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in reply to Laffy

2/ Via Angry Staffer:

“Trump announces that on his first day in office, he’s going to put a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and an extra 10% tariff on China.

Stock up on whatever you can before January 20 - everything is about to get more expensive. Groceries, cars, medications, all of it”

in reply to Laffy

3/ Angry Staffer, contd:

To be fair, there’s always the chance that Trump does what he always does here:

He’ll pretend that his tweet fixed the problem even though absolutely nothing changed and not do this stupid shit.

in reply to Laffy

One thing that I haven't seen discussed with Trump tariffs: I think Trump wants individual companies and CEOs to come to him as supplicants with bribes to create one-by-one exemptions, holding the US economy captive to ransom for his own profit. This would of course favor the wealthy and powerful who can buy access to him, and leave smaller companies footing the bill. The only way to resist is solidarity.
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in reply to Tawtovo (ܬܘܬܒܐ)

@tawtovo
"the first time #Trump imposed #tariffs... [he] set up a way to get around these through special exemptions...

That ignited a swift & often successful lobbying effort, especially from Washington’s high-priced K Street #law firms...

tariffs were very good for the swamp of #DC, and it gave Trump enormous leverage to force corporate America into line... you had to grovel and kiss his ring. One study actually confirmed this."
- @jaykuo

statuskuo.substack.com/p/corpo…

#Corruption

in reply to Zhi Zhu 🕸️

The Kentucky distillery industry funded the re-election of McConnell & Rand Paul in exchange for retaliatory tariff exemptions & subsidies.

Retaliatory tariffs still put a lot of the smaller distilleries into near bankruptcy.

Tariffs serve multiple purposes for the GOP:
1. Creating monopolies & overconsolidation of industries
2. Graft & extortion for campaigns
3. Pay-to-play public corruption

cnn.com/2021/06/12/politics/ta…

washingtonpost.com/news/worldv…

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

Nicole Parsons reshared this.

in reply to Laffy

I wonder what the retaliatory duties will hit? I'm sure Tesla will be high up on the list. I'd think some of the other tech-bro companies.

I'm sure Chrystia Freeland already had a list put together.

It's going to suck though, for everyone.

Back in the 1970s, Pierre Trudeau was trying to reduce our reliance on US trade in favour of the EU (EEC at the time). He was concerned about the return of US isolationism and protectionism.

With the CANUSA free trade agreement and NAFTA, things went in the other direction.

Turns out Trudeau was prescient.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)