Ask Lemmy

He doesn't. But neither does the US, which increasingly seems to be the point. He's clearly playing out a Russian objective of alienating us from our allies. Don't know if it's totally Russia, or maybe China funding behind Russia, but its very bad outcome for the US.

So tariffs go on consumer goods, so it’s like a consumer goods tax.

He has said before that he likes the idea of pre income tax America where tariffs paid for a small government.

Well, when you decrease income tax in favor of consumption tax, lower income folks tend to contribute more in that situation than rich people given how they spend most of their money on shit they need.

So it’s a wealth transfer, kind of boring once you realize their plan comes down to: more money for the rich, like, every single time…

It starts with across the board tariffs, then an industry goes to him and says this hurts us, so here is a donation to one of your PACs, or we'll buy some of your crypto coin and you give us an exemption. And lo and behold a reason is found to not have a tariff on that product or just for that company.

It's about growing US industry. Peter Navarro, one of Trump's economic advisors, apparently really likes the idea.

There's a more accessible podcast that has an interview on the Hatchet.

I think the idea is that if it's more expensive to buy things from other countries, then we will buy more American goods, which will help American business owners, and increased demand will create more American factories and jobs.

Of course, if we can't afford American products now, we're just losing the only option we can afford, so instead of buying more American stuff, we just buy less of everything. Those companies won't start building US factories without a increase in sales, so they'll just start cutting corners, and firing staff to reduce their costs.

That crowd runs on "common sense" which means, if it sounds good without thinking about any of the details, then there's no reason to stop it.

Trump is an abuser. (He has a long history spanning decades of fucking people over.) If you look at human nature on a small scale, in domestic violence situations usually the abuser will first isolate the person they are abusing from any allies that may help them or go to their aid. On a small scale, this would be things like siblings, parents, friends, and such of the person the abuser is abusing. On a larger scale, it means breaking longstanding international alliances.

Since Putin wants to break America, he's giving Trump instructions to isolate America from its allies, just like an abuser will drive away any friends or aid from the person they are abusing, because when someone is isolated (whether an individual or country), they are easier to control and abuse.

Trump probably gets PERSONAL benefit of staying out of jail/not being thrown out a window by Russians by complying, so he does what he's told. Musk is likely a Russian asset too (I suspect he got into deep financial trouble when he was forced by US regulators to buy Twitter, and that's when Russia swooped in, but he might have been compromised earlier too.) Musk, not suffering from the dementia that Trump currently seems to be having, is Trump's handler. That's why he's always around now to make sure Trump doesn't forget to stick to the script.

So from a "what benefit to tariffs" is there perspective, what's happening is that geopolitically the US is under intense attacks from enemies to the US that are purposefully attacking things that make America strong and killing them so that it is easier to shove the final knife in. It's the same pattern that happens in domestic violence situations, just written much larger.

Others smarter than me have pointed out Putin probably wants the USA to have a breakdown like the fall of the USSR, and is directing things so that this happens.

So far, there’s been a good bit of money to be made in timing the stock market to announcements. But I’m sure no American politician would be involved with insider trading.

General consensus is that he is ego driven. He wants to be seen as someone who gets good deals, he even wrote a book on it, and he was talking about tariffs during the election. Either he gets a good deal negotiated with Canada or he fulfills campaign promises. I don't think he cares which.

The long term goal is rebuilding US industry. We have been a finance/usury economy for a very long time and it is starting to become unsustainable. By forcing American consumers to buy American products Trump creates a greater incentive for manufacture with the goal of building a more self-sufficient economy. Think vertical integration but on a nationwide scale. Trump and the capitalists he represents don't care about drug smuggling or hurting the Canadian economy, they intend to re-industrialize and that means protectionism.

I will note that it isn't unlikely that they do want to hurt the Canadian economy specifically so that it is easier to invade at a later point (because global warming will limit American resources) but this is secondary to re-industrialization.

Trump supporters feel insecure about the world. By bullying someone, they feel better.

That's why they never turn against Trump when the policies inevitably backfire. It just makes them feel more insecure, and therefore even better about bullying someone. And there are plenty of us to bully.