"What's all this fuss I keep hearing about violins on television?"
Gilda Radner as the Emily Litella character on Saturday Night Live
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Readers old enough to have enjoyed the 1970s will know the running gag. Gilda Radner's character would be all upset and indignant about something, but after a minute of ranting she would be informed that she misunderstood some key fact. Learning this, she would say "nevermind."
Misinformed and clueless as her Emily Litella character was, the character had two important advantages over President Donald Trump. She could hear and integrate new information, and she would back down. She didn't continue to argue from a bad premise.
Trump just said "nevermind," but he was saying nevermind to the course-correction, not the original mistaken idea that we could assemble electronics in huge plants staffed by thousands of American workers sitting in line soldering connections. He is persisting in his error. I gave Trump too much credit in yesterday's "Easy Sunday" post. I said that he was an erratic, narcissistic, sociopath, but that he had the good sense to adjust his policy when it endangered his popularity, and that he understood what would be unpopular. Both manufacturing electronics in the U.S. and paying a tariff on imported goods would be deeply unpopular and he is ignoring or misreading this. Trump's tariff. Trump's inflation. Trump's crazy-expensive phones. Blame Trump.
Trump called for tariffs on everything from China, then reversed himself on electronics. Then at mid-day Sunday he reversed himself yet again, with a Truth Social post. Nevermind, yet again. Trump's Truth Social posts have the over-the-top, sometimes ALL CAPS rant style of the Emily Litella character.
NOBODY is getting “off the hook” for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst! There was no Tariff “exception” announced on Friday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff “bucket.” The Fake News knows this, but refuses to report it. We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations. What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China, which will do everything within its power to disrespect the American People.
Trump resurrected the idea that electronics will be made and assembled in the USA. Trump is selling an obsolete dream, an imagined golden age where blue-collar American men worked a factory floor earning a family-wage job and made a product that was competitive in the world market.
And we are now back to facing $2,000 iPhones, if the phones are to continue to be built in China and the tariff paid. They would be even more expensive if they were manufactured in the U.S., but they won't be. Trump misunderstands the modern economy and the modern American labor force. Eighty percent of Americans think that having factory jobs in the U.S. is a good idea generally, but only 25 percent of Americans say they would personally be better off in a factory instead of their current work, according to the CATO institute. Pew polling and a McKinsey analysis of worker preferences make the same point. Americans want interesting, flexible, jobs, not tedious assembly jobs. The want to live independently, not in bunk beds in 15-story dormitories. They want to be paid enough to live in the USA. If they were paid enough to show up to work, the phones would cost thousands of dollars. We will assemble them overseas and pay the tariff -- if Trump doesn't switch again.
We start this week with indecision, contradiction, and uncertainty about the future of tariffs. No business can make plans for capital allocation in this environment.
Trump is his own worst enemy, and he is a formidable one.
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4 comments:
Let’s be real, none of this is about fairness. Trump takes perverse pleasure in being punitive for the sake of it so he can claim some kind of victory. Retribution for whatever he manufactures as a “wrong” has been and will always be his obsession.
Sure, trade imbalances needed a manicure or pedicure. He’s decided to amputate all four limbs. The worst for him will be a bruised ego. The trauma he is inflicting on others is incalculable.
Yes, John C, bruised narcissistic ego is what it’s all about. Beyond that adulation is needed not just wanted. When you have a severe personality disordered president this is the kind of stuff you get. To expect rational behavior is unrealistic and it surprises me the American public thought otherwise.
The time is now for Congress to act, clew back its constitutional power of the purse, and reclaim its right to authorize tariffs.
Cory Booker was on Meet the Press on Sunday. He was asked to comment on the fact that President Biden continued some of the tariffs from President Trump's first term. Senator Booker completely avoided any comment on that. It's no wonder the public mistrusts Democrats even as public approval of Trump seems to be slipping.
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