The Lash Back At Trump Tariffs Is Well Underway
Commenter Dao Gen wrote this morning that the real problem with the economy—a problem which he believes Trump is leaving unaddressed—is that it has been hollowed out and financialized, for the benefit of the big money string pullers behind the scenes (I hope that’s a fair summary). Are Trump and his economic advisers making a massive blunder, or are they over the target? When you see sources like the following saying things like they are saying, you begin to suspect that Trump is over the target—and that falls in line with what his officials are saying:
BREAKING: Trump's tariffs if sustained, likely to push the U.S. and globe into recession - JPMorgan
BREAKING: World's 500 richest people have lost around half a trillion dollars in past two days - Bloomberg
Megatron @Megatron_ron
Trump gambles with tariffs, risks losing everything - Senator Ted Cruz
If Trump's tariffs send the U.S. economy into recession, Republicans could face a "bloodbath" in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
This was stated by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, writes the Financial Times.
The Texas senator also predicted a "terrible" fate for the US economy if a full-scale trade war breaks out and retaliatory tariffs against American goods remain in place for the long term.
The publication notes that Cruz usually supports Trump, and his words "became the sharpest warning from a member of the president's party" since the announcement of the super-tariffs.
Ted Cruz and Heidi—Atlanticist Central.
BREAKING: The European Union has retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by slapping $28 billion worth of U.S. imports with new tariffs.
Jim Cramer is warning of a "Black Monday" style market crash on Monday.
There will be a market crash tomorrow by -22%.
Hmmm. Will the little people benefit from a panic crash, or will it be the wealthy who can buy low who will benefit? Who told Cramer to say that?
Hedge Funds dumped global stocks on Thursday at the fastest pace in history
Meeting margin calls? Who’s getting the bargains? Who thinks the big money people didn’t see this coming?
But then there’s this:
JUST IN:  Over 50 countries have reached out to President Trump to negotiate new trade deals, US National Economic Council Director says.
JUST IN: India to negotiate a new and balanced trade deal with the US to avoid President Trump's tariffs.
Trump responds:
Trump addressed Americans on his social media "Truth" and warned them of difficult times ahead:
He said there was an “economic revolution” underway that would not be easy, but that the US would ultimately achieve a historic result. He also said China had suffered the most from US tariffs, and the US was “not even close.”
A revolution? Ya mean this is like a national liberation movement? For the non-elite? Maybe so, in part. This from an unexpected source:
Megatron @Megatron_ron
What Trump is doing with tariffs is a well-planned plan by his financial advisors.
It's not like it came to Trump just like that.
Yes, he is quite of a showman but, US is very serious country.
At first, there will be declines in some companies, true. But the Trump administration's plan is clear, to restart manufacturing in the country.
That's why it's precisely those companies that offer only marketing to the market, like Nike, that are affected the most.
In a few months, closed steel factories and others from the 70s will begin to reopen.
While the "marketing" companies will fall, manufacturing companies will grow.
With tariffs, it will be much cheaper to produce and sell at home than to import from abroad.
The United States will go through a reincarnation, shocks in the economy, but after a few years, all this will stabilize and the country will return to a manufacturing economy again.
Same as China and Russia, same as the new World order. In the US, it is clear that in order to stabilize foreign debt, manufacturing must be restored, and for that big steps must be taken like this one.
I personally see this a big plus for the US.
Who’s weeping for these losers?
China strikes back:
China announces extra 34% tariffs on US goods, imposed from April 10th.
China also announces rare metal controls, imposing export controls on samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium
Here’s a dose of reality. “Rare” earths aren’t really all that rare. Yes, China leads in production, but that’s partly because other countries prefer to avoid that mess.
PP is still hedging his bets (just like me), but I think he’s on to something—Trump is playing for keeps and China may find that this game isn’t so easy as it was before, when the US ruling class gave away the country:
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
Beijing will not sell off USTs because it would just depreciate the USD and make the tariffs worse. They will likely target critical sectors and try to pressure the Americans into relenting. Before they were playing a game they could play easily. The new game is for keeps.
In the aftermath of the tariffs policy I have seen Chinese commentators cope pretty hard for the first time in the past decade or so. Whatever else you say about the tariffs, they have seriously upset Beijing's economic planning in a way that nothing else has in recent memory.
BANANA POSTING @BANANA_POSTING
How likely is it Beijing escalates further from here?
What cards do they even have given the sizable debt load on local governments? Is it fair to say that Trump has backed China into a corner?
This is where China will go. Strategic sanctions on key products to generate inflation. At some point Trump will cone to the table. I hope we just get some long term viable deal out of it. There’s one plan on the table!
Chinese cope is annoying. If 50% of US exports dry up, Chinese GDP growth falls by 1% plus the multiplier and they won’t hit their growth target. Obvious.
What’s this “cope” PP is talking about? Maybe something like this. It’s a cleverly written article by Han Faizi who wants you to know that China is running some sort of Global Economic Beneficence Zone that’s selflessly going to look out for the little guys of the world:
China’s tariffs as a Mike Tyson knockout punch to America
If China pulls off the tariff-consumption retaliatory combo, it could be a fatal blow to US relevance in the global economy
He repeats the usual stuff about “rare” earths actually being rare, and how China’s “knockout punch”—restricting rare earth exports—will relegate North America to economic irrelevance. Nope. Not buying any of that stuff. America is fully capable of serious self harm—not to mention harm to others—but economic irrelevance? No. And if I were trying to look out for the interests of a country that has an economy smaller than China’s I wouldn’t be buying any of this, either:
By going out first and going out strong, China just improved everyone’s negotiating position. Now, smaller economies (and the EU, e.g. Airbus) know China will not undercut them in negotiations. Going out early provides cover for other economies to drive a harder bargain, magnifying the impact of China’s retaliatory body blow.
Don’t get me wrong. China has legit interests and legit problems and legit has a sphere of influence. But they’re not running some global charity outfit in Beijing. If we don’t look out for our interests, who else will? Not our elites. They’re looking out for #1, and that involved selling us down the river to China—because, hey, you can’t take it with you so you may as well sell it all now.
Nevertheless—and this is a good note to end on—mixed in with all the cope Han comes out with a gem of sorts:
Evidently, Han Feizi underestimated President Trump’s stomach for chaos. On many levels, we should all applaud Trump. He has blown a hole right through America’s tragic political economy and threw rich people under the bus – something no president, Democrat nor Republican, has had the cajones to do.
Well, I still believe the really rich will do just fine, but the Trump Tariffs could lead to an economic revolution that will benefit all of us. Or maybe not.
Trump's Tariffs: Alexander Hamilton's catastrophic US financial system comes home to roost.
Don't let all the hot air deceive you. But to understand what is going on, we need to study history.
Alexander Hamilton, viewed today as a tin god, was appointed the first secretary of the treasury by President George Washington on September 11, 1789. Both Washington and Hamilton knew that the new government of the US was not just broke. It was deeply in debt and the debt would only be getting much, much worse.
This was because Hamilton would be working behind the scenes to get Washington’s approval, then the approval of Congress, for the federal government to assume—at face value—all the debt from Revolutionary War bonds sold to investors and ordinary citizens by the Continental Congress and the 13 states to fight the war. Speculators in-the-know scoured the countryside to buy what people thought was worthless paper in anticipation for the big payday Hamilton would be arranging. Some of the bonds were even held by war veterans as payment in lieu of soldiers’ wages.
Hamilton was frank in his logic. He wanted to bind the moneyed class—mainly merchants, stock brokers, and bankers, primarily British—to the new republic. So from the very start, the US government was made into a cash cow for the already rich. And the banks, authorized even then to create money out-of-thin-air, stood by to lend even more to the already rich for their speculative purchases of US government bonds.
In fact, the day after Hamilton became secretary of the treasury in September 1789, he borrowed $50,000—then an immense sum—from his own Bank of New York to tide the government over until it got up and running and began to collect revenues from his planned tariff regime.
The underlying purpose of Hamilton’s machinations was to recreate the British imperial system, also based on government debt, for a similar Western Hemisphere empire with New York the capital. Hamilton used the word “empire” many times in describing his vision of America’s future. (He only agreed to allow the capital to be moved from New York to a future site on the Potomac to acquire Jefferson’s acquiescence in his financial scheme. It was called the “Great Compromise.”)
Nothing has changed in the intervening 236 years. The system has not been altered in any important respect. It has just become more refined, more locked in, and harder to change, especially after the Federal Reserve System—actually designed by the British Rothschilds—took effect in 1913, now over a century ago.
So here are the main elements of the system:
• The federal government, charged with applying the military force to create and expand the empire—now worldwide—is essentially bankrupt.
• To get money it has to go to the rich and mortgage the country’s future with the sale of bonds; of course it has to out-compete all other countries with the same bleak outlook. (The Deep State exists to get it done and to eliminate opposition.)
• The rich have an enormous and compliant banking system to borrow from in order to expand their bond purchases ad infinitum.
• The interest on the bonds is paid by the working classes at all income levels through taxes, with all kinds of coercive and competitive devices installed to assure maximum tax revenue. (Cumulative taxes now run at about 50% of national income.)
• A massive number of unfortunate people, with no real jobs, also live off the government cash cow, creating a huge voting bloc to maintain the status quo.
• As an aside, the government has even gotten foreigners to accept its dollar-denominated debt as payment against imports by using its military might to enforce use of said dollars as a world trading currency.
• The only way for anyone to defeat debt is through a devalued currency—i.e., inflation, for which there is constant pressure throughout the entire system. The government actually promotes inflation because it increases tax revenues needed to service the interest on the debt. It’s also why property taxes are escalating—state and local governments are in the same boat. It’s why debt service always comes first in every budget.
Until recently everyone was deliriously happy with the US (and Britain behind the curtain)—actually the rich bondholders—ruling the world.
Except that the world has now changed with other power centers arising and interest payments on the bonds becoming so high that they can no longer be paid off. The Trump administration has recognized the catastrophic failure of the system. The entire Western financial system is bankrupt.
So tariffs have to go up in order to increase revenue, rebuild manufacturing, create jobs, and reduce borrowing. Government expenditures must also be reduced, hence the huge budget cuts. The nation’s survival is at stake.
Trump et. al. will deal with the consequences later. Maybe more wars to keep the dollar afloat internationally? Let’s hope not.
Meanwhile, global finance is crashing the stock market to provoke hysteria. Britain and Israel, both fortresses of globalist influence, are trying to stoke more war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
This is what is really behind the decision by the Trump administration to change the system.
An intelligent person might now even suggest that there’s got to be a better way or at least measures to be taken to improve the chance of success.
And of course there is. The original American colonies, particularly the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were able to create what may have been the most prosperous region on earth in the mid-18th century by utilizing their own indigenous currencies until the practice was outlawed by the British Currency Act of 1767. When Hamilton helped write the US Constitution, he made sure that no indigenous currencies would any longer be issued within America—only currencies backed by loans from the rich would ever be allowed, with some relief from tariff revenues—but never enough.
Then during the Civil War, the Lincoln administration issued its own debt-free Greenbacks which kept working-class America afloat into the 20th century until the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913.
Before and during the Great Depression, there were many voices speaking out for a Greenback-type national currency with many calls for local currencies as well. But instead, Keynesian debt financing was embraced on a massive scale.
Then, prior to his assassination, President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order, never implemented, to mandate issuance of a new regime of silver certificates as legal tender in payment of debt and taxes.
In 2011, Congressman Dennis Kucinich entered a legislative proposal for a new system of indigenous national currency with a provision that would also abolish the Federal Reserve. This legislation, called the NEED Act, remains on the books.
[If time] Kucinich’s NEED Act contains one important factor that is often overlooked, even by monetary reformers, which was also part of the American Monetary Act drafted by Stephen Zarlenga and myself as input into Kucinich’s proposal. This was a national dividend, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund, that could be used to balance government deficits and reduce consumer debt. Such a dividend was first proposed by British engineer C.H. Douglas in his 1920 book Economic Democracy and was explained in my own books, Our Country, Then and Now and We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.
In other words, there is a whole world of research, writing, and historical precedent available to the Trump administration to solve today’s crisis, if they were willing to break free of the globalist financiers, largely working from the City of London and New York, who have held our country in subjugation since Alexander Hamilton went to them begging for our first bailout in 1789.
Ted Cruz's commentary looks suspiciously like he is agitating for his biggest donors. They are most definitely part of the crowd that might have lost a bundle in the short term. I don't buy Cruz as Trump's biggest backer. Ted Cruz backs Israel's interests which have become his own.