JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇨🇳 President Trump says the US negotiated a "total reset" with China during trade talks.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) May 10, 2025

boognish_bear said:

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JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇨🇳 President Trump says the US negotiated a "total reset" with China during trade talks.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) May 10, 2025

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Its gonna be interesting to find out if they included stuff like, control of Panama and China owning so much of America in these discussions

Reporter: "The economy shrank. First time in 3 years. People are pointing to the tariff policy. People are looking at their 401ks worried.”

JD Vance: "The first thing: This is Joe Biden's economy. We inherited $2 trillion in debt... a trade deficit." pic.twitter.com/mPJwsnlYuB

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 10, 2025

ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Your posting style is as antiquated as your economic theories. Sorry to everyone else for the TL;DR, but this political spin and long debunked arguments devoid of any understanding of modern economies and realities needed to be dissected piece by piece.

A short periods of deficits followed by periods of trade surpluses is not a sign of economic weakness. It's the natural order. An escalating structural trade deficit of +50 years is a sign of economic DISTRESS.
You keep repeating the phrase "50 years of trade deficits = economic distress" as if it's a self-evident truth. But let's actually test that against reality. Over the last 50 years, the exact period you're calling economic distress, the United States has quadrupled its real GDP, led the world in innovation, tech, and productivity, attracted more global capital than any other country, maintained the world's reserve currency and deepest capital markets, seen stock market valuations and wealth creation explode, and we have greater manufacturing output on a real level than any point in our history. That's not distress. That's a reflection of our economic strength specifically the strength of our internal consumption, capital access, and stability. We run trade deficits not because we're weak, but because the world wants to invest here more than we want to export. That's a privilege, not a pathology.


And if trade surpluses are the real metric of national health, then maybe you'd like to trade places with Russia or Venezuela. They've run surpluses. How's their "economic vitality" working out? Let's deal in facts not economic nostalgia dressed up as wisdom.

I don't think you realize it, but you just acknowledged what the textbooks say about export-led growth = powerful, sustainable, transformative. If it can transform a poor country with cheap labor, weak currency, and a limited domestic market into a peer competitor of the mightiest nation on earth in scarcely more than 20 years, imagine what it could do for a stronger country! Trade surpluses did not cause the Chinese pathologies you cite. Poor policy decisions did. They chose to invest enormous sums to build their military into a peer competitor of the mightiest nation on earth, rather than build a consumer market. More importantly, they continued the folly of central economic planning.
You're conflating causation with correlation. Export led growth worked for China because it was a poor country (still is in many categories), not in spite of that fact. When you're starting from the bottom, export surpluses can jumpstart industrialization, especially if you have cheap labor, weak currency, and minimal domestic demand. That's not a model for advanced economies. In fact whatever magical outcome you think tariffs are going to create, we will still have SIGNIFICANT trade deficits even after whatever rebalancing occurs, perhaps even more, because our demand way outpaces our capacity.

China's current unraveling is tied to that model. Export dependence without domestic consumption capacity is a brittle system. The moment global demand shifts or geopolitical risks rise, their economy suffers.

Because what we're doing is not sustainable. It is not trade. It is just consumption financed by giving away equity in our assets.
This is straight insanity built around the political lie of how poor things are going for Americans, including middle class and blue collar Americans. You're describing a system that has powered unprecedented wealth creation, global stability, and American dominance for over half a century, and labeling it unsustainable without actual evidence (not political platitudes) it's failing. Running trade deficits is trade. We exchange dollars, which the world demands as the reserve currency, for goods and services. In return, foreign capital flows back into the U.S. to buy treasuries, equities, real estate, or to invest in American businesses. That's not "giving away equity," it's a global vote of confidence in U.S. assets and institutions. Not to mention capital in-flows that creates jobs, just like the type you like to brag about Trump bringing in.

If this arrangement were inherently unsustainable, we would have seen structural decay. Instead, we've seen the U.S. lead the world in GDP growth, capital inflows, technological innovation, and market liquidity. What you're criticizing isn't a flaw, it's a feature of being the financial and consumption center of the global economy.

Tell us you do not understand the subject material without saying you do not understand the subject material. Trade is LESS important to us than our trading partners, for the reason you cited (85% domestic consumption). The problem with the capital inflows is that they involve a loss of equity that escalates pressure on the foundation of the globalist model - the strong dollar. At. Some, Point. the house of cards will collapse. We have to create products to attract foreign held dollars rather than offering up ever greater shares of equities. "Goods for equity" is not trade. It's payment for consumption.
I don't understand the subject?? Are you reading yourself? You say trade is less important to us than to our partners (agreed), then in the same breath act like our entire economic system is teetering on collapse because of a trade deficit that's been with us for five decades… during which we've become the global financial, technological, and investment powerhouse. WTH?? I guess it goes back to your fundamental misunderstanding of the economic reality that we produce Trillions in goods and services that bring in an even greater amount of foreign investment (Trump didn't invent that), not to mention much of it being the same dollars used to purchase imports. What do you think makes up that 85%?? Do you not understand that we're producing and consuming within our borders 85% of our total economic activity? That 85% is more GDP than any country in the world by a matter of several trillions of dollars to the closest (China).

What you cite is not a contradiction. It's a fallacy built on the absolutely insane premise that trade deficits are such a good thing that we must not only continue them but grow them as high as we can! The more we have, the richer we become! (because of all the things we got from handing equity over to foreign interests).
What a complete misrepresentation. No one is saying we should drive trade deficits as high as we can, or that we should aim to maximize them, that's your strawman. What I've pointed out is that trade deficits, particularly for a large, consumption-driven, capital-attracting economy like the U.S., are not inherently destructive. They're a byproduct of our strength, not a symptom of decay.

And again, you still haven't answered the contradiction. If trade is a small portion of our economy, how is the trade deficit supposedly destroying it? You can't say trade is marginal and existential at the same time unless your entire argument is driven by populist talking points rather than economic understanding.

More theory, with implicit assumption that other countries never take any steps (currency, tariffs, quotas, subsidies, etc...) to restrict our imports or propel their exports. Tariffs reshape demand, to offset unfair trading practices. They give our industries a chance to recover, to grow, to become more efficient, etc..... China does not have the same cost advantage they had 30 years ago. Mexico either. And, of course, Canada and Japan and EU have no inherent labor cost advantage over us at all. I mean, stand back and look at how silly your point is. We were a trade surplus production oriented economy with high tariffs throughout our rise the the mightiest country on earth....the "arsenal of democracy." We didn't have then all those pathologies China has now, did we? I mean, history laughs at what you're trying to sell here.
Theory? You're arguing policy from an outdated library book. You're leaning hard on a romanticized version of U.S. economic history while sidestepping the very real, structural consequences of tariffs in today's globally integrated economy. No one is denying that countries use tools to influence trade, what I'm saying is that the modern global supply chain doesn't respond well to brute force policies like blanket tariffs, because the U.S. economy is now deeply intertwined with those supply chains in ways it wasn't during the 1940s.

Your comparison to the "arsenal of democracy" era is laughably outdated. Back then, the world was rebuilding, we had no global competition, labor costs were artificially low, and we weren't operating in real-time global markets optimized around logistics, speed, and scale. That world doesn't exist anymore.

And no, tariffs don't just "reshape demand", they distort it. They inject cost and uncertainty into systems that rely on efficiency and predictability. A few percentage points of input cost on a key component sourced abroad can ripple through a company's pricing, margins, and ultimately its ability to hire or invest. We're seeing that in real time. And that's before we even talk about retaliation, lost exports, or missed investment due to uncertainty. But the problem to be solved is our competitiveness. Most tariff structures into other countries are relatively low. But we still can't compete unless we produce locally, including in Europe and Asia. Lower tariffs from foreign countries will actually accelerate that, just like with Apple, as it will lower the cost of importing inputs, so producing locally is more economical.

And why is that? Must it always be so? Are you really saying we have no hope of ever making red iron again?
You're proving my point again by skipping over the why and diving headfirst into the what if. The reason we don't have scalable domestic alternatives for many goods isn't because we've somehow forgotten how to produce "red iron," it's because the economics, infrastructure, workforce, and regulatory landscape no longer support it.

Reviving heavy industrial production in the U.S. isn't as simple as waving a tariff wand and chanting "Make Iron Great Again." We're decades removed from the capital investments, skilled labor pipelines, permitting frameworks, and environmental standards that would even make such industries feasible here again. And more importantly, we've moved up the value chain (including in steel). The U.S. specializes in advanced manufacturing, high-value services, and intellectual property precisely because those are our comparative strengths in a modern economy.

You keep pining for a version of America that was built for the 1940s war machine, not the realities of 2025. If you're serious about re-industrializing, start with proposals for skills training, infrastructure overhaul, and regulatory reform. Until then, stop pretending tariffs will magically bring back a supply chain we no longer have and no longer need in the same form.

Never? Why will our robots be more costly to run than Chinese robots? Why must we PLAN on using our AI to design automated production lines in someone else's country?
Thank you again for reinforcing my argument. Yes, automation is the future. Yes, robots, AI, and capital-intensive manufacturing are where things are headed. But here's the part you keep skipping, those sectors don't generate the broad-based, blue-collar job resurgence you keep fantasizing about. They create high-skill, high-efficiency operations with minimal labor input. If you'll simply acknowledge that particular point at least I know we're speaking a similar language.

And if you think it's just a matter of flipping a switch to "robot mode," you've clearly never had to navigate the U.S. regulatory jungle, infrastructure gaps, workforce training shortfalls, or permitting delays. That's why companies building AI driven production lines in the U.S. are still struggling with cost overruns, staffing gaps, and productivity inefficiencies. TSMC in Arizona being exhibit A.

The very reason many of these investments happen abroad isn't because we can't build robots, it's because the entire ecosystem needed to support next gen manufacturing is more functional elsewhere. If we want to change that, the answer isn't punitive tariffs or industrial cosplay. It's targeted investments in infrastructure, skills, and regulatory reform, the very solutions you continually dismiss in favor of short-term coercion. We've put the cart so far ahead of the horse we could face unintended loss of market share as other countries rebalance and we're left with empty rhetorics and years from actual productive capacity.

