Could be, on the other hand he said multiple times that he is very nice to other countries, unlike other countries who arent nice to USA, and what would the nice guy do?
A nice guy could possibly say: "104% is already enough"

in theory whoever is winning the trade deficit should easily win a tariff war, they import less USA goods so hits them less hard. in reality they're so reliant on USA exports that even if we can't stop buying from them entirely, or even mostly, any percent of lost demand hits them hard none the less.

it will be interesting to see who blinks first, and if congress steps in to remove tariff authority from Trump.

Bonds getting massacred also with the 10yr spiking to 4.45% over last few day, a huge move.

It's either being caused by Chinese selling their US treasuries (believe they held ~750BN) and/or bond investors expecting way higher inflation going forward. If it's China selling to basically piss on Trump's attempt to lower rates, it's not sustainable, but if it's the latter that's much more troubling and may force Trump to cave and soften on the tariffs, at least with everyone beside China.

Regardless, it is bad, because we have like ~9trillion to refi in the very near term.

China said it will raise its tariff on US goods to 84%, retaliating to the hefty new tariffs on its imports that kicked in on Wednesday.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-hits-back-by-raising-tariff-on-us-goods-to-84-after-trumps-reciprocal-duties-take-effect-191201832.html

Not the easiest spot. Will China be hurt domestically from shortages, I think not. They will be hurt via employment, reduction in consumption from the USA, will result in a reduction of employment for China obviously. 2019 they stopped buy USA agriculture products during the last spat.

China, I think was being fairly cordial up to the point where Trump came out of left field when China didnt backdown and shot it over 100%. Now you put them in a spot where to say, come on, lets work this out, we will do xyz, you put them in a spot where they have to look weak. So you almost need the USA now to extend that olive branch, which seems unlikely in the immediate term.

Trump really wants those news releases of jobs coming back to the United States (you could not convince me he cares if they actually do), US employment history speaks otherwise to all of this. Everytime there's a recission, workers get laid off, US productivity is invested in and productivity is increased, but the labour portion goes down. Manufacturing segment grows, but labour does not significantly, you think all these companies that make cheap Chinese good is going to invest in labour, no, if manufacturing comes back to the USA in any capacity its going to be robots invested in, not humans. The USA has some of the highest wages in the world, its not a place for these cheap manufactured goods if its not robots making it, period. Any plant will always be in the most labour efficient way possible because USA wages are high.

This post was edited by SBD on Apr 9 2025 07:41am

I really like Trump personally not for everything but on certain issues.

But if he thinks Jobs are coming back... he might need to think again

If trump causes a flood of returned automated manufacturing, and the next democratic whitehouse/congress can then tax that automated manufacturing, this may all work out in the end.

the return of automated manufacturing was always inevitable, ive been saying so for 10+ years. and was called nuts. but its simple, once automation is cheaper than chinese labor (cheap) and shipping (increasingly expensive) its simple business. this makes that calculation far more easy, because now its labor+shipping+tariff. Peter Tiel and the rest of the oligarchs may just be licking their chops, they just got an actual good PR situation to automate manufacturing, when instead its been taboo for years.

One step closer to total socialism and UBI. Might be a hard sell to republicans to jump on that ship.

Full automation, tax - tax gets redistributed to UBI / socialism to make up for the total lack of labour jobs in the country.

In the short term it could be beneficial for Canada to watch them do this to China in some ways. This will result in some trade diversions, ultimately if the USA stops buying, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc. need to find new markets and that might mean selling at a slight discount to Canada, to EU, etc to get them to buy more. Will that outright replace the giant the USA market is, of course not but still could see some price decreases here in Canada coming from those countries if they want to increase trade with us.

But more likely is those goods even with 100%+ tariffs on them are still cheaper to make overseas with near slave labour who works 12+ hours a day and paid a pittance. So it will just be USA citizens getting the shaft as always, usually the b ottom 20% eating it hardest all from decisions men make in ivory towers.

This post was edited by SBD on Apr 9 2025 08:08am

agreed mostly, but bottom 20% AND top 20%. given the catastrophic behavior of the markets. the true top 1% wont care, they'll be the ones taking out subprime loans to build factories and create more generational wealth. but just plain old wealthy people with high % of wealth in the market are gonna feel it even if it wont make them homeless.