 175 countries he has implemented tariffs against, their boast was "90 agreements in 90 days," the sheer inertia required to move governments into trade agreements is enormous, they have no idea, it's all Trump, "it'll be easy, I'll end the war in 24 hours" and the old, " “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” after the fact. If they get a dozen trade agreements in place in 4 years I would be surprised, but of course they don't have 4 years, so what will happen is they will pretend and remove the tariffs eventually and MAGA will believe them, or they won't remove the tariffs and the rest of the country will remove them.

The USMCA was probably one of the easiest agreements to negotiate seeing as they all shared borders and were already trading a lot of goods, Korea, well I mentioned earlier that's a no brainer, just go back to the old agreement, the problem is there is no existing agreement between the US and most of the world, so that's all start from nothing territory, there's no way that could happen in less than decades.

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ign-movies

The most idiotic of decisions so far. Firstly, how the fuck is it going to be implemented? You double the prices for foreign films at the cinema? How do streaming services deal with this, i wonder. Hilarious. But lets not forget, America produces the most movies. It's actually a component US soft power, a type of cultural propaganda, good and bad. So....every other country decides they might whack a 100% tariff on US movies? How many foreign made movies are consumed in the US compared to US movies consumed in the rest of the world? So who exactly is this going to hurt?

Put simply, from my limited understanding, Hollywood is a massively important export that Trump is willing to compromise because people make movies in countries that aren't the US? Although hardly anyone goes and sees them, compared to the Hollywood offerings, but it's the principle? Only America can make movies? WTF? This is beyond stoopid.

[stevebrooks]

Signal Gate 3, and more. Apparently Hesgeth has been using a signal "like" app called Tele-message to communicate with members of the armed forces, this signal "like" app has been hacked and it's likely that all defence force communication on that app is now in hostile hands! This is on top of using the actual Signal app in dozens of communications with defence force officials!

In one case he instructed aides to inform foreign nations about impending military actions.

That this man is still in charge beggars belief, it won't change until US soldiers are killed because of leaks by this moron, will it even end then?

[stevebrooks]

Get ready for the death wagons!

https://imgur.com/gallery/take-care-of- ... wn-doj7I8d

[stylofone]

RFK covering up health data reminds me of the Spanish flu. It wasn't Spanish at all, it's just that Spain was the first country where its existence was reported because all the other countries had wartime censorship in place. I recall reading that it might have been named American flu if all the information was out in the open.

Meanwhile, Trump is still in fantasy land. My knowledge of economics isn't strong enough to be certain, but it looks to me like the US economy will be in tatters within a few months. I particularly like Trump's metaphor that the US is a department store, except that it's actually the opposite. In the trade talks and in imposing tariffs he's actually a customer and all the other countries are the department store. It's also hilarious to hear him promote anti-consumerist ideas, with pencils and dolls being his examples. Such a stable genius!

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-amer ... 5lx4k.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 460867007/

[stevebrooks]

Yes he really said that!

https://imgur.com/gallery/when-does-bec ... ds-2z9DJTm

Literally a childs answer!

[stevebrooks]

First trade deal made with the UK;

But to the dismay of the UK – and no doubt Australia – the US’ so called “baseline” tariffs of 10 per cent will remain on most products.

Let's be clear, before Trump imposed his Tariff on the UK, the US actually had a trading surplus with the UK, not a deficit, so there was no reason to start with to place a tariff. Also in general the UK tariff on other trading partners was an average of 1%.

US products such as beef and ethanol will have more access to the UK market.

Beef? That's madness, the reason beef doesn't have access to both UK and AU markets if because of mad cow disease, the US imports beef from South American countries that have had incidences, so this now places the UK on that same list because no-one can guarantee the beef is free from mad cow disease, that's the stupidest thing I have seen.

Taxes on up to 100,000 British cars exported annually to the US will be reduced from 27.5 per cent to 10 per cent.

Before the Trump tariffs the rate was 2.5%, and this only applies to a max of 100,000 cars, any more than that will still be subject to a tariff at 27.5%.

They have basically got nothing except a concession on steel and aircraft engines;

The agreement, which has yet to be fully worked out, will reduce tariffs on British steel and aluminium exports to the US to zero. Aircraft engines and parts will also see no tariffs. One of the world's biggest aeroplane engine makers is the UK’s Rolls-Royce.

But lets be clear, the reason they got these concessions wasn't because the UK is a great negotiator, it's because the US is in desperate need for these things, Boeing is in deep shit, they desperately need aluminum, the costs per plane for the tariffs were pushing end prices up by around 40m per plane, that's ludicrous money, and obviously they need jet engines lol! Boeing said at those prices no-one would buy the planes. Keep in mind the UK is a tiny shipper of steel and aluminium to the US, the UK is not a natural resource shipper in any regard. Basically the "deal" they have now puts them in a far worse situation than they had before the Trump tariffs and they would have been better off hanging off making a deal and letting the US suffer, in the end they would have been better off.

Now the other thing to keep in mind this isn't a trade deal, only congress can pass those, this is basically a memorandum of understanding. Trump has just played with tariff numbers, it's not a negotiation or deal of any sort, any settled deal could still take months to pass, it's just sticking the knife into the UK, the US has got concessions and the UK has got basically nothing in return. The 10% base tariff still applies to most good shipped from the UK to the US! It's ludicrous and I don't see how anyone in the UK could possibly be happy with those terms!

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy ... f928450d23

[stevebrooks]

This wraps it up:

"We started at 10% and we ended at 10%" Nothing has actually changed except for a few minor details:

[stevebrooks]

Been a lot happening today, maybe the most shocking is the new DC Attorney, ok hold on to your hats guys, you aren't going to believe this.

https://imgur.com/gallery/of-course-UiHO2H5

Yes it's that insane woman from the Fox news panel, the one that seems to know nothing about the legal system in the US actually works.