LOL you are imputing what your argument needs. Hasn't Trump said something about energy dominance, reopening coal plants, turning the EPA into an agency that will help propel growht, etc....? (might not the messaging we do hear belie an agenda to make precisely the changes you cite (correctly) as necessary?) Why do you assume such is NOT happening?
"Hasn't Trump said something" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Oh he's said plenty. About energy dominance, coal, the EPA, even tariffs paying down the national debt and replacing the income tax. You're confusing rhetorical posture with strategic execution. Deregulation and industrial reinvestment don't magically happen because someone tweeted about coal. Real reform means overhauling permitting timelines, environmental reviews, zoning codes, labor credentialing, and skills pipelines, none of which have been meaningfully addressed, let alone reformed, under this administration's chaotic approach. The aforementioned actually requires Congress, and negotiation, and strategic coordination. Enough bombast, let's get to the real work.

LOL we've built an advantage by being an enormous consumer markets that our trade partners cannot do without.....each of them face economic calamity if frozen out of our markets. yes. That is power. But it is not a sustainable position long-term. It is the "too big to fail" model.....a customer that owes so much to the bank that the bankers cannot abandon it without running existential risk.
Ah yes, the "too big to fail" customer theory, as if being the center of global consumption, investment, and innovation is somehow a liability rather than a strength. You're describing what the rest of the world calls leverage. The same leverage that if we didn't have, Trump could just as well be yelling into the ocean in his tariff efforts.

The U.S. economy thrives because it is capital rich, highly productive, and structurally diversified, not because it's trying to match every nation unit-for-unit in basic production. We've built value by leading in design, IP, high-value manufacturing, software, biotech, aerospace, defense systems, cloud infrastructure, and more. These are sectors that not only pay far more than mass assembly labor, but define the global economy. We don't need to replicate Bangladesh's industrial model to remain dominant. We need to maintain what works, and strategically invest where it matters, not burn it all down out of some populist fantasy that economic power only counts if it's pouring molten steel.

Again, you are simply in over your head. How can you not see that the trade deficit facilitates financing of the budget deficit? The trade deficit creates an ocean of surplus dollars abroad seeking a place to call home - T-bills, stocks, bonds, real estate, etc... Surplus USD is what fed the sub-prime crisis.....we were running out of assets to facilitate capital in-flow, to the point we started putting literal junk....loans no sane banker would ever make unless coerced to do so....into mortgage backed securities.
Buddy, you're so lost you're making up invented causations. Invoking the subprime crisis as a byproduct of trade flows? LOL, that's straight fiction. That meltdown was caused by loose domestic credit standards, regulatory blind spots, and financial engineering run amok, not because we imported too many Hyundai Elantras. You're assigning global macro blame to local greed and misregulation. I think it's time to burn your business degrees and maybe catch some classes that understand the world economy after the Internet was deployed.

LOL again, "tell me you don't understand the subject material without saying you don't understand the subject material.
Listen, if you had a serious counterpoint, you'd offer it. But you didn't. Because deep down, you probably know I'm right, you just can't say it out loud without undercutting the whole house of cards argument you've built around tariffs solving problems they were never designed to. The debt crisis in the U.S. is driven by structural entitlement spending, excessive discretionary spending, and a stagnant tax base, not trade deficits. That's not a controversial take, it's fiscal policy 101.

They're not stumbling over it. They stomping it flat as a pancake, because it no longer well serves the common good of the American people.
You're not "stomping" anything flat, you're bulldozing with your eyes closed and calling it vision.

LOL the wish-casting is thinking that continuing to do the same kinds of negotiation within the current model is going to generate different, much less transformative results.
No, the actual wish-casting is believing that lobbing tariffs like grenades while improvising policy on the fly is somehow going to produce a coherent economic renaissance. What you call "transformation" is just chaos in a nice suit. I've been clear about the need for reform with strategic reshoring in critical industries, workforce upskilling, regulatory modernization, and infrastructure investment. That's how you drive transformation. What I reject is the fantasy that disruption for disruption's sake, with no plan, no timelines, no metrics is anything but political theater.

So you say there will be some benefits, but if they don't match the rhetoric they're a failure? (you're flailing....)
No, pointing out the gap between political bluster and actual outcomes isn't flailing, it's basic accountability. When you promise a revolution and deliver a marginal renegotiation, people are allowed to ask what happened to the rest of the plan.

I've said all along some investment? Great. Lower foreign tariffs? Fantastic. But let's not confuse tactical scraps for strategic victories. What you're flailing at is trying to retroactively scale down expectations to match reality, while pretending it was the plan all along. It wasn't. You're selling "industrial revival" and "tariff driven rebalancing." What we're getting is selective reshuffling, higher consumer prices, and a confused policy landscape.

It validates what I have said here repeatedly - "trade policy always serves national security policy." Yes, it would have been nice if we could have brought those jobs home, but we did not have the sills base and infrastructure to do so on such short notice. Soon, thanks to $8T+ in announced foreign investments in (disproportionately tech) production, will be able to do so. But forcing those jobs out of China NOW was a huge win for the US. It was a flexing of muscles to remind our adversary to be very, very careful.
Ah, so now moving Apple's supply chain from China to India, not the U.S., is suddenly a "huge win" for the United States? That's a stretch even for this debate. Certainly a positive but you're stretching for wins. If anything, it underscores the limits of tariffs. They didn't bring jobs home, they rerouted them to the next lowest cost, scalable option. And about that $8 trillion in "announced" investment? Let's be honest, those numbers are inflated political confetti. Much of it is going toward data centers, AI, and automation heavy projects that generate capital efficiency, not widespread job creation. Foreign investment is great, but you don't get to count that as proof of domestic manufacturing revival and complain that we're selling off equity to foreigners in the same breath.

No, it's just shaking you by the collar to quit regurgitating mantras about how globalism will cure all ills at no cost whatsoever.
If there's a collar to shake, it's the one of anyone still buying into the fantasy that slapping tariffs on allies, driving up costs for Americans, and disrupting capital flows will somehow revive a 1950s economic model in a 2025 world. I've put forward actual reform ideas which I won't repeat for the 25th time. You just put forward slogans and a "trust me, it'll work" playbook. Only one of us is thinking beyond the bumper sticker.

We are indeed powerful, but it is because of consumption, not production, and that is an imbalance which we cannot continue. China outstrips us in steel & shipbuilding by margins that are dire and imminent strategic threats. And that is a symptom of a broader problem....we can't rifle-shot a fix for the steel & ships problem unless we just tariff ourselves a protected bubble, in which we would indeed risk the pathologies you have cited about tariffs. We have to work more broadly to bring substantial percentages of production back home. Not all of it. just enough to get to an overall trade balance.
You're right about one thing. This is a broader problem. But your proposed solution of trying to tariff our way back to industrial glory is the economic equivalent of using duct tape to fix a leaking dam.

As for steel and shipbuilding, let's cut through the nostalgia. Those industries declined not because of sabotage or neglect but because other countries outproduced and outsubsidized us, and our economy evolved toward more efficient and high-value sectors. Want to regain some strategic domestic capacity? Fine, especially in defense. Then focus on the real levers, deregulation, permitting reform, skills training, and R&D. Oh yeah, how about some new legislation directing defense dollars in that direction? You claim we can't "rifle-shot" the fix, but that's exactly what's needed, strategic precision, not economic carpet bombing.

LOL why is it ok for others to engage in mercantilism against us and wrong for us to resist it, to try to create a more level field for competition? The trade deficit, its length, size, and its trend, is hardly a sign of strength, it's a sign of economic dysfunction, distress, destruction....
you are correct to cite that the world economy is a big & complicated thing. You are wrong to presume that we cannot change it to our benefit. Doing so cannot be done with an exacto knife. We've got to swing a sledge hammer to crack loose the rusty bolts of an enormous superstructure operating to our disadvantage. I mean, we run a $235B trade deficit with the EU, give them US equities to pay for it, then have to spend borrowed money to go defend the EU from the Houthis. How can we miss the irony in that...?

We cannot fail at this, and we will not. Trump is right on the big picture. He is right on the tactics of how to get there. Watch & wait. "Golden Age of America" is good political messaging for the masses, the kind of narrative building that any successful movement must do. In reality, he's indeed building a new world order.....the old one in which I got a BBA and an MBA is receiving a long-overdue coup d'grace. A new one is going to emerge. Historic times. If you don't quit *****ing, you'll miss it.
Trump as architect of a "new world order," complete with a sledgehammer in one hand and a YouTube diploma in the other. It's amazing how often "strategic brilliance" looks exactly like improvisation, chaos, and economic volatility, but hey, slap "historic times" on it and call it a renaissance.

Let's start with your continued mercantilism dodge. No one's saying we can't always work to improve our position in the global economy. Heck, running an international business, I do it all the time. Nor that we shouldn't push back on unfair trade practices. We do through WTO cases, bilateral agreements, export controls, CFIUS reviews, and strategic investment. But the answer isn't to become the thing you're criticizing, like blanket tariffs, economic self isolation, and "if they cheat, so can we" policies, which are how weak nations like China react, not leaders. And swinging a sledgehammer at the global system that made us the most powerful economy in history is the height of reckless populist theater.

You want a trade surplus with the EU? Make products they need, at competitive prices, under regulatory regimes that don't chase investment away. But no, instead we blame our allies while continuing to flood federal spending through entitlements no one wants to touch and pretending like a trade deficit is what broke the piggy bank.

If your best pitch is, "trust the chaos, it's historic," you've already lost the economic argument.

