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Brits are not expecting the government to handle the tariffs well – politicalbetting.com
Brits are not expecting the government to handle the tariffs well – politicalbetting.com
With Donald Trump announcing his latest round of tariffs, Britons tend to think the UK government is badly handling their response to the issueWell: 22%Badly: 44%yougov.co.uk/topics/inter…
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Did they not listen to his campaign, or even his talk in advance of "Liberation Day"?
The idea that they are smart rather than panicking sheep is surely dispelled now.
Good to see the Ferris Buellar clip up @TSE 🤣
https://x.com/john_stepek/status/1907673382809694617?s=61
It's a Special Economic Operation.
I expect some interesting asymmetrical warfare. The EU has been quite creative in previous tariff wars. It may well respond with some cunning regulatory measures on US tech and services, alongside the agricultural retaliation. That will be fun.
China will be looking to seize the initiative with its hard hit SE Asian neighbours, especially Vietnam.
Russia wasn’t mentioned.
The perception problem for the government is that that the damage avoided is unquantifiable, while the damage still inflicted is visible. As are the costly concessions to achieve a relatively less damaging outcome.
"So, last night I was struggling to understand Trump's chart. I had assumed that he had arbitrarily assessed non tariff barriers to come up with his figures. It appears that he might have done that by evidencing the existence of NTBs by the existence of a deficit on the part of the US with that country.
So the theory of Trump is that relatively poor countries, like Vietnam, can only export their wares to the US if they buy sufficient goods (and possibly services, who knows) from the US to have a balanced trade.
Countries which do have broadly balanced trade with the US, like the UK get a 10% tariff anyway, just because.
Is there any of this that makes any sense at all? Well, the US (and the UK) has been running a trade deficit for a very long time. It has acted as consumer of last resort to the world and enormously assisted both the growth of China and East Asia by doing so. This has not been an act of gratuitous generosity but a source of cheap goods for the US (and UK) consumer as well as a major source of excess profits for large American companies that have transplanted production to these countries.
The way he has responded to this is batshit but I do think that a case can be made that (a) the US (and UK) trade deficits are simply not sustainable indefinitely. Trump mentioned last night that the consequence was that a majority of US assets are now foreign owned (this is bullshit but the accumulated foreign acquisition of capital assets is a problem here as well as in the US). (b) the longer term consequences of letting other people make all your stuff for you is not some Ricardian nirvana but unemployment and, eventually, poverty for the consumers.
I suppose the next question is will his policy work? Some of this is "already happening" as he put it. This is not a consequence of his tariffs but policies such as Biden's CHIPS Act which created strong NTBs in favour of US manufacture. If the US goes back into large scale manufacturing it will have addressed one problem and created jobs for American workers. The question is whether this will offset the economic chaos that disruption to flows of trade this will cause. My money would be on not but we shall see."
The big problem, as usual, is that we are in a very bad place to sustain such knocks, just as with Covid and Ukraine.
That isn't to say that if you have something American now that you throw it in the bin. It means that when making choices about what to buy, you choose the one that isn't American.
We mentioned last night that its hard to avoid American in some sectors. All banking cards are American networks. All streaming platforms are American. Fine. No immediate choice. But other stuff?
A simple starter for 10. Buy Scotch Whisky instead of American Bourbon.
I guess the question is- how bad would the market response have to be to get a U-turn? (See the first attempts on Mexico and Canada.)
UK public seem realistic, no country is going to be able to handle this well, survival will be a good outcome. It can't be long before he lashes out at Canada again because Carney is popular.
If my time on pb.com has taught me anything, other than that urban planning is the most tedious subject on Earth, it's that nobody ever makes accurate economic predictions. In fact the verity of the prediction seems to correlate inversely with the confidence and clarity with which it is delivered.
Simply watching this much stupid is exhausting
What I will say is that, from my perspective, it looks unfriendly. The USA will lose a massive amount of goodwill, and a large number of friends, over this.
And soon enough, the USA will need friends, in one way or another.
She would have made a lot more sense than their guy on Newsnight last night.
But as someone who does economic forecasting for a living, I largely agree with you.
Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much. Markets continue to move after my previous tweet. The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now is closer to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.
https://x.com/LHSummers/status/1907607829231317473
https://x.com/nolietees/status/1907042306567418341
Build a scheme that delivers economic growth. You have the benefit during construction of all those jobs, all those salaries, all those materials bought. Cash circulates. And at the end of it you transform the ability of people to live and work, which turbocharges the economy and creates more jobs and more sales and more tax receipts.
It used to be called capitalism. Why did the Tories scrap it and replace it with Oligarchism? Oh yeah, they are owned by the Oligarchs. Especially the Russian ones...
National pride means that nations like China are absolutely certain to retaliate. Bilateral trade between RoW and the US is going to take a major hit; and the efforts to reroute exports will have some very big knock on effects as goods are effectively dumped in alternate markets.
The uncertainty and disruption alone are very likely to crater business investment across the globe, without government interventions.
