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because there's a war coming soon that will destroy most global trade. trump wants the US in a better position in that near future by having more factories and such inside of the US.
in a peaceful world, you allow free trade and specialization to do its thing and everybody gets richer. you farm bananas, i farm apples, and we trade. we create value out of thin air, it's an amazing thing.
but in a world where superpowers are at war and the world splinters into factions, half of the global economy will be cut off from the other half. therefore it'll be a huge liability if we for example depend on Taiwan for 90% of our computer chips when China can blockade Taiwan and we cannot reliably break that blockade. that's one industry.. now imagine the thousands of other products we need for a modern economy. it would cause massive economic shockwaves.
so this tariff thing is accepting that this will happen in the near future and preparing for it, slowly weaning off the economy from that connection to the rest of the world. so when it does come, it doesn't hurt as bad.
it doesn't really matter if you piss off your allies. since you're the biggest military power they are going to have to rely on you anyway. you have leverage over them. the difference is that Trump is a reality TV star and so he is loudly exploiting this leverage whereas most past leaders would be more subtle and diplomatic about it.
Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, etc aren't really allies. Being someone's ally implies there's a sort of equal footing. When someone has no choice but to bend to your will, is that a voluntary relationship? the US essentially wrote Japan's constitution and they told the Germans what to write down for theirs. Canada and Mexico are heavily dependent on US trade- US growth might slow a half percent or two whereas Mexico and Canada are liable to fall into a recession because of these tariffs.
it isn't equal footing. it's a david v goliath situation
to give a recent example, Ukraine. Ukraine in 2014 had the Euromaidan coup and the president had to flee the country. The new government that was quickly appointed without an election realized one thing very quickly- Russia was about to invade them. they had only one option in terms of getting military aid and that was the US. so immediately, the same day that the government was appointed, they started cooperating with the US. a few days after that, little green men showed up in Donbas and the Russian army waltzed into Crimea
so you can say they "allied" with the US but a more honest way to say it is that they were desperately pushed into America's orbit. and the US ultimately doesn't care about a country like Ukraine. people are starting to see it more clearly today because of Trump, but I honestly don't think the situation would have been meaningfully different with Biden or Kamala. The primary difference would have been rhetoric. Instead of calling Zelensky a dictator, we would have just dragged our feet with military aid instead, like what has been happening the last year or so
tldr: the US is a imperialist superpower and this is what they do.
Trump isn't doing this because he's some brilliant strategist. He's a fascist and fascists require enemies to scare their subjects into complicity. If no enemies exist, they are created.
i don't disagree. that's why the rhetoric. but I would disconnect the rhetoric from the policy. trump says one thing and does another. he wants to deport everyone but at the rate he's going we won't even see a 10% reduction in the illegal immigrant population. mouth says one thing, hand does another
notice how tariffs were a trend that started a decade ago. Trump placed tariffs on China on his first term and then Biden increased the number of tariffs. the ban on Tiktok was a bipartisan effort- it's in the interest of US foreign policy. obviously tariffs on Canada and Mexico are insane and probably wouldn't have happened without Trump.. but more tariffs were a definite part of the future regardless who won in 2024
couple of things. first, i wouldn't underestimate trump. he successfully hijacked the Republican party which is a party full of wealthy and powerful people who did everything in their power to try and stop him
second, the people around Trump are very principled ideologues (ie people like Peter Thiel and the dark enlightenment ideology they're enamored in)
these people are educated, intelligent, and dedicated to their cause. they also have near-limitless money and now they have the control of the federal government of the strongest country in the world- a country that has an executive branch that has gotten progressively more powerful.
they have a vision and they planned for this and they are enacting it. this is not a spontaneous thing. they view a future where there is a showdown with China and tariffs play into that future
Well look at Zelensky shall we? Throws the Christians in jail
Proof please. Fox is not a news source
You have no clue what David v Goliath means, do you.