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So many misunderstandings and misrepresentations in there. For example, my point about our rise to be the arsenal of democracy. We became that BEFORE World War II, in an era when we ran structural trade surpluses. And remained so for two decades thereafter. We were wise enough to realize that we could not do it alone and built a globalist system to lift war-torn economies out of the ashes and build more free societies in the third world. That required us share the wealth...to open our economy effectively the way Milton Friedman recommended - unilateral free trade. We didn't demand reciprocity. Policy actually encouraged offshoring of jobs. There were reasons we did it, and benefits for doing it. Best of all, IT WORKED. We won the Cold War. Communism did not engulf the planet. But no matter how hard you try to ignore it, globalism has real costs for us and it makes no sense to continue to bear those costs it in a post Cold War world. And as we stand on the precipice of what may very well be a new "industrial revolution" (the rise of AI and robotics), we cannot just plan to buy what robots build elsewhere in exchange for ever greater shares of equity in our public and private debt. That is not a sustainable model. Today, the arsenal of democracy is a shell of its former self. Our main adversary has 53% of global shipbuilding capacity. that is a five-alarm fire for a country with 11 carrier battle groups.

You understand globalism well and are quite facile in defending it, but are unable to see how bizarre those arguments can get. You are correct to note that the Chinese export-led model which ignores its own societal needs is a brittle system, but completely miss the converse - that the US model of structural trade deficits ALSO ignores societal needs is an unsustainable system. You are positioning trade surpluses as an undesirable thing that no developed country could or would ever want to endure, almost a sign of weakness. You are arguing that there is no consequence to unending and escalating trade deficits, no matter how much of our equity we ship abroad to pay for those trade deficits....completely suspending the laws of supply/demand. You understand the importance of the strong dollar in maintaining a globalist order, yet are completely oblivious to the threat that escalating structural trade deficits pose to the value of the dollar, ergo the globalist order itself. Our trade partners are under no such illusions. They understand that our structural and escalating trade deficits are not sustainable and are a threat to their own well-being. As long as they hold USD in their national asset portfolio, they have a vested interest in help us get back into balance. THAT is why we will indeed secure agreements which improve our balance of trade. First one has apparently happened. It will lead to more. So sad. ATL Bear will have to endure balanced trade. Boo hoo.

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Oh I fully understood your "Arsenal of Democracy" quip. I was just moving forward to post war realities. So let me unpack it for you even further. First, you confuse causation with correlation. Yes, the U.S. ran trade surpluses in the early 20th century. But that wasn't because tariffs made us great, it was because Europe was still fighting wars, and we had barons building monopolies and exerting their power over government due to our closed economy and mixed bag currency structure. It was a historical anomaly, not a replicable model for 2025. You're romanticizing an era before global supply chains, before financial liberalization, before international services markets, before modern logistics. You know what else didn't exist back then? Containerized shipping. Commercial air cargo. Integrated capital markets. SWIFT banking. Digital payments. And the global standardization of the U.S. dollar. The entire economic architecture is different.

Simply put, tariffs and surpluses worked in a world where economic activity was localized, slow moving, and low in complexity.
you are making the case that trade didn't matter as much in the 20th century because of rudimentary "architecture." In fact, trade has always mattered. Trade balance matters. Defense of strategic resources & industries matters. And protecting jobs from unfair competition matters. A lot. Always has, always will, regardless of "architecture."

But once the U.S. helped rebuild the postwar world, liberalize trade, and enable real-time goods, capital, and data exchange across borders, that entire framework was outdated.
LOL. you have in other places rejected my assertion that we created globalism on purpose with policy steps to facilitate it. yet here you are now making exactly that case. I say again, there is no free trade. All trade occurs within frameworks negotiated between sovereign powers. By definition, policy affects, and in some cases directly causes trade surpluses/deficits.

The rise of services, IP, tech, and digital finance created such a massive leap in productivity and global value that tariffs couldn't possibly carry the weight of economic activity or national revenue anymore.
That's why we got an income tax. That's why every advanced economy relies on diversified tax bases now.
There's the cause/effect error. Leaps in productivity do not render tariffs an irrelevant revenue source. What makes tariffs an irrelevant revenue source are massive, structural trade SURPLUSES.

Now on your dollar argument, of course I understand the value of a strong dollar. More importantly I understand the importance of what maintains it as a reserve currency, whereas you don't seem to. This may be the source of your fundamental misunderstanding of foreign capital inflows from trade. The U.S. dollar's role as the world's reserve currency means that even when dollars aren't directly reinvested into U.S. assets, they still circulate globally as the primary settlement mechanism for international trade, from oil to commodities to financial contracts. That alone sustains demand for dollars regardless of our trade balance. More importantly, the U.S. runs a productive trade deficit, one driven by strong domestic consumption, investment, and capital access, not by economic weakness (destructive deficit). The problem isn't the existence of a trade deficit, it's what underlies it. As long as the U.S. remains a magnet for global capital and maintains robust domestic demand (which fuels our domestic production and GDP growth), the deficit reflects strength. Only if we lose either, if consumption falters or our economic dynamism erodes, does that imbalance become a true vulnerability. You can doomsday the dollar all you want, but there is no sustained appetite to divest from dollar based assets, not even from China. Unless of course we force the world to do so via an irrational trade war, or (a real issue) our fiscal malfeasance via government deficit spending,
Reading comprehension error - I have not only stated all of that, I have explained how it insulates the USD from the supply/demand pressure that trade deficits generate. EVERY ONE of the countries with which we have trade deficits have a vested interest in maintaining the value of the dollar.....because they hold so many USDs in their national reserves. Classical free trade theory says that trade deficits are supposed to reduce the value of a currency sufficiently to make that country's goods less expensive, increasing demand for them, moving the trade back toward balance. (and same dynamic in reverse on trade surpluses). That by definition cannot happen with the USD, because so many entities, sovereign and private, have vested interests in maintaining its value. That's all well & good for US purchasing power, but if left unaddressed over decades, deindustrialization occurs.....the economy will transistion from production to service orientation. I mean, that is all Trade 101 textbook stuff. The only way to side step that is to negotiate specific bilateral agreements whereby the surplus countries agree to purchase certain types of US goods to keep the surpluses & deficits closer to balance over time. (which of course is exactly what Trump is doing, using the carrot of negotations and the stick of tariffs to execute). Textbook trade policy structure.....

Taking into account the aforementioned, let's tie in current policy rhetoric (reality is elusive) and why I continue to argue against it. Much to yours and the administrations incorrect positioning, the U.S. has a massive, wealthy, and growing domestic economy that consumes more goods and services than it produces within its borders. That's been framed as a weakness when in fact it's a feature of being the central node of the global economy.
It is a weakness because it focuses consumption rather than production.
It is a weakness because it makes us dependent on others for production.
It is a weakness because it relegates labor to lower wage service jobs rather than higher wage production jobs.
Production of goods matters.

But even if I accepted this "realignment" perspective, What this administration is doing is economically backward. It launched a trade war that raises prices globally, while simultaneously hiking costs for American consumers at home, fueling inflation from both ends (domestic and global). That also is a demand depressor (remember consumption as a strength?) which strikes not just us, the worlds greatest customer, it strikes everybody (hello Smoot Hawley remake). But here's the real kick in the teeth, and the most backward part of it. We don't have the domestic production base to absorb the disruption. No labor pool, no factories, no regulatory overhaul, no skills pipeline. We're slamming the brakes on demand and cutting off supply at the same time. That's insanity!
No, the insanity is thinking that we could have done this a different way. All Trump has done is put up enormous tariffs to signal that the status quo is not going to continue and invite interested parties to regnegotiate. And such is occurring. Everything you said about our production base limitations applied also to China in 2020. But we changed policies and a 20 year transformation of their economy began. Your arguments studiously avoid addressing what changes WE need to make to spark a 20yr transformation of our own economy.

Even if you believe rebalancing trade is necessary, there's nothing in place to rebalance to. The demand we're trying to redirect from China isn't coming home, it's going elsewhere, to places like India, Vietnam, and Mexico, where capacity exists, just like Apple did. It's like burning down your house now because you think you might get blueprints for a new one in five years. The damage is real, the timeline is completely misaligned, and the result is entirely avoidable.
See above. You have false dilemma woven all throughout your arguments. No one is saying ALL production is going to come home next year. I have purposefully (and repeatedly) said we are going to move a bigger percentage of our supply chains back home. And that is already happening. It will not happen all at once. But, over the next decade, we will see 25-50 percent of off-shore production return home. More importantly, we will be the center of tech, particularly AI development and robotic production. (there is a reason why so big tech is part of the current Trump coalition).

My hope is that Trump takes a political soft landing, negotiates down tariffs with trading partners, spikes the political football, and we get back stability and not this chaotic volatility,
Why would anyone presume that is not his goal, or that it is not going to happen?
But the same question immediately reappears. What are we exporting, and how are we going to compete? Without the domestic production scale, innovation incentives, or upskilled workforce to take advantage of those market openings, we're negotiating access to a stage we're not prepared to perform on. I just hope we're all not crying after the performance.

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Again, you understand the argument for globalism very well, but you are blind to to the fact that it was carefully designed and implemented over decades, imputing an economic libertarianism to it....that it sprang to life on its own, just corporations engaged in free market activity building the best supply chains it can.

You are also blind to globalism's failings. It is not sustainable, at least for the USA. Trade deficits do matter. We have to give away national equity to finance them. That diminishes our long-term future.....sending ever greater amounts of rents to foreign entities, amounts which could be used to invest in our own production. And, of course, it gutted the middle class.

I mean, you are arguing that trade deficits have made us the richest and most powerful country in the world. If that were the case, all of our trade partners would have long-ago launched a trade war against us demanding that we export more to them than we buy from them.........

-Chinese buy Teslas but Americans can't buy BYD
-Chinese buy iPhones but Americans can't buy Huawei
-Chinese buy Starbucks but Americans can't buy Luckin
-There are more KFC restaurants in China than USA

China has been open to American businesses for over 40 years. In fact every… https://t.co/m6GnU7R6Rt

— Cyrus Janssen (@thecyrusjanssen) May 11, 2025

BREAKING: U.S. has reportedly struck a trade deal with China following discussions involving Scott Bessent. pic.twitter.com/00saqe5uOl

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) May 11, 2025

🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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Here's hoping.

