It’s worse than that. Everything leading up to this and this reversion right now is a perfect demonstration that the current US administration cannot be trusted and behaves in irrational ways. You cannot expect consistency and enduring policies. It’s all fickle and capricious. How are you supposed to do any planning with this?
This is all so obviously dumb and I’m frankly astounded by so many people (especially here on HN) playing devils advocate or, I don’t know, honestly believing that this all makes sense.
Even if you agree with the stated (also somewhat incoherent, by the way) goals why do you think this implementation can achieve any of that?
I believe the point is power, and from that lens everything makes perfect sense. Trump is exercising available levers of global influence -- for good or for bad -- in a way that hasn't occurred since Hitler initiated World War II.
Tariffs are appealing to him because they are incredibly forceful blunt instruments over which he alone has almost complete control. They give him immense, immediate influence over the entire world. What we're seeing is that the US President today, if the full capacities of that office are pushed as far as possible without violence, is arguably one of (if not the) most powerful human beings ever.
Beyond this, Trump has said that one of his greatest weapons is uncertainty. He wants to be feared. Having people genuinely afraid of you is the next step of power that he is already flirting with by posting videos of people being blown up in warfare on social media.
And what will he do when China and rest of the world tired of his untreated Narcissistic Personality Disorder will start selling US debt, like $trillions in bonds in say less than a week? I bet you finally someone broke the secret to him today, so he reverted the policy.
The White House can pressure red states to offer companies sweetheart deals so the President can take credit. If they refuse, he pulls his support for them come election time.
Yes they will, because when industry can't bet on being tariff free outside the US, they'll hedge their bets and have at least some manufacturing here. The damage is already done in that regard. The instability is the warning across the bow for companies that import.