Hard to predict how deep a recession this might trigger, since the world economy has rather more flexibility, and policy makers are aware of a broader array of responses, than was the case a century back when nonsense on this scale was last attempted.
His Tory successors are more to blame for neglecting the opportunity to invest, but it was a toxic combination.
It's also a good day at the office for Brexit.
If you borrow an extra 5% of GDP to invest in infrastructure, that might increase government borrowing costs by 0.5% on its total debt pile (in the long-run as debt is refinanced).
So over a 10-year time horizon all of that money borrowed to invest has resulted in a similar additional spend on debt interest. Which has no positive economic impact (quite the opposite, its impact is similar to monetary policy tightening).
Even Germany saw this effect from its big increase in spending - and that was starting from debt only ~60% of GDP.
There is no magic money tree left. We are still borrowing a lot as things stand.
Vietnam. Reinvented as a manufacturing company making the things that Americans want at prices Americans can afford. Its no wonder that Vietnam has a large trade deficit - its the offshore Nike factory, and its workers couldn't afford to buy an F150 even if they wanted one which they don't.
America demands the removal of these "tariffs". Being the trade deficit. That is simple - stop selling to America to equalise the balance of trade. Bad news if you are Americans wanting Nikes. Good news for the rest of the world who can expect to get them cheaper.
This is my point about America's trade war and notAmerica free trade. Sandpit - loyal to TrumPutin to the last - demanded to know how this "free trade" would work. Simple. They sell, we buy. Vietnam's economy in the short term needs to make Nikes and other commodities we want to buy. So we buy them. If America doesn't want to buy them, that's their concern.
Quislings suggest we negotiate. How does Vietnam negotiate? How does it cut its "tariff" - which means buying things it can't afford and consumers there don't want - in a way which is viable? It simply can't. And even if someone does seek a deal with the mob, all that happens is the mob change the deal.
Here it is. The best response is to match the US and then organise global affairs without them. Leave Gilead alone to deport and enslave its citizens. They voted for it, we don't have to provide succour.
The issue then becomes what in practical terms we can actually do quickly, which admittedly might not be much in some cases.
Brexit cost the UK economy 10 times as much as 'only having 10% tariffs instead of 20%' saves
If the price of stuff goes up because of the wider economic disruption and the government will take the blame. I guess there's a chance that the UK market is flooded with cheap goods from Asia as demand from the US drops, but the government won't get the credit for that given the lopsided way public opinion is formed.
But talking of backdoors...
5. This is the problem because, under the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland must follow EU trade remedies, including any retaliatory measures, on imports from non-EU countries (like US).
So if the EU slaps a 25% tariff on US whiskey, that applies in NI imports – even if the UK has a lower tariff.
https://bsky.app/profile/antonspisak.bsky.social/post/3lluhdq4ied22
Trump imposed 17% on them
You can't deal with a madman
51-48: The Senate passes a resolution to block Trump's tariffs on Canada.
4 Republicans joined Democrats in voting yes:
• Susan Collins
• Mitch McConnell
• Lisa Murkowski
• Rand Paul
The measure is not expected to get a vote in the House.
https://x.com/therecount/status/1907581321666343279
The greater of
- 10%
and
- 50% * (US trade deficit in goods to country/ total goods imported by the US from said country)
Starmer's sucking up to Trump had no impact. It just so happens we don't have a trade surplus in goods with the US.
https://on.ft.com/4iVuZts
Unlike 99% of the rest of GOP.
Nor it seems do the BBC.
Here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czd35l8995eo
they give three possible effects - on prices, on jobs, on interest rates.
No mention of how it might affect pension funds - with so many people having DC pensions this affects them far more than the endless babbling about £5 on car tax.
What if Trump's tariffs work? From a US POV I mean. He'll be given a third term and a landslide.
America is the mob. You can't negotiate with the mob. Even if you agree a deal to pay off the mob they will just change the deal. Thats what the mob does. As witnessed by the endless changes declared by the Don in the last few months alone.
Starmer appears fixated on maintaining a status quo that isn't the status quo any more. America isn't reasonable, can't be reasoned with, has applied batshittery to "maths" to come up with these figures. Inside America voters are being told how clever the tariffs are, outside America the bemusement and open laughter is rising.
America is North Korea. Starmer rightly says no appeasing Putin. But wants to appease Trump. Who is Putin.
Nobody will build the factories he imagines in the US because you can't trust the administration not to change direction on a whim (nor the rule of law)
It's a consequence free way for Susan Collins to display "concern".
(I except Rand Paul, because it's a matter of principle, coinciding with his usually lunatic beliefs.)
https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1907601832257663464
Instead the borrowed money has gone on foreign holidays and higher house prices.
Spend the money on things which drive the economy and there is clear positive economic impact.
Worse is that in classic post-Thatcher style you assume that not spending means the impact is zero. "If we don't spend x on y, we don't spend". Wrong. Not investing costs money when your economy and infrastructure is crumbling and broken.