The White House claimed in a news release Sunday that the "U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva," but it has not provided any details on an agreement.

Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland over the weekend, as both sides appear eager to ease economic hostilities.

BREAKING: U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva pic.twitter.com/JjgvYAvAGe

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 11, 2025

Assassin said:

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Porteroso said:

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boognish_bear said:

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BREAKING: US weighs plan to decrease Chinese tariffs to as low as 50%, down from 145%, as soon as next week, per NYP

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 8, 2025

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I'm wondering what all the right wingers are thinking here. Seems like we are totally giving into China. I thought Trump was going to play hardball until China agreed to play fairer on the international stage. Is there some alternate explanation? Seems like Trump is losing this one.

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Fixing Biden's screwups is what the world is thinking. BIden let China run roughshod over the USA so anything is an improvement

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Didn't Biden increase the tariffs on China, more than Trump had? What do you mean by let them run roughshod?

Assassin said:

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If you want to know the truth about the impact President Trump's UK trade deal is going to have, don't ask a political pundit — ask an American farmer.

We are opening up a market for agriculture and beef producers that they've never had before.

That's a WIN. pic.twitter.com/nvB1ntTrek

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) May 9, 2025

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Something like 75% of American beef is juiced up with hormones, and that will remain illegal to import into the UK. But I do think it is a great step. That percentage is slowly falling.

Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

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we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

whiterock said:

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Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

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we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

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Had it been up to many on this forum Trump would have never threatened tariffs at all.

And we would still be facing China (and many other countries) engaging in unfair trade practices

This is going to be an amazing week!!!!!

The Trump admin and their media handlers are overstating what occurred and the Chinese ministers and media are understating it meaning it's somewhere in the middle. Likely still a bit of work to do. Joint statement will be interesting to see.

Xi was with Putin this weekend, just FYI.

whiterock said:

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Porteroso said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

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we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

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No, metaphors, suppositions or rhetoric what are the details? You stating they caved is not a trade deal. What are the particulars? How are we better off and who is benefiting?

If you talk to the American farmer, the UK deal sucks. So, what did we win?

whiterock said:

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Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

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we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

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What? So this is a trade deal? It was described as a tariff reset to begin negotiations. It seems Trump caved. You guys say we hold all the cards, so if that is true, you negotiate while applying pressure. This reduces pressure.

Of course, the political pressure on the GOP is immense as well, but it just seems like giving up on the idea that tariffs will result in good trade deals.

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ATL Bear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Your posting style is as antiquated as your economic theories. Sorry to everyone else for the TL;DR, but this political spin and long debunked arguments devoid of any understanding of modern economies and realities needed to be dissected piece by piece.

A short periods of deficits followed by periods of trade surpluses is not a sign of economic weakness. It's the natural order. An escalating structural trade deficit of +50 years is a sign of economic DISTRESS.
You keep repeating the phrase "50 years of trade deficits = economic distress" as if it's a self-evident truth. But let's actually test that against reality. Over the last 50 years, the exact period you're calling economic distress, the United States has quadrupled its real GDP, led the world in innovation, tech, and productivity, attracted more global capital than any other country, maintained the world's reserve currency and deepest capital markets, seen stock market valuations and wealth creation explode, and we have greater manufacturing output on a real level than any point in our history. That's not distress. That's a reflection of our economic strength specifically the strength of our internal consumption, capital access, and stability. We run trade deficits not because we're weak, but because the world wants to invest here more than we want to export. That's a privilege, not a pathology.


And if trade surpluses are the real metric of national health, then maybe you'd like to trade places with Russia or Venezuela. They've run surpluses. How's their "economic vitality" working out? Let's deal in facts not economic nostalgia dressed up as wisdom.

I don't think you realize it, but you just acknowledged what the textbooks say about export-led growth = powerful, sustainable, transformative. If it can transform a poor country with cheap labor, weak currency, and a limited domestic market into a peer competitor of the mightiest nation on earth in scarcely more than 20 years, imagine what it could do for a stronger country! Trade surpluses did not cause the Chinese pathologies you cite. Poor policy decisions did. They chose to invest enormous sums to build their military into a peer competitor of the mightiest nation on earth, rather than build a consumer market. More importantly, they continued the folly of central economic planning.
You're conflating causation with correlation. Export led growth worked for China because it was a poor country (still is in many categories), not in spite of that fact. When you're starting from the bottom, export surpluses can jumpstart industrialization, especially if you have cheap labor, weak currency, and minimal domestic demand. That's not a model for advanced economies. In fact whatever magical outcome you think tariffs are going to create, we will still have SIGNIFICANT trade deficits even after whatever rebalancing occurs, perhaps even more, because our demand way outpaces our capacity.

China's current unraveling is tied to that model. Export dependence without domestic consumption capacity is a brittle system. The moment global demand shifts or geopolitical risks rise, their economy suffers.

Because what we're doing is not sustainable. It is not trade. It is just consumption financed by giving away equity in our assets.
This is straight insanity built around the political lie of how poor things are going for Americans, including middle class and blue collar Americans. You're describing a system that has powered unprecedented wealth creation, global stability, and American dominance for over half a century, and labeling it unsustainable without actual evidence (not political platitudes) it's failing. Running trade deficits is trade. We exchange dollars, which the world demands as the reserve currency, for goods and services. In return, foreign capital flows back into the U.S. to buy treasuries, equities, real estate, or to invest in American businesses. That's not "giving away equity," it's a global vote of confidence in U.S. assets and institutions. Not to mention capital in-flows that creates jobs, just like the type you like to brag about Trump bringing in.

If this arrangement were inherently unsustainable, we would have seen structural decay. Instead, we've seen the U.S. lead the world in GDP growth, capital inflows, technological innovation, and market liquidity. What you're criticizing isn't a flaw, it's a feature of being the financial and consumption center of the global economy.

Tell us you do not understand the subject material without saying you do not understand the subject material. Trade is LESS important to us than our trading partners, for the reason you cited (85% domestic consumption). The problem with the capital inflows is that they involve a loss of equity that escalates pressure on the foundation of the globalist model - the strong dollar. At. Some, Point. the house of cards will collapse. We have to create products to attract foreign held dollars rather than offering up ever greater shares of equities. "Goods for equity" is not trade. It's payment for consumption.
I don't understand the subject?? Are you reading yourself? You say trade is less important to us than to our partners (agreed), then in the same breath act like our entire economic system is teetering on collapse because of a trade deficit that's been with us for five decades… during which we've become the global financial, technological, and investment powerhouse. WTH?? I guess it goes back to your fundamental misunderstanding of the economic reality that we produce Trillions in goods and services that bring in an even greater amount of foreign investment (Trump didn't invent that), not to mention much of it being the same dollars used to purchase imports. What do you think makes up that 85%?? Do you not understand that we're producing and consuming within our borders 85% of our total economic activity? That 85% is more GDP than any country in the world by a matter of several trillions of dollars to the closest (China).

What you cite is not a contradiction. It's a fallacy built on the absolutely insane premise that trade deficits are such a good thing that we must not only continue them but grow them as high as we can! The more we have, the richer we become! (because of all the things we got from handing equity over to foreign interests).
What a complete misrepresentation. No one is saying we should drive trade deficits as high as we can, or that we should aim to maximize them, that's your strawman. What I've pointed out is that trade deficits, particularly for a large, consumption-driven, capital-attracting economy like the U.S., are not inherently destructive. They're a byproduct of our strength, not a symptom of decay.

And again, you still haven't answered the contradiction. If trade is a small portion of our economy, how is the trade deficit supposedly destroying it? You can't say trade is marginal and existential at the same time unless your entire argument is driven by populist talking points rather than economic understanding.

More theory, with implicit assumption that other countries never take any steps (currency, tariffs, quotas, subsidies, etc...) to restrict our imports or propel their exports. Tariffs reshape demand, to offset unfair trading practices. They give our industries a chance to recover, to grow, to become more efficient, etc..... China does not have the same cost advantage they had 30 years ago. Mexico either. And, of course, Canada and Japan and EU have no inherent labor cost advantage over us at all. I mean, stand back and look at how silly your point is. We were a trade surplus production oriented economy with high tariffs throughout our rise the the mightiest country on earth....the "arsenal of democracy." We didn't have then all those pathologies China has now, did we? I mean, history laughs at what you're trying to sell here.
Theory? You're arguing policy from an outdated library book. You're leaning hard on a romanticized version of U.S. economic history while sidestepping the very real, structural consequences of tariffs in today's globally integrated economy. No one is denying that countries use tools to influence trade, what I'm saying is that the modern global supply chain doesn't respond well to brute force policies like blanket tariffs, because the U.S. economy is now deeply intertwined with those supply chains in ways it wasn't during the 1940s.

Your comparison to the "arsenal of democracy" era is laughably outdated. Back then, the world was rebuilding, we had no global competition, labor costs were artificially low, and we weren't operating in real-time global markets optimized around logistics, speed, and scale. That world doesn't exist anymore.

And no, tariffs don't just "reshape demand", they distort it. They inject cost and uncertainty into systems that rely on efficiency and predictability. A few percentage points of input cost on a key component sourced abroad can ripple through a company's pricing, margins, and ultimately its ability to hire or invest. We're seeing that in real time. And that's before we even talk about retaliation, lost exports, or missed investment due to uncertainty. But the problem to be solved is our competitiveness. Most tariff structures into other countries are relatively low. But we still can't compete unless we produce locally, including in Europe and Asia. Lower tariffs from foreign countries will actually accelerate that, just like with Apple, as it will lower the cost of importing inputs, so producing locally is more economical.

And why is that? Must it always be so? Are you really saying we have no hope of ever making red iron again?
You're proving my point again by skipping over the why and diving headfirst into the what if. The reason we don't have scalable domestic alternatives for many goods isn't because we've somehow forgotten how to produce "red iron," it's because the economics, infrastructure, workforce, and regulatory landscape no longer support it.