the analogy was in reference to the size differential between david (boy) and goliath (giant)
sure david wins in the parable but to quote bo burnham
You underestimate how grossly unqualified everyone at the top is in the US. Anyone who's even remotely qualified to lead the military is being replaced with sycophants. The US has never been weaker, which is exacerbated by the fact that any allies that could provide warnings of an attack, just won't. Since our intelligence agencies have been neutering any early warning systems set in place, we will not see it coming, or worse, ignore it, because like the parable, an extremely incompetent group of leadership thinks it's too big to fail, when in reality, wouldn't take a huge enemy to win.
it's a purge. we're watching our own version of what Saddam Hussein did when he took power. it definitely weakens the country overall but it strengthens the hold on power for the executive.
as for the military, we've been spending more than like the next 8 countries combined for decades. it's hard to understate the relative power of the US military. there are hundreds of military bases all over the world.
even a weakened superpower is still a superpower
Bo Burnham sounds like a fucking idiot. Despite his size, Goliath was defeated by a well placed projectile.
The only way a war is coming for the U.S. is if it's a World War. If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance. I don't think there is a war coming, I think this all has to do with economics and the National Debt. War is a great way to get rid of National Debt and boost an economy, reduce numbers, etc. but right now, I'm just not seeing it.
I personally think a more likely issue would be that the WTO exchanges the U.S. Dollar with the Chinese Yuan especially as the U.S. lags further behind in exports while Chinese exports continue to grow.
I do think leaving Ukraine was, unfortunately, inevitable. For the U.S. it was a war of attrition and Russia out lasted what the U.S. could monetarily support. I truly hope that the EU is able to support their fight.
think of it this way. let's say WW3 kicks off with China tomorrow. Will Canada or Mexico suddenly ally with China?
Reality is that Canada and Mexico are totally dependent on US trade. It really doesn't matter if you piss them off they're gonna be forced to deal with you anyway.
80% of Mexican exports are to the US. 30% of their GDP is based on American trade. If US exports stopped tomorrow, Mexican economy would immediately enter a deep depression. They have no choice but to play nice, even with 25% tariffs.
Canada is similarly stuck. 75% of exports are to the US. 50% of their imports are from the US. 20% of their GDP is based on American trade.
If you took both Canadian and Mexican trade combined and compared it to the US economy, though, it wouldn't even reach 5%. If trade with both of these countries were to stop tomorrow, America will suffer- but growth may slow by 0.5% or 1%. Both Canada and Mexico would see a depression.
America is like the sun in the solar system. Canada and Mexico have no choice but to fall into orbit around it. The total weight of the economic power is hard to understate.
Do you see why Trump feels like he has the power to do this? This is the point I was trying to make above. Historically US presidents have been more diplomatic and subtle about how to abuse the leverage that America has by the nature of being a superpower. Trump isn't fundamentally different except he's exploiting this leverage loudly and in an ugly and aggressive way.
In the past, presidents would play nice. Pretend like there was sovereignty and diplomacy, etc. But when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA... it was for the same reason. To dominate the economies of both Canada and Mexico. The difference is the rhetoric sounds much nicer.
After NAFTA was signed, subsidized US corn flooded the Mexican market, totally bankrupting millions of Mexican farmers. Wages in Mexico stagnated for decades because US needed cheap labor to build cars. In Canada, they became more and more reliant on exporting natural resources to the US.
We always need to remember US is an imperialist power. This is what empires do.
As for the upcoming war, I think it's only a matter of time. But we're talking a time scale of 5-10 years. We're preparing for the future showdown. There will be one or two more flashpoints before the main war. Ukraine was one, Israel is another.
If we had to make an analogy with WW2, I'd say we're roughly in mid ~1930s. Our Spanish Civil War is the Ukrainian war. Our Italian invasion of Ethiopia is the Israeli conflict. (Gaza, Israeli invasion of Syria, war with Lebanon, Iran, etc)