Fox News and his base declare it genius, and the 10% of waverers grumble but then say they don't like Bernie or AOC and go back to voting GOP.
Still waiting for those 5 million unemployed by the way.
TLDR: the dramatic loss of customers for US arms means massively more expensive US defence costs at a time when even long time allies are beginning to view Washington as a hostile power. It will cause damage across the US economy. (This is before the impact of tariffs).
So, three months of the new US unilateralism has already had very far reaching effects way beyond the immediate and strongly negative impact of the tariff war.
Regardless of what happens concerning tariffs, the non-tariff impact of Trump is likely to be worse and effectively permanent. In the short run the consumer boycott and the cancellation of military orders will cause immediate pain. Even worse for the US is that the longer term will embed these changes in demand into the entire global trading system. "The Exorbitant Privilege" of USD as a reserve currency can not hold under such pressure.
If the rest of the world starts to work more closely together to counter the US walled garden, then there are huge benefits. This is not to minimise the issues in China, but China remains an economy that we need to do business with.
The big problem is still Russia, however Putin is 72. (BTW Xi is 71 and so is Erdogan. Netanyahu is 75).
The world we knew of the Pax Americana is over. A new system will emerge, and possibly one that is more a concert of powers than a hegemonic diktat. Asks a lot of questions of democracies, and we need to start finding answers.
However the senile delinquents will not be in power for ever, whatever they may think right now.
So it's a good day at the office for our sub-optimal goods exports....
Trump is just a greedy grasping grifter.
He uses these as short term measures to negotiate a trade deal and they are removed quickly.
He is using these to engineer a recession to drive down inflation and reduce the cost of debt refinancing.
High stakes all the same.
Paul: When McKinley, most famously put tariffs on in 1890 ,they lost 50% of their seats… In the early 1930s, we lost the house and senate for 60 years. So not only bad economically, they are bad politically.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1907572340596305920
If it does work (which is 99.9% unlikely) it will be a triumph for luck over judgement. Watching Gorka explain that the 10% import tariff was in retribution for 20% VAT on US goods imported to the UK was mind blowing.
Gorka didn't understand the principle of a universal purchase tax introduced by Ted Heath, and he grew up here!
I think the reality is the economy will absolutely tank and Trump will just lie about it and refuse to accept reality and the GOP will clap like seals. I wouldn't be surprised if he closes all the stats agencies that do stuff like consumer price index or just installs liars into them.
https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/1907634071175377149?s=61
There are, in the detail, a few exemptions.
This makes everything more expensive.
I touched on Vietnam. Mega tariff on Nikes makes the Nikes more expensive. Or Nike could invest (as MAGA won't let the government do it) to build factories and train workers and create supply chains to make Nikes in Murica. Which makes Nikes more expensive.
Any way you cut this, Americans will be paying more. In many cases, a lot more.
This only works for him if the propaganda ministry persuades Muricans that paying more is patriotic because The Whole World hates them. Or the simpler option which is simply pass an EO removing the need for further meaningful elections in this time of National Emergency.
Economists and think tankers have assessed overnight that the tariff calculations are really trade deficit calculations: based not on the tax charged on imports, but the volume of trade between two nations. If the United States is importing more from another country – and so has a ‘trade deficit’ with that country – the billions of dollars that deficit amounts to seems to better reflect the tariff listed next to the country’s name than the taxes on trade they actually collect.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/do-trumps-tariff-calculations-add-up/
While we might justifiably be concerned about the overall current account deficit or surplus, as @DavidL often reminds us, it is a marker of pure economic ignorance to conflate that with bilateral imbalances of trade and imagine that any coherent trade policy can be based on that. Trump resorts to the basest "ripping us off" invective as if Americans' purchasing decisions were not free choices.
https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/1907551597367804388?s=61
P.s. I shared the exact same smoot hawley scene from Ferris on fb yesterday.
The problem he has (maybe) is that US consumers don't care about Global macroeconomics, but absolutely care about the cost of living, which is about to spike harder than they have ever seen
-We may have a 10% Brexit 'dividend' but the cost of that dividend is the significant lost output since Brexit and trade dislocation with the EU, which the somewhat more generous US treatment does not even nearly compensate for.
@mrjamesob.bsky.social
You can explain it to them but you can’t understand it for them.
However, there is a real opportunity for an exciting and new arrangement with countries across the globe coming together in a new and wider security and trading association
The question to be asked is are today's politicians and leaders capable of delivering such a opportunity?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/02/trump-wants-us-jobs-america-first-plunge-world-recession/
The UK exports £360bn of goods to the EU, on which we now struggle with big non tariff barriers, compared to £60bn to the US. Imagine looking at this sh1tshow and thinking it vindicates Brexit in any way.
@gilesyb.bsky.social
The UK exports £360bn of goods to the EU, on which we now struggle with big non tariff barriers, compared to £60bn to the US. Imagine looking at this sh1tshow and thinking it vindicates Brexit in any way.