Reviving heavy industrial production in the U.S. isn't as simple as waving a tariff wand and chanting "Make Iron Great Again." We're decades removed from the capital investments, skilled labor pipelines, permitting frameworks, and environmental standards that would even make such industries feasible here again. And more importantly, we've moved up the value chain (including in steel). The U.S. specializes in advanced manufacturing, high-value services, and intellectual property precisely because those are our comparative strengths in a modern economy.

You keep pining for a version of America that was built for the 1940s war machine, not the realities of 2025. If you're serious about re-industrializing, start with proposals for skills training, infrastructure overhaul, and regulatory reform. Until then, stop pretending tariffs will magically bring back a supply chain we no longer have and no longer need in the same form.

Never? Why will our robots be more costly to run than Chinese robots? Why must we PLAN on using our AI to design automated production lines in someone else's country?
Thank you again for reinforcing my argument. Yes, automation is the future. Yes, robots, AI, and capital-intensive manufacturing are where things are headed. But here's the part you keep skipping, those sectors don't generate the broad-based, blue-collar job resurgence you keep fantasizing about. They create high-skill, high-efficiency operations with minimal labor input. If you'll simply acknowledge that particular point at least I know we're speaking a similar language.

And if you think it's just a matter of flipping a switch to "robot mode," you've clearly never had to navigate the U.S. regulatory jungle, infrastructure gaps, workforce training shortfalls, or permitting delays. That's why companies building AI driven production lines in the U.S. are still struggling with cost overruns, staffing gaps, and productivity inefficiencies. TSMC in Arizona being exhibit A.

The very reason many of these investments happen abroad isn't because we can't build robots, it's because the entire ecosystem needed to support next gen manufacturing is more functional elsewhere. If we want to change that, the answer isn't punitive tariffs or industrial cosplay. It's targeted investments in infrastructure, skills, and regulatory reform, the very solutions you continually dismiss in favor of short-term coercion. We've put the cart so far ahead of the horse we could face unintended loss of market share as other countries rebalance and we're left with empty rhetorics and years from actual productive capacity.

LOL you are imputing what your argument needs. Hasn't Trump said something about energy dominance, reopening coal plants, turning the EPA into an agency that will help propel growht, etc....? (might not the messaging we do hear belie an agenda to make precisely the changes you cite (correctly) as necessary?) Why do you assume such is NOT happening?
"Hasn't Trump said something" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Oh he's said plenty. About energy dominance, coal, the EPA, even tariffs paying down the national debt and replacing the income tax. You're confusing rhetorical posture with strategic execution. Deregulation and industrial reinvestment don't magically happen because someone tweeted about coal. Real reform means overhauling permitting timelines, environmental reviews, zoning codes, labor credentialing, and skills pipelines, none of which have been meaningfully addressed, let alone reformed, under this administration's chaotic approach. The aforementioned actually requires Congress, and negotiation, and strategic coordination. Enough bombast, let's get to the real work.

LOL we've built an advantage by being an enormous consumer markets that our trade partners cannot do without.....each of them face economic calamity if frozen out of our markets. yes. That is power. But it is not a sustainable position long-term. It is the "too big to fail" model.....a customer that owes so much to the bank that the bankers cannot abandon it without running existential risk.
Ah yes, the "too big to fail" customer theory, as if being the center of global consumption, investment, and innovation is somehow a liability rather than a strength. You're describing what the rest of the world calls leverage. The same leverage that if we didn't have, Trump could just as well be yelling into the ocean in his tariff efforts.

The U.S. economy thrives because it is capital rich, highly productive, and structurally diversified, not because it's trying to match every nation unit-for-unit in basic production. We've built value by leading in design, IP, high-value manufacturing, software, biotech, aerospace, defense systems, cloud infrastructure, and more. These are sectors that not only pay far more than mass assembly labor, but define the global economy. We don't need to replicate Bangladesh's industrial model to remain dominant. We need to maintain what works, and strategically invest where it matters, not burn it all down out of some populist fantasy that economic power only counts if it's pouring molten steel.

Again, you are simply in over your head. How can you not see that the trade deficit facilitates financing of the budget deficit? The trade deficit creates an ocean of surplus dollars abroad seeking a place to call home - T-bills, stocks, bonds, real estate, etc... Surplus USD is what fed the sub-prime crisis.....we were running out of assets to facilitate capital in-flow, to the point we started putting literal junk....loans no sane banker would ever make unless coerced to do so....into mortgage backed securities.
Buddy, you're so lost you're making up invented causations. Invoking the subprime crisis as a byproduct of trade flows? LOL, that's straight fiction. That meltdown was caused by loose domestic credit standards, regulatory blind spots, and financial engineering run amok, not because we imported too many Hyundai Elantras. You're assigning global macro blame to local greed and misregulation. I think it's time to burn your business degrees and maybe catch some classes that understand the world economy after the Internet was deployed.

LOL again, "tell me you don't understand the subject material without saying you don't understand the subject material.
Listen, if you had a serious counterpoint, you'd offer it. But you didn't. Because deep down, you probably know I'm right, you just can't say it out loud without undercutting the whole house of cards argument you've built around tariffs solving problems they were never designed to. The debt crisis in the U.S. is driven by structural entitlement spending, excessive discretionary spending, and a stagnant tax base, not trade deficits. That's not a controversial take, it's fiscal policy 101.

They're not stumbling over it. They stomping it flat as a pancake, because it no longer well serves the common good of the American people.
You're not "stomping" anything flat, you're bulldozing with your eyes closed and calling it vision.

LOL the wish-casting is thinking that continuing to do the same kinds of negotiation within the current model is going to generate different, much less transformative results.
No, the actual wish-casting is believing that lobbing tariffs like grenades while improvising policy on the fly is somehow going to produce a coherent economic renaissance. What you call "transformation" is just chaos in a nice suit. I've been clear about the need for reform with strategic reshoring in critical industries, workforce upskilling, regulatory modernization, and infrastructure investment. That's how you drive transformation. What I reject is the fantasy that disruption for disruption's sake, with no plan, no timelines, no metrics is anything but political theater.

So you say there will be some benefits, but if they don't match the rhetoric they're a failure? (you're flailing....)
No, pointing out the gap between political bluster and actual outcomes isn't flailing, it's basic accountability. When you promise a revolution and deliver a marginal renegotiation, people are allowed to ask what happened to the rest of the plan.

I've said all along some investment? Great. Lower foreign tariffs? Fantastic. But let's not confuse tactical scraps for strategic victories. What you're flailing at is trying to retroactively scale down expectations to match reality, while pretending it was the plan all along. It wasn't. You're selling "industrial revival" and "tariff driven rebalancing." What we're getting is selective reshuffling, higher consumer prices, and a confused policy landscape.

It validates what I have said here repeatedly - "trade policy always serves national security policy." Yes, it would have been nice if we could have brought those jobs home, but we did not have the sills base and infrastructure to do so on such short notice. Soon, thanks to $8T+ in announced foreign investments in (disproportionately tech) production, will be able to do so. But forcing those jobs out of China NOW was a huge win for the US. It was a flexing of muscles to remind our adversary to be very, very careful.
Ah, so now moving Apple's supply chain from China to India, not the U.S., is suddenly a "huge win" for the United States? That's a stretch even for this debate. Certainly a positive but you're stretching for wins. If anything, it underscores the limits of tariffs. They didn't bring jobs home, they rerouted them to the next lowest cost, scalable option. And about that $8 trillion in "announced" investment? Let's be honest, those numbers are inflated political confetti. Much of it is going toward data centers, AI, and automation heavy projects that generate capital efficiency, not widespread job creation. Foreign investment is great, but you don't get to count that as proof of domestic manufacturing revival and complain that we're selling off equity to foreigners in the same breath.

No, it's just shaking you by the collar to quit regurgitating mantras about how globalism will cure all ills at no cost whatsoever.
If there's a collar to shake, it's the one of anyone still buying into the fantasy that slapping tariffs on allies, driving up costs for Americans, and disrupting capital flows will somehow revive a 1950s economic model in a 2025 world. I've put forward actual reform ideas which I won't repeat for the 25th time. You just put forward slogans and a "trust me, it'll work" playbook. Only one of us is thinking beyond the bumper sticker.

We are indeed powerful, but it is because of consumption, not production, and that is an imbalance which we cannot continue. China outstrips us in steel & shipbuilding by margins that are dire and imminent strategic threats. And that is a symptom of a broader problem....we can't rifle-shot a fix for the steel & ships problem unless we just tariff ourselves a protected bubble, in which we would indeed risk the pathologies you have cited about tariffs. We have to work more broadly to bring substantial percentages of production back home. Not all of it. just enough to get to an overall trade balance.
You're right about one thing. This is a broader problem. But your proposed solution of trying to tariff our way back to industrial glory is the economic equivalent of using duct tape to fix a leaking dam.

As for steel and shipbuilding, let's cut through the nostalgia. Those industries declined not because of sabotage or neglect but because other countries outproduced and outsubsidized us, and our economy evolved toward more efficient and high-value sectors. Want to regain some strategic domestic capacity? Fine, especially in defense. Then focus on the real levers, deregulation, permitting reform, skills training, and R&D. Oh yeah, how about some new legislation directing defense dollars in that direction? You claim we can't "rifle-shot" the fix, but that's exactly what's needed, strategic precision, not economic carpet bombing.

LOL why is it ok for others to engage in mercantilism against us and wrong for us to resist it, to try to create a more level field for competition? The trade deficit, its length, size, and its trend, is hardly a sign of strength, it's a sign of economic dysfunction, distress, destruction....
you are correct to cite that the world economy is a big & complicated thing. You are wrong to presume that we cannot change it to our benefit. Doing so cannot be done with an exacto knife. We've got to swing a sledge hammer to crack loose the rusty bolts of an enormous superstructure operating to our disadvantage. I mean, we run a $235B trade deficit with the EU, give them US equities to pay for it, then have to spend borrowed money to go defend the EU from the Houthis. How can we miss the irony in that...?

