By the way, is the money gained by the tariffs earmarked for something? If it is used to invest in the steel/aluminium industries in the US I could see that being great for PR.

Because it's not actually free trade when you impose tariffs but if we want to level the field all of the sudden it's trade war.. Because it's not actual free and fair trade when you guys have massive tariffs on our goods, for example our cars meanwhile we let you bring your cars to our market for a fraction of what you charge us.

Got that right. It's time for the US to stop letting the EU force us to support them.
I'd rather we supported them because we agreed with their direction, rather than nostalgia.

If you start looking at the details of these tariffs, they're all imbalanced. You guys have a 25% tariff on pickup trucks, to protect your car industry.

The thing is, there is a status quo. And once a status quo is disturbed, all parties are going to see who can eek out on top, or at least lose less. And I believe we're better prepared with our EU government than you are with Trump. Also note that the EU, Canada and Mexico are very likely to coordinate the retaliatory effort to have maximum impact.

i dont understand while usa is not falling right now in a major recession

https://view.genial.ly/5a731a8864278d127c010b69

Look this commercial balance LOL amazing

The status quo has seen large scale exodus from US to foreign production, something that hasn't happened to industrial powerhouses like Germany, partially because German manufacturers don't have to compete with foreign goods from the US when EU is slapping those goods with tariffs. I live in the rust belt of the US, sorry but not sorry, something has to change.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 31 2018 02:28pm

because there's no such thing as starting a trade war. The trade war already exists, its a question of whether we shoot back.

holy mother of alternative facts. i already debunked the idiotic 'not a level playing field' and 'car tariffs' talking points multiple times. here are the main points as a reminder:

- over 50% of our trade is completely tariff free.
- the average customs duty is under 2% (!)
- our car tariffs are 10% (except you want to go back to acting like the VAT only applies to imported cars), yours are just 2.5%. however, on trucks (the most popular cars in the US) and vans your tariffs are 25%.
- US tariffs on train carriages is 14%, EU just 1.7%, US duty on peanuts is 130%, on raw tobacco 350%

so stop acting like america is taken advantage of by the EU, it's overall a very balanced trade relationship that will be significantly impacted by randomly slapping on tariffs for whole industries.
facts don't care about your false narratives, so please come up with an ACTUAL argument how this is good for american consumers and workers, or admit that it's a shortsighted political decision by trump to look like a strong leader in the eyes of a significant portion of his base in the very industries he's targeting.



that's simply not true. there is a balance and general agreement in our current trade. yes, specific industries might be unhappy about certain tariffs, and it's most definitely not perfect (to the detriment of BOTH sides though) - but that's always open to negotiations. raising, lowering, and lifting tariffs for particular goods is one thing, but just unilaterally slapping on massive untargeted tariffs for whole industries because you don't know how to interpret a 'trade deficit' is something else entirely.

trying to act like this is merely 'shooting back' or just another measure in an already ongoing trade war illustrates either a complete lack of knowledge concerning the issue, or the unwillingness to look at the actual facts out of fear to criticise your precious leader...

This post was edited by fender on May 31 2018 03:05pm

https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/santa-fe-shootings/trump-to-meet-with-families-of-victims-of-santa-fe-high-school-shooting/285-559950926

Very nice