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  • If you look at those tariffs from the PoV of economic and external policies, they sound a lot like "I'll shit myself so others will need to smell it". They're a bit harmful to other countries, sure, as each lost one reliable trading partner; USA, though, lost all of them.

    And yes, all of them. Even governments and businesses from countries not deeply affected by the tariffs are seeing USA as a high risk partner, looking for alternatives, and at least my country (Brazil) is deepening ties with China.

    But I digress. I think that what's going on is about USA's internal policy; if you put it side-to-side with other things like

    • forcing businesses to call the Gulf of Mexico by some esoteric name;
    • harassing universities;
    • removing government staff based on political allegiance; etc.

    then you realise that it's all about loyalty towards Trump himself and his agenda. This taco-haired clown is trying to keep himself and his buds in power forever there, and for that he needs support.

  • The problem I have is that there's no endpoint that will convince people that this isolationist/protectionist way of thinking is harmful to their own interests. England still isn't going to admit this about Brexit. Let's see how America fares.

    • AFAIK, if the UK wanted to rejoin the EU they would lose a lot of the advantages they had last time and have to switch to the Euro. I wouldn't mind the Euro personally though. So basically yeah, the UK did a huge blinder with Brexit, all it's done is make things worse.

  • US capitalists created modern china.
    Literally raised it.

    And now china is beating US in it's own game while having a better social system: mandatory vacations, pensions and health care.

    There is absolutely nothing anyone can do - other countries will keep buying inexpensive shit from china because there are no alternatives. Tariffs no tariffs whatever.

    And it seems to me - US people are being pushed into the corner to start demanding a larger share of the pie and a better social net as a typical US global economic advantages are disappearing leaving more people in poverty while offering no social net improvemeents that the rest of the world population has gotten last century.

    • America is now the worst of both worlds. It doesn't have the reliable liberal empire that kept it as a central world power for the last century. Trump's strategy is entirely domestic, with his end goal of centralizing the entire nation's power in his hands for the handful of years he has left alive. It's power for power's sake; strongman brainrot with no place for anyone strong outside of himself.

      The fascists will not hold on long without him, no matter how much they try to pretend that their beliefs are a strength. The only advantage they have is a rabid devotion to their cause and a willingness to do evil shit guilt free. They're only placated because they're the violent muscle.

      The capitalists have actually lost the most power for the time being, as the liberal democratic system really empowered them more than any other. They were too greedy to pay the social services fee, and now they need to kiss the ring until the king is dead. Trump crashing the economy forces them to help fascists squeeze the plebs, as they're too cowardly to ever kill the king.

      We need people to direct their ire directly at the rich right now, as their great power earns them all the responsibility for this mess. Everyone's ass is on the menu and we will know no peace.

    • And now china is beating US in it's own game while having a better social system: mandatory vacations, pensions and health care.

      I get what you're trying to say here. But social systems have never been the USA's game... Maybe more like europes

  • I mean for years now (at least since Obama) the US has been trying to destroy the WTO piece by piece as the fundamentals of the WTO do not align with the US trade policies and do favor China. So they wanted an organisation that favours the US. Obama started it by blocking the appointment of WTO appellate members, leading the WTO to being nothing more than a construct not able to enforce its rules. Trump kept that blockade and started a trade war with China, but since he needs attention he did this very publicly. When Brandon came around, he kept what Trump did as a meassure against China and kept the blockade alive, he was just quiet about it. Now Trump came again and saw it's still standing and did set up for the final blow, but did it in such a castastrophic clumsy way... the plan of replacing the WTO with another US centric organisation is now as unrealistic as it could be.

    • I cannot imagine any realistic plan to replace wto with another system just excluding china.
      That would have had to be monstrous coherent and sustained effort on the scale of what Russia and china are doing with bricks.
      I have not seen that with either Obama or others.

      Then such a replacement organization would offer what exactly benefits the rest of the world? Seems like not much so forcing other countries to join it would have been somewhat dubious.

  • Yes. But even more accurate in this case would've been the original meme format, where the US would be rage screaming "STOP MOVING ON WITHOUT ME!!! 🤬"

    They've already even complained about the mere possibility of Canada switching trade focus to Europe, calling it an unfair team up against the poor little victim US which "would have consequences".

  • Idk what’s up but you can say something about china on lemmy and watch ccp minions stalk you for days. I do it sometimes when I wait in bank queue.

    I like to think I am wasting regime’s money

37 comments