We cannot fail at this, and we will not. Trump is right on the big picture. He is right on the tactics of how to get there. Watch & wait. "Golden Age of America" is good political messaging for the masses, the kind of narrative building that any successful movement must do. In reality, he's indeed building a new world order.....the old one in which I got a BBA and an MBA is receiving a long-overdue coup d'grace. A new one is going to emerge. Historic times. If you don't quit *****ing, you'll miss it.
Trump as architect of a "new world order," complete with a sledgehammer in one hand and a YouTube diploma in the other. It's amazing how often "strategic brilliance" looks exactly like improvisation, chaos, and economic volatility, but hey, slap "historic times" on it and call it a renaissance.

Let's start with your continued mercantilism dodge. No one's saying we can't always work to improve our position in the global economy. Heck, running an international business, I do it all the time. Nor that we shouldn't push back on unfair trade practices. We do through WTO cases, bilateral agreements, export controls, CFIUS reviews, and strategic investment. But the answer isn't to become the thing you're criticizing, like blanket tariffs, economic self isolation, and "if they cheat, so can we" policies, which are how weak nations like China react, not leaders. And swinging a sledgehammer at the global system that made us the most powerful economy in history is the height of reckless populist theater.

You want a trade surplus with the EU? Make products they need, at competitive prices, under regulatory regimes that don't chase investment away. But no, instead we blame our allies while continuing to flood federal spending through entitlements no one wants to touch and pretending like a trade deficit is what broke the piggy bank.

If your best pitch is, "trust the chaos, it's historic," you've already lost the economic argument.

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So many misunderstandings and misrepresentations in there. For example, my point about our rise to be the arsenal of democracy. We became that BEFORE World War II, in an era when we ran structural trade surpluses. And remained so for two decades thereafter. We were wise enough to realize that we could not do it alone and built a globalist system to lift war-torn economies out of the ashes and build more free societies in the third world. That required us share the wealth...to open our economy effectively the way Milton Friedman recommended - unilateral free trade. We didn't demand reciprocity. Policy actually encouraged offshoring of jobs. There were reasons we did it, and benefits for doing it. Best of all, IT WORKED. We won the Cold War. Communism did not engulf the planet. But no matter how hard you try to ignore it, globalism has real costs for us and it makes no sense to continue to bear those costs it in a post Cold War world. And as we stand on the precipice of what may very well be a new "industrial revolution" (the rise of AI and robotics), we cannot just plan to buy what robots build elsewhere in exchange for ever greater shares of equity in our public and private debt. That is not a sustainable model. Today, the arsenal of democracy is a shell of its former self. Our main adversary has 53% of global shipbuilding capacity. that is a five-alarm fire for a country with 11 carrier battle groups.

You understand globalism well and are quite facile in defending it, but are unable to see how bizarre those arguments can get. You are correct to note that the Chinese export-led model which ignores its own societal needs is a brittle system, but completely miss the converse - that the US model of structural trade deficits ALSO ignores societal needs is an unsustainable system. You are positioning trade surpluses as an undesirable thing that no developed country could or would ever want to endure, almost a sign of weakness. You are arguing that there is no consequence to unending and escalating trade deficits, no matter how much of our equity we ship abroad to pay for those trade deficits....completely suspending the laws of supply/demand. You understand the importance of the strong dollar in maintaining a globalist order, yet are completely oblivious to the threat that escalating structural trade deficits pose to the value of the dollar, ergo the globalist order itself. Our trade partners are under no such illusions. They understand that our structural and escalating trade deficits are not sustainable and are a threat to their own well-being. As long as they hold USD in their national asset portfolio, they have a vested interest in help us get back into balance. THAT is why we will indeed secure agreements which improve our balance of trade. First one has apparently happened. It will lead to more. So sad. ATL Bear will have to endure balanced trade. Boo hoo.

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Oh I fully understood your "Arsenal of Democracy" quip. I was just moving forward to post war realities. So let me unpack it for you even further. First, you confuse causation with correlation. Yes, the U.S. ran trade surpluses in the early 20th century. But that wasn't because tariffs made us great, it was because Europe was still fighting wars, and we had barons building monopolies and exerting their power over government due to our closed economy and mixed bag currency structure. It was a historical anomaly, not a replicable model for 2025. You're romanticizing an era before global supply chains, before financial liberalization, before international services markets, before modern logistics. You know what else didn't exist back then? Containerized shipping. Commercial air cargo. Integrated capital markets. SWIFT banking. Digital payments. And the global standardization of the U.S. dollar. The entire economic architecture is different.

Simply put, tariffs and surpluses worked in a world where economic activity was localized, slow moving, and low in complexity.
you are making the case that trade didn't matter as much in the 20th century because of rudimentary "architecture." In fact, trade has always mattered. Trade balance matters. Defense of strategic resources & industries matters. And protecting jobs from unfair competition matters. A lot. Always has, always will, regardless of "architecture."

But once the U.S. helped rebuild the postwar world, liberalize trade, and enable real-time goods, capital, and data exchange across borders, that entire framework was outdated.
LOL. you have in other places rejected my assertion that we created globalism on purpose with policy steps to facilitate it. yet here you are now making exactly that case. I say again, there is no free trade. All trade occurs within frameworks negotiated between sovereign powers. By definition, policy affects, and in some cases directly causes trade surpluses/deficits.

The rise of services, IP, tech, and digital finance created such a massive leap in productivity and global value that tariffs couldn't possibly carry the weight of economic activity or national revenue anymore.
That's why we got an income tax. That's why every advanced economy relies on diversified tax bases now.
There's the cause/effect error. Leaps in productivity do not render tariffs an irrelevant revenue source. What makes tariffs an irrelevant revenue source are massive, structural trade SURPLUSES.

Now on your dollar argument, of course I understand the value of a strong dollar. More importantly I understand the importance of what maintains it as a reserve currency, whereas you don't seem to. This may be the source of your fundamental misunderstanding of foreign capital inflows from trade. The U.S. dollar's role as the world's reserve currency means that even when dollars aren't directly reinvested into U.S. assets, they still circulate globally as the primary settlement mechanism for international trade, from oil to commodities to financial contracts. That alone sustains demand for dollars regardless of our trade balance. More importantly, the U.S. runs a productive trade deficit, one driven by strong domestic consumption, investment, and capital access, not by economic weakness (destructive deficit). The problem isn't the existence of a trade deficit, it's what underlies it. As long as the U.S. remains a magnet for global capital and maintains robust domestic demand (which fuels our domestic production and GDP growth), the deficit reflects strength. Only if we lose either, if consumption falters or our economic dynamism erodes, does that imbalance become a true vulnerability. You can doomsday the dollar all you want, but there is no sustained appetite to divest from dollar based assets, not even from China. Unless of course we force the world to do so via an irrational trade war, or (a real issue) our fiscal malfeasance via government deficit spending,
Reading comprehension error - I have not only stated all of that, I have explained how it insulates the USD from the supply/demand pressure that trade deficits generate. EVERY ONE of the countries with which we have trade deficits have a vested interest in maintaining the value of the dollar.....because they hold so many USDs in their national reserves. Classical free trade theory says that trade deficits are supposed to reduce the value of a currency sufficiently to make that country's goods less expensive, increasing demand for them, moving the trade back toward balance. (and same dynamic in reverse on trade surpluses). That by definition cannot happen with the USD, because so many entities, sovereign and private, have vested interests in maintaining its value. That's all well & good for US purchasing power, but if left unaddressed over decades, deindustrialization occurs.....the economy will transistion from production to service orientation. I mean, that is all Trade 101 textbook stuff. The only way to side step that is to negotiate specific bilateral agreements whereby the surplus countries agree to purchase certain types of US goods to keep the surpluses & deficits closer to balance over time. (which of course is exactly what Trump is doing, using the carrot of negotations and the stick of tariffs to execute). Textbook trade policy structure.....

Taking into account the aforementioned, let's tie in current policy rhetoric (reality is elusive) and why I continue to argue against it. Much to yours and the administrations incorrect positioning, the U.S. has a massive, wealthy, and growing domestic economy that consumes more goods and services than it produces within its borders. That's been framed as a weakness when in fact it's a feature of being the central node of the global economy.
It is a weakness because it focuses consumption rather than production.
It is a weakness because it makes us dependent on others for production.
It is a weakness because it relegates labor to lower wage service jobs rather than higher wage production jobs.
Production of goods matters.

But even if I accepted this "realignment" perspective, What this administration is doing is economically backward. It launched a trade war that raises prices globally, while simultaneously hiking costs for American consumers at home, fueling inflation from both ends (domestic and global). That also is a demand depressor (remember consumption as a strength?) which strikes not just us, the worlds greatest customer, it strikes everybody (hello Smoot Hawley remake). But here's the real kick in the teeth, and the most backward part of it. We don't have the domestic production base to absorb the disruption. No labor pool, no factories, no regulatory overhaul, no skills pipeline. We're slamming the brakes on demand and cutting off supply at the same time. That's insanity!
No, the insanity is thinking that we could have done this a different way. All Trump has done is put up enormous tariffs to signal that the status quo is not going to continue and invite interested parties to regnegotiate. And such is occurring. Everything you said about our production base limitations applied also to China in 2020. But we changed policies and a 20 year transformation of their economy began. Your arguments studiously avoid addressing what changes WE need to make to spark a 20yr transformation of our own economy.

Even if you believe rebalancing trade is necessary, there's nothing in place to rebalance to. The demand we're trying to redirect from China isn't coming home, it's going elsewhere, to places like India, Vietnam, and Mexico, where capacity exists, just like Apple did. It's like burning down your house now because you think you might get blueprints for a new one in five years. The damage is real, the timeline is completely misaligned, and the result is entirely avoidable.
See above. You have false dilemma woven all throughout your arguments. No one is saying ALL production is going to come home next year. I have purposefully (and repeatedly) said we are going to move a bigger percentage of our supply chains back home. And that is already happening. It will not happen all at once. But, over the next decade, we will see 25-50 percent of off-shore production return home. More importantly, we will be the center of tech, particularly AI development and robotic production. (there is a reason why so big tech is part of the current Trump coalition).

My hope is that Trump takes a political soft landing, negotiates down tariffs with trading partners, spikes the political football, and we get back stability and not this chaotic volatility,
Why would anyone presume that is not his goal, or that it is not going to happen?
But the same question immediately reappears. What are we exporting, and how are we going to compete? Without the domestic production scale, innovation incentives, or upskilled workforce to take advantage of those market openings, we're negotiating access to a stage we're not prepared to perform on. I just hope we're all not crying after the performance.

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Again, you understand the argument for globalism very well, but you are blind to to the fact that it was carefully designed and implemented over decades, imputing an economic libertarianism to it....that it sprang to life on its own, just corporations engaged in free market activity building the best supply chains it can.

You are also blind to globalism's failings. It is not sustainable, at least for the USA. Trade deficits do matter. We have to give away national equity to finance them. That diminishes our long-term future.....sending ever greater amounts of rents to foreign entities, amounts which could be used to invest in our own production. And, of course, it gutted the middle class.

I mean, you are arguing that trade deficits have made us the richest and most powerful country in the world. If that were the case, all of our trade partners would have long-ago launched a trade war against us demanding that we export more to them than we buy from them.........

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I can't keep disproving your same points, only for you to double down on them. You completely ignore my answers to the solutions

whiterock said:

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Your arguments studiously avoid addressing what changes WE need to make to spark a 20yr transformation of our own economy.

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WTH? How many times have I repeated the solutions?

And you have an antiquated understanding of the global economy. I'm frankly not even sure if you have any sense of how international commerce operates today. I'm not trying to be condescending, but how am I supposed to address something as misunderstood as this point of yours.

whiterock said:

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Giving away our national equity…you are arguing that trade deficits have made us the richest and most powerful country in the world. If that were the case, all of our trade partners would have long-ago launched a trade war against us demanding that we export more to them than we buy from them.

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You keep repeating this line about "selling our equity" like it's some kind of economic tragedy, but it fundamentally misunderstands how capital markets, and economic strength actually work.

The U.S. doesn't give away equity. We sell it, voluntarily, at market rates, in a system where foreign investors choose to invest here because our institutions are stable, our returns are strong, and our rule of law is unmatched. That's not a weakness, it's a feature of a high trust, high performance economy.

You act like foreign capital ownership is some form of colonization. It's not. It's investment. And the returns they earn are matched or outpaced by the growth and productivity gains we unlock by using that capital to fund businesses, innovation, and expansion. If we weren't attractive to foreign investors, that would be the red flag.

What's more, the U.S. owns far more foreign assets (over $35 Trillion) than any country on Earth. Our multinationals generate global profits, our pension funds hold international equities, and our economy extracts value from the world, not just sells it. The Fortune 500 alone generates trillions more in annual revenue outside the United States than the total value of our imports. You want to talk about balance sheets? Ours is the envy of the world.

And this..

whiterock said:

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Everything you said about our production base limitations applied also to China in 2020. But we changed policies and a 20 year transformation of their economy began.

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You can't invoke China's decades long transformation (assuming your 2020 date was a typo) as proof of concept while ignoring the obvious. China spent those decades executing massive state driven industrial policy, with strict currency controls, suppressed wages, and enormous infrastructure spending all under an authoritarian regime. None of that exists here, nor would we ever invoke that! Heck, we aren't even willing to be serious about regulatory overhaul, education and skills investment, or infrastructure and industrial planning that would be required to execute the "renaissance" being promoted. Let me make a very basic point to you. Tariffs DO NOT make us competitive, and competitiveness is what we're missing. Tariffs distort consumption and production, especially in economies like ours where supply chains stretch globally and inputs are as important as outputs.

Now China is proving the point that a production based and not capital focused economy is overly vulnerable. Meanwhile you're advocating for us to pursue the same while simultaneously depressing demand. That's an incredibly dangerous economic conflict.

ATL Bear said:

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The Trump admin and their media handlers are overstating what occurred and the Chinese ministers and media are understating it meaning it's somewhere in the middle. Likely still a bit of work to do. Joint statement will be interesting to see.

Xi was with Putin this weekend, just FYI.

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good take.

Hard to envision a deal that would bring us to balance in a short period of time, but any reduction in the deficit is a benefit. In any numbers exercise, cutting or growing, you ideally need to make big impact the big numbers. Working big change via a large number of small things sounds good but in practice is improbably hard. That is even more true with national security - efficiency doesn't matter much - you have to be EFFECTIVE. In that regard, the strategic requirement of de-coupling from China has been achieved, at least to the point where it cannot be repaired. New agreement will be a defacto regime of managed decline.

We don't care who makes our beach balls & bath toys. But key industries like tech & pharma will be leaving, significant percentages of their US oriented supply chains coming back home over time.

Perhaps the greatest failing of globalism was its presumption that borders do not matter = just let your companies fling their supply chains where necessary to lower costs. That's all well & good in times of peace & prosperity. But when war, pestilence, or disaster occurs, borders are going to matter. A lot. We had waaaaay to much dependence on a trade partner who was an adversary. We believed our own propaganda, that trade would tame China. Turns out....not.

FLBear5630 said:

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whiterock said:

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Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

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Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

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You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

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we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

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No, metaphors, suppositions or rhetoric what are the details? You stating they caved is not a trade deal. What are the particulars? How are we better off and who is benefiting?

If you talk to the American farmer, the UK deal sucks. So, what did we win?

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Not everyone agrees the ag aspect of the UK deal sucks.
https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/us-announces-historic-trade-deal-with-uk

Re China, the weakness of an export-led economy is that you are highly dependent on demand from abroad. When that demand goes away, you have an immediate shock.....workers and production lines aimed at closed doors. Transforming your production oriented economy into a consumer economy takes years/decades. In the meantime, payrolls have to be met. And we now see in China growing numbers of demonstrations over unpaid wages. China can shoot its own citizens in the streets, or it can cut a deal with the USA. What would a pragmatic person do in such a situation?

You need better news sources. Google up the demonstrations in China over back pay.

boognish_bear said:

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-Chinese buy Teslas but Americans can't buy BYD
-Chinese buy iPhones but Americans can't buy Huawei
-Chinese buy Starbucks but Americans can't buy Luckin
-There are more KFC restaurants in China than USA

China has been open to American businesses for over 40 years. In fact every… https://t.co/m6GnU7R6Rt

— Cyrus Janssen (@thecyrusjanssen) May 11, 2025

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My daily driver cell phone is Chinese. $400. The size of an iPhone Pro Max. Has a built in night vision camera (not this Apple low light stuff, full on infrared night vision), and Flir. I unlocked rhe bootloader, rooted it, and stripped out the spyware.

BREAKING:

China will lower tariffs on U.S. goods to 10% from 125%

USA will cut tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% from 145%

The measures will be in place for 90 days to allow for more trade negotiations. pic.twitter.com/TK0S9LTG2h

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 12, 2025

whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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whiterock said:

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Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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whiterock said:

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🚨JUST IN🚨

White House: U.S. Finalizes Trade Agreement with China in Geneva pic.twitter.com/CrnoA3U3YB

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 11, 2025

---

Master strokes by Trump, Bessent and Lutnick...

---

You don't even know at all what is in the deal do you?

---

we have a pretty good idea. China caved, as anyone with a lick of sense knew they would. We are in a commanding position, can easily outlast anyone we're negotiating with.

China came begging to the United States as thousands of Chinese business shuttered and failed each and every day over the last few weeks. 1,800 businesses (Shenzhen and Zhejiangclosed in major area of China this week alone. The impact on Chinese manufacturers has been profound.…

— 🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 (@Jkylebass) May 11, 2025

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No, metaphors, suppositions or rhetoric what are the details? You stating they caved is not a trade deal. What are the particulars? How are we better off and who is benefiting?

If you talk to the American farmer, the UK deal sucks. So, what did we win?

---

Not everyone agrees the ag aspect of the UK deal sucks.
https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/us-announces-historic-trade-deal-with-uk

Re China, the weakness of an export-led economy is that you are highly dependent on demand from abroad. When that demand goes away, you have an immediate shock.....workers and production lines aimed at closed doors. Transforming your production oriented economy into a consumer economy takes years/decades. In the meantime, payrolls have to be met. And we now see in China growing numbers of demonstrations over unpaid wages. China can shoot its own citizens in the streets, or it can cut a deal with the USA. What would a pragmatic person do in such a situation?

You need better news sources. Google up the demonstrations in China over back pay.

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Biden did nothing to promote better tariff equality with other nations.

Obama did lnothing to promote better tariff equality with other nations.

Yet now Trump is being criticized that his efforts are not producing ' enough' results.

LOL

Gotta luv the legacy media.

In my view Trump has accomplished more at this point in his presidency than any man in US history.

He has done so many things….so quickly and despite obvious attempts of Dem lawfare……that I am becoming a bit spoiled.

Thank God Harris did not become president.

Are we still trying to reshore jobs to America if we are backing down on the tariffs?

ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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Again, you understand the argument for globalism very well, but you are blind to to the fact that it was carefully designed and implemented over decades, imputing an economic libertarianism to it....that it sprang to life on its own, just corporations engaged in free market activity building the best supply chains it can.

You are also blind to globalism's failings. It is not sustainable, at least for the USA. Trade deficits do matter. We have to give away national equity to finance them. That diminishes our long-term future.....sending ever greater amounts of rents to foreign entities, amounts which could be used to invest in our own production. And, of course, it gutted the middle class.

I mean, you are arguing that trade deficits have made us the richest and most powerful country in the world. If that were the case, all of our trade partners would have long-ago launched a trade war against us demanding that we export more to them than we buy from them.........

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I can't keep disproving your same points, only for you to double down on them. You completely ignore my answers to the solutions

whiterock said:

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Your arguments studiously avoid addressing what changes WE need to make to spark a 20yr transformation of our own economy.

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WTH? How many times have I repeated the solutions?

