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So why is Trump doing this?
For the spectacle and quick "Winning!" which he hopes will boost his "ratings" and standing.
But also, for the same reasons Dems have been doing it before, and Biden did just recently, when not only he didn't cancel Trump's tariffs, but added some new ones ("targeted," of course) - because certain segments of trad Dem constituency, like unions, are attracted to protectