[cinbun8]

From an outsider’s perspective, it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists. One day it’s a 145% tariff on China. The next, it’s “Well, it’s still 145%, but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit.” Then comes a 90-day pause, adding to the confusion.

It’s not clear whether Jamieson Greer is actually steering this, or if any of it was thoroughly thought through.

[jonplackett]

This is the only explanation that has made sense to me so far. And it makes even more sense based on these exemptions.

https://www.instagram.com/share/_jW_V1hwM

This is Senator Chris Murphy explaining it’s not economic policy, it’s an attempt to blackmail corporations into submission by making a deal with him in return for sanctions relief.

Keep an eye out for what Apple and nvidia might have agreed to give.

[loudmax]

The term for this is extortion.

The last time tariffs were this high, it led to rampant corruption as companies would pay off customs officers. This was one of the reasons for switching to an income tax. For the current administration this possibility counts as a major opportunity to generate personal wealth.

But this isn't the only reason for the policy. For someone who is at heart a coward, bullying and brandishing raw power over others is its own reward. That reason enough for the policy, and damn the consequences for the nation.

[unclebucknasty]

It's exactly what it is. And, the seemingly haphazard, unpredictable nature of it is a feature, serving as perfect cover:

"Why these exemptions?"

"Who knows? None of it makes sense."

But, of course, it does.

It's also consistent with other, publicly-wielded cudgels, like the law-firm extortions under threat of executive orders.

[AnthonyMouse]

> This is Senator Chris Murphy explaining it’s not economic policy, it’s an attempt to blackmail corporations into submission by making a deal with him in return for sanctions relief.

Weirdly the same explanation works if you're being less uncharitable, i.e. Apple agreed to invest $500B in the US but everybody knows new factories aren't going to be built overnight, so they get a reprieve from the tariffs for now provided they continue to go through with the investment. Which in turn makes them immune from future tariffs once they're actually making iPhones in the US, while allowing the tariffs to be reinstituted against anyone who didn't do likewise.

[zzzeek]

co-sign, it's the King's Tax (as Murphy had explained in a different video I watched of his). it's that simple. also it was a giant elephant to make everyone forget that they just exposed an entire military action over Signal in a completely illegal and extremely incompetent way.

[belter]

> Keep an eye out for what Apple and nvidia might have agreed to give.

Well we know Nvidia did give a million dollars already:

"A $1M-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago is how you get AI chips to China" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43652504

[prng2021]

I keep seeing these explanations of “4D chess”. It’s Donald Trump. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing when it comes to economic policies. Unless you believe he can see into the future of how other world leaders would react and consistently outsmart everyone else, there’s no 4D chess being played.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Tracking-free link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIALTQjMKma

[emsign]

Instead of coming to Trump for pledges of political loyalty those companies should instead come to Europe to be able to make business again freely.

[GenerocUsername]

These companies could choose to invest in the US instead and not have to worry about any of this.

Tariffs are only usable as extortion if the companies have outsourced the manufacturing that gutted our middle-class.

Externalizing variables comes with risk. This risk should be factored into planning in the future. Just because a politician in the 90s promised cheap labor through globalization, a president 30 years later can flip the script

[proggy]

What’s interesting to me is that in this horribly corrupt state of affairs we find ourselves in, there are thousands upon thousands of smaller businesses that are not able to seek redress the way a megacorp like Apple or Nvidia can. Your run-of-the-mill office furniture importer doesn’t have the same ability to book up a dinner and pay the requisite multi-million dollar lobbying fee as a Silicon Valley magnate. In the before times, these folks would form interest groups and lobby Congress as a unified front, but at the moment it seems as though that doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t take imagination to see a highly noncompetitive, post-capitalist future where only the goods from megacorps are exempted, and the goods from medium sized businesses are taxed to oblivion, destroying any semblance of free markets.

[standardUser]

If this is an attempt at blackmail it appears to be failing. It's only been a few days and Trump has already unilaterally capitulated on several major positions. Unless he's blackmailing himself, the 'plan' is backfiring.

[pcthrowaway]

I think it's good to consider what the implications are if Hanlon's razor fails... but I'm not giving up hope that this is all just a result of the incompetence of Trump and his administration either.

[vFunct]

Which didn't really work since what exactly are US tech companies giving Trump in exchange for eliminating tariffs?

And are only large corporations expected to play? I import shopping bags from Chinese manufacturers from my store, like millions of other small businesses do. What exactly are we supposed to offer Trump?

[throw310822]

Sorry, but what would have been the consequences of the tariffs on Chinese imports? Do you imagine American citizens having to pay twice or more for an iPhone (or not getting one at all) because of Trump? Not being able to afford a new laptop, because of Trump? Not being able to buy all the cheap consumer electronics, because of Trump? The "blackmail" (except it's simply the consequences of his own actions) goes two ways here- see also the TikTok debacle: or how to explain to hundreds of millions of enraged Americans that they cannot use their favourite social network because of Trump.

[forinti]

I think the most probable outcome is that Trump causes enough trouble to incite the whole country against him.

I don't see him completing his term. He's going to be impeached.

[gbil]

This assumes that he has more power than the tech companies on the everyday life and I wonder if that is really the case. As I'm not located in the states, I'm very much interested to hear from a US resident if that is really the case.

[TheSwordsman]

As an American, I regret to inform you that you're trying to use logic to understand a situation where it seems like logic wasn't used (in terms of the economic impact). These are the same fuckwits that tried to claim a trade deficit is the same as a tariff.

[dkrich]

There is no plan. Talk tough, reverse under pressure, rinse repeat. Anyone surprised must not have watched season one which aired in 2019.

[steveBK123]

The "smart trumpers" I know have already staked out the entire range of possible outcomes:

1) He is completely restructuring global trade and decoupling us from China which is tough but necessary medicine because our biggest geopolitical adversary cannot be our largest trading partner

2) You can't believe half of what he says, he's all bluster, he's addicted to deals and will sign some fake deals to score a domestic win and we will resume status quo

Like yeah - sounds smart, but which is it?

[hackingonempty]

He has a plan, it is called Project 2025. Trump appointed the authors of the Project 2025 plan and they are executing it. Here is the chapter on trade and tariffs, authored by Peter Navarro who is currently Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...

[BeFlatXIII]

If Trump is America's Napoleon III, who is the world's modern Otto von Bismark?

[theropost]

Million dollar "dinners' seem to help.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

[stefan_]

Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff

Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff

Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff

Truly this will bring back American manufacturing!

[tobias3]

The factories will be disassembling the laptops, taking out the batteries. Then the empty laptops will be sent back to China. That will increase exports to China as well.

[pkulak]

The plan is to make every country and CEO grovel at the feet of the boss to be exempted from the tariffs. I’d say it’s corruption, but it’s more like a protection racket.

I wonder what these companies had to offer?

[rchaud]

It's far from the only place the policy is incoherent. They fired the top ranking officer at the US base in Greenland for having the temerity to tell their host nation "I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by Vice-President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/creq99l218do

[Terr_]

> the policy

The evidence is "incoherent" because the hypothesis is wrong. A policy for America isn't there.

In contrast, everything becomes exceptionally coherent if you instead ask what the policy is for Trump's personal goals: punishing disagreement, amassing wealth, rewarding apparatchiks, and always being in a room full of flattery.

[vFunct]

There is no planned strategy. Planning requires learning about entire systems, and Trump isn't smart enough to do that. He can only act on things placed before him. If he sees foreigners making money by selling into the US, he has to raise tariffs on it. There is no second order, third order, or any deeper level of understanding of what's going on. It's purely superficial action, on things Trumps eyes sees, not what his brain sees. There is no brain in there that can predict what would happen if tariffs were raised. He can only raise tariffs.

To be smart is to have systemic understanding, and Trump & the Republicans are incapable of that.

It's exactly what happened in his first term, when he got rid of the nation's pandemic preparedness because why would anyone ever need that, right?

[ArinaS]

> "assuming one even exists"

I actually doubt it does. Everyting is just too chaotic to be a strategy.

[FabHK]

Agreed. I think at this point we can discard the assumption of 4D chess.

(This is not to say that there aren't some Project 2025 plans in the background that parts of the administration are aiming to push through.)

[rpgbr]

The plan: What if we ran the richest, more powerful country on history as if it were a giant meme stock geared to benefit those in charge?

[throwaway48476]

Every company that wants an exemption has to pay. It's a personal tax system.

[jppope]

> it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists

Not sure why there is a presumption that one exists or that its coherent. With even the slightest critical eye its easy enough to discern that this isn't about economic policy or trade and that the proposed "policy" doesn't make any sense. The guy in charge of this stuff is either seeing what he can get away with, fucking with people, or building a narrative...

that is to say what you are watching isn't "real".

[raffraffraff]

It feels like we just hired a recent graduate, who is an egotistical know-nothing, to manage our databases. And he just decided to migrate all of the DBs to the cloud in the middle of the day without testing it, or checking any metrics. Now he wants to fail some of them back and thinks that should be "a cinch" but doesn't actually understand how anything works under the hood.

[jmull]

> assuming one even exists

Why would you assume that?

I don't know why people keep expecting Trump to be different than what he has consistently shown us for all these years. There's no subtle plan. There's no long-term plan. He's cranking the levers immediately available to him for the drama, as he has always done.

People around him may have ideas and plans. They can sometimes get him to agree to one of these, but it never lasts long.

[ToucanLoucan]

I mean, his rich friends made 340 billion in the stock market chaos. So I suspect there is at least a vague plan, but it has nothing to do with anyone but himself and those who support him getting richer. But that's the only plan I think Trump has ever had in his entire life, or will ever have.

Like he's just not that deep. He's an incredibly shallow, inexperienced, dim, incurious old man who has never worked a job in his life, never built anything, never did anything. He arrived on top and his greatest achievement in life was managing to not lose it, in a country where it is specifically very hard to do that.

And hearing his supporters talk about how strong he is is just objectively hilarious. Man looks like 4 steepish flights of stairs would kill him stone dead.

[TZubiri]

“Well, it’s still 145%, but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit.”

That's a massive misread. You are confusing the direction of influence between secondary public stock markets and federal executive orders.

The tariffs are supposed to strengthen self sufficiency, and discourage imports of stuff the US can do on their own.

Chip manufacturing, (which by the way is often only the manufacturing and not the design or IP of the chips), is an exception for whatever reason, may be labour costs, but it may also be that chips are a mineral heavy and diverse product, so it's one of the few products where autarky isn't feasible or very rewarding.

And there would be situations without exemptions where the US may have been incentivized to import the raw materials and rebuild megachip factories, of which there are only like a dozen in the world, creating a huge output inefficiency due to political reasons on two fronts.

Exceptions are reasonable.

[insaneirish]

> Exceptions are reasonable.

If there were an actual strategy, exceptions would have been clear from the start.

[ranger207]

It's vibe governing, just like any other populist government

[andreygrehov]

When it comes to global impact, can you even confidently say you're being strategic? It almost feels like staying tactical is the only viable strategy - there are simply too many variables. The chances are high that any strategy you come up with is doomed to fail.

[Glyptodon]

I'd say it's clear that none of it was thoroughly thought through at the least.

[jayd16]

I think its crystal clear there is no actual plan.

[ineedaj0b]

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

[rchaud]

Much like Russia's overnight transition to a market economy in 1991, which opened the door to oligarch pillaging of national resources, 2 successive economic crises and a bond default, and 2 brutal wars in Chechnya.

Something tells me Trump's top economic advisers aren't based in the US, just as Yeltsin's strings weren't being pulled from Moscow.

[coliveira]

That's how corruption works in a banana republic. Good things for my friends, hell for everyone else. It is the furthest you can be from free trading capitalism that the US was preaching while it was good for them.

[reaperducer]

it’s difficult to discern any coherent U.S. strategy—assuming one even exists

The strategy is to keep everyone unsure what might come next.

It's like in boxing. When you hit your opponent and leave them confused and uncertain what you might do next, you use that to your advantage and keep on hitting. It's how you "win."

As if there are any winners here.

[Flip-per]

He isn't really hitting an opponent though, he is mainly hitting the U.S.

[Qwertious]

>The strategy is to keep everyone unsure what might come next.

If the goal is to encourage investment into US manufacturing, then that's the exact opposite to the strategy he needs - investment requires stability and confidence that the N-year investment will eventually pay off. Nobody will invest due to tariffs if the tariffs might disappear tomorrow.

[lonelyasacloud]

His goal is to create confusion; to "flood the zone".

Him and his cronies know when that flood is coming and can profit from it.

It's only confusing if there is any expectation that he is working for the good of anyone else.

[ineedaj0b]

they thought it up and published a report back on it in nov 2024.

here's the plan, you can use it to advise your investments:

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

the media is garbage and they can't cover anything well enough to inform. but i bet clicks are up!

[tdb7893]

So firstly if this is the theoretical underpinning the White House should be messaging that instead of what they've been saying. Also I've read that report before (this and some other reports have been referenced in media I have listened to) and I wouldn't say they are following it closely, if this was their plan it's already gone well off the rails laid out here.

Edit: to be more specific it literally talks about the potential pitfalls of unilateral tariffs, suggests imposing them over time, etc. There's a lot of stuff in there the US did so but also a lot that they did not follow (and also there's just stuff that is outside the scope of this fairly short document). I think part of the reason the tariffs caught people so flat footed is even well informed people assumed this would be how they were implemented and got the rug pulled out from under them on "Liberation Day"

[csomar]

It makes sense if you understand how Trump became president. He'll test something (through a tweet) to his audience and then amplify or kill it based on the response. It worked great with 50% of the US population or so; it doesn't seem to be working at all with the Chinese political elite.

[rchaud]

Things like threatening Canada and Greenland's sovereignty, unilaterally tanking stock markets and levying huge tariffs on western trading partners are not popular with his voters.

What they want doesn't matter anymore, these moves are about splitting the western economic and military alliances, a goal Russia has had since the 1960s.

[davesque]

As a thoughtful person, you've got to learn to curb your instinct to make sense out of things like this. It's a waste of calories.

[foogazi]

> but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit

They already took a hit - which they monetized by both ways

[sagarpatil]

Feels like they are just winging it based on public response.

[joe_the_user]

To understand this, I think you have to neither overestimate or underestimate Trump and Musk.

Both Trump and Musk seem be to essentially ideologues, visionary tough-talkers, who have actually succeed (or appeared to succeed) to various endeavors through having underling who work to shape their bluffs into coherent plans. This works well for various as long as the delicate balance of competent handlers and loud-mouthed visionaries is maintained.

The problem is the process of Trump winning, losing and then winning again all him to craft an organization and legal framework to put forth he vision uncorrected, unbalanced and lacking all guardrails.

And that's where we are.

[Animats]

> It’s not clear whether Jamieson Greer is actually steering this, or if any of it was thoroughly thought through.

We know for sure that Greer isn't steering this. Greer was testifying before a congressional committee when Trump announced huge changes to tariffs on China. Greer hadn't even been told.

[_Algernon_]

If there is a strategy it is probably dominating the news cycle with this chaotic bullshit, while they navigate towards the real goal in the shadows.

[alabastervlog]

It's not in the shadows, they're breaking everything that can oppose them to try to make the US an autocracy. It's right out in the open.

[whalesalad]

chaos is the strategy

[csomar]

Chaos is a strategy but in this case it's just chaos.

[Henchman21]

Destruction is the goal.

[voisin]

The strategy is to sow fear and uncertainty to drive capital from stocks to government bonds and drive down the bond yield. Bessant is pretty clear about this. Once they get the bond yields down and refinance a lot of the short term debt into longer term debt they free up operating budget. Combine with Elon’s DOGE cutting costs and Lutnick raising some capital from tariffs, and it is a pretty good strategy. I don’t agree with Trump’s policies generally nor am I American, but this is a good short term strategy.

[alabastervlog]

It's not a good short term strategy at all. If that's really the goal, their left and right hands need to have a chat because one of them's going to make the deficit way worse, so if the other's goal is to "free up operating budget" by reducing debt service they really ought to get on the same page, because anything "freed up" is going to be eaten by the other bullshit they're doing.

Besides, this is a wildly expensive way to go about it. The harm to receipts from the economic uncertainty will blow a hole in the federal budget and leave states reeling (to say nothing of the "other hand" making cuts at the IRS, which will also be a net cost)

[ojbyrne]

Great strategy, except its not working. Bond yields are up (probably because foreigners and foreign countries are selling US bonds). DOGE cost cuts are insignificant. Raising capital from tariffs doesn't seem to be working because they're really taxes, and Americans don't like taxes.

[stafferxrr]

This is exactly the strategy but it is failing miserably.

The reason for the pivot was because the 10-30 year yields didn't come down, the price on the 30 year got crushed. The 30 year almost went back to the lows.

There was literally no flight to safety. Completely the opposite.

[deng]

> I don’t agree with Trump’s policies generally nor am I American, but this is a good short term strategy.

This strategy has failed spectacularly, as bond yields are still up and treasuries are sold like crazy. US treasuries are no longer seen as safe havens. People rather invest in gold or treasuries from other countries which are not led by a corrupt government. Buying US treasuries is now seen as "lending Trump money", and since Trump runs the US economy exactly like he ran his companies, where IIRC he defaulted on debt at least six times, US treasuries are now a rather risky investment.

[codedokode]

Can we use Occam's Razor and assume that nobody knows what would be the optimal tariff rates and if you don't have a reliable mathematical model the only choice you are left with is experimentation and A/B tests.