And you have an antiquated understanding of the global economy. I'm frankly not even sure if you have any sense of how international commerce operates today. I'm not trying to be condescending, but how am I supposed to address something as misunderstood as this point of yours.

whiterock said:

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Giving away our national equity…you are arguing that trade deficits have made us the richest and most powerful country in the world. If that were the case, all of our trade partners would have long-ago launched a trade war against us demanding that we export more to them than we buy from them.

---

You keep repeating this line about "selling our equity" like it's some kind of economic tragedy, but it fundamentally misunderstands how capital markets, and economic strength actually work.

The U.S. doesn't give away equity. We sell it, voluntarily, at market rates, in a system where foreign investors choose to invest here because our institutions are stable, our returns are strong, and our rule of law is unmatched. That's not a weakness, it's a feature of a high trust, high performance economy.
So then it doesn't matter if foreign interests own 100% of US stocks?
There is no consequence on the matter of who owns our federal debt, or how much?
All the rents on that capital remitted abroad and that is good for us?
Foreign interests having significant influence if not control over our wealth is good for us?
You are making an extreme argument here that flies in the face of reality.


You act like foreign capital ownership is some form of colonization. It's not. It's investment. And the returns they earn are matched or outpaced by the growth and productivity gains we unlock by using that capital to fund businesses, innovation, and expansion. If we weren't attractive to foreign investors, that would be the red flag.
Beyond the matter of balance, does that investment grow our production capacity? Do foreign investors concern themselves with the interests of the American people or the interests elsewhere?

What's more, the U.S. owns far more foreign assets (over $35 Trillion) than any country on Earth. Our multinationals generate global profits, our pension funds hold international equities, and our economy extracts value from the world, not just sells it. The Fortune 500 alone generates trillions more in annual revenue outside the United States than the total value of our imports. You want to talk about balance sheets? Ours is the envy of the world.

https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2025/04-april/0425-international-investment-position.htm

And this..

whiterock said:

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Everything you said about our production base limitations applied also to China in 2020. But we changed policies and a 20 year transformation of their economy began.

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You can't invoke China's decades long transformation (assuming your 2020 date was a typo) as proof of concept while ignoring the obvious. China spent those decades executing massive state driven industrial policy, with strict currency controls, suppressed wages, and enormous infrastructure spending all under an authoritarian regime.
These domestic policy choices that limited the benefits of their trade surplus....not, as you suggest, an inherent trade-off feature of trade surpluses.

None of that exists here, nor would we ever invoke that! Heck, we aren't even willing to be serious about regulatory overhaul, education and skills investment, or infrastructure and industrial planning that would be required to execute the "renaissance" being promoted. Let me make a very basic point to you. Tariffs DO NOT make us competitive, and competitiveness is what we're missing. Tariffs distort consumption and production, especially in economies like ours where supply chains stretch globally and inputs are as important as outputs.
This is perhaps where you are most blind. It does not matter what kind of regulatory overhaul or education or skills or infrastructure or planning we engage in, if we simply allow our trade partners to engage in unfair trade practices to offset those things. Which is what they do. How do we know this? Look at the size and trend of our trade deficits.....res ipsa loquitur.

Now China is proving the point that a production based and not capital focused economy is overly vulnerable. Meanwhile you're advocating for us to pursue the same while simultaneously depressing demand. That's an incredibly dangerous economic conflict.
False dilemma. More production does not mean less capital.

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amazing. the willful blindness. You suspend pieces of economic reality. In classical free trade, the values of currencies are supposed to rise & fall to offset trade surpluses and deficits, keeping systems in balance. Yet we have in place a system which guarantees a strong dollar no matter how large or long are US trade deficits. IS THAT SUSTAINABLE? Nope. it will fail At. Some. Point. Better to address it now, before the crisis.

Tariffs don't make us more competitive abroad. They make imports less competitive here. And when jacked to high levels, they effectively close our markets. That is a powerful tool in negotiation. We are telling our trade partners "we don't really need you. Same isn't true for you. So lets talk about the size of our deficit. How do your propose we to fix that?" (within a context of production lines starting to close down.) Yes, that is a harsh way to negotiate. But things are getting wildly out of balance and the nice way hasn't exactly had much impact.

"....supply chains stretching globally....." I addressed that in a post just above (as well as many times previously). How do global supply chains help us, AND how do they hurt us? are there any risks, tradeoffs, costs, etc....? globalism is a god to whom we shall pay homage, no matter the cost?

The globe is occupied by hundreds of sovereign powers, only a few dozen of which matter very much. Those sovereign powers have interests. They will use globalism when it suits (like we did in the Cold War). And they will curtail globalism when it suits (like we are doing now). You treat globalism as a moral imperative, a law of gravity that must be obeyed. In reality, sovereign powers create the laws of gravity in trade by executing trade agreements. Within that context, globalism isn't inherently good or bad. It's just a tool. A tool with pros & cons, advantages & tradeoffs, etc..... When it solves important problems, it's a good thing. When it quits working, you need another tool. And that's where we are now. It is just incomprehensible that you can look at where we are at this moment in time and insist that there are no problems. The trade and net investment numbers scream OUT OF WHACK. As is the case with so many things in life, success is usually about balance. And our economy is wildly out of balance. Yet, here you come to tell us that selling equity to foreign interests to finance consumption is without any negative consequences no matter how big the gaps in the numbers might yawn.

You should read Friedman's "Storm Before the Calm." He makes a well documented observation that two major cycles occur in the USA with amazing regularity - a socio-economic cycle (class oriented political realignment) of 50yrs, and an 80yr institutional cycle where structures of government & business emerge thru crisis with major restructuring/reforms. the 2020's are unique in that it is the first time in history where the two cycles converge at the same point in time. We are currently in what I have called "the post WWII order." As I've said repeatedly here.....we built the post WWII order, to deal with realities on the ground in 1945-55, with globalism as a foundation stone. It worked spectacularly well. But it has run its course. LIke any late-stage system, it tends to get less and less responsive to the old stimuluses that once worked so well. Or it just doesn't address new problems well at all (which in some cases problems are simply the tradeoffs of the system itself). Globalism is not well structured to deal with the biggest problems facing us today. Not surprisingly, it is dying. (for lack of constituents....look who's getting elected). Yet, here you sit, over and over an over singing the praises of a system which no longer well serves the interests of ordinary Americans. Globalism was perhaps the most important part of building "containment," yet it has ALSO delivered to the USA a structural and growing trade deficit that is unsustainable.

Might also read Robert Lighthizer's book "No Trade is Free." He was Reagan's lead trade negotiator, ya know and was US Trade rep in the first Trump admin. He pokes so many holes in your theories (as I have done as well....)

You are defending the most dysfunctional component of a dying order - that trade deficits don't matter....
Maintaining a strong dollar requires US trade BALANCE.

Holy.

Futures are super green.

Nasdaq up 4%
S&P up 3% pic.twitter.com/0kzy1em1ZM

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 12, 2025

JUST IN: Apple considers raising iPhone prices without blaming tariffs, WSJ reports.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) May 12, 2025

This is meaningless to businesses. 90 days is nothing and Trump can change his opinion any moment. The uncertainty is as bad as any tarrif in itself. It's impossible to plan at the moment.

Is anyone going to pipe up on the reasons we caved on high tariffs? Negotiating while applying pressure? Seems backwards to do it this way. Was the 145% just a joke? Just a weak signal that we can disrupt trade for a while if we want?

With all the accolades Trump heaped on the reset, I would have thought we would have gotten something out of dropping tariffs, although we did get a larger gap in the rates. But I thought we were after fairer trade practices, and were willing to tariff until we got them.

Porteroso said:

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Assassin said:

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Porteroso said:

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boognish_bear said:

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BREAKING: US weighs plan to decrease Chinese tariffs to as low as 50%, down from 145%, as soon as next week, per NYP

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 8, 2025

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I'm wondering what all the right wingers are thinking here. Seems like we are totally giving into China. I thought Trump was going to play hardball until China agreed to play fairer on the international stage. Is there some alternate explanation? Seems like Trump is losing this one.

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Fixing Biden's screwups is what the world is thinking. BIden let China run roughshod over the USA so anything is an improvement

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Didn't Biden increase the tariffs on China, more than Trump had? What do you mean by let them run roughshod?

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Biden tarriffed BYD to the US. I wish we could get that car.

BESSENT JUST SAID THE U.S. WILL PROTECT STRATEGIC SECTORS LIKE STEEL, SEMIS & MEDICINE -- & PURSUE A CONTROLLED DECOUPLING FROM CHINA.

FOLLOW-UP TALKS WITH CHINA EXPECTED IN THE COMING WEEKS TO WORK ON A BROADER DEAL 👀pic.twitter.com/uBgcewM9KS

— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) May 12, 2025

boognish_bear said:

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BESSENT JUST SAID THE U.S. WILL PROTECT STRATEGIC SECTORS LIKE STEEL, SEMIS & MEDICINE -- & PURSUE A CONTROLLED DECOUPLING FROM CHINA.

FOLLOW-UP TALKS WITH CHINA EXPECTED IN THE COMING WEEKS TO WORK ON A BROADER DEAL 👀pic.twitter.com/uBgcewM9KS

— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) May 12, 2025

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Best Treasury Secretary since World War Two.

But most folks don't even know his name.

Porteroso said:

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Is anyone going to pipe up on the reasons we caved on high tariffs? Negotiating while applying pressure? Seems backwards to do it this way. Was the 145% just a joke? Just a weak signal that we can disrupt trade for a while if we want?

With all the accolades Trump heaped on the reset, I would have thought we would have gotten something out of dropping tariffs, although we did get a larger gap in the rates. But I thought we were after fairer trade practices, and were willing to tariff until we got them.

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I can't tell what we got from this exercise. We went from a ridiculous number (145% to 30%) to a high tariff. Under Biden, the tariffs were targeted at 100% for cars and 50% for solar energy. Now they seem to be across the board (30%)

I'll wait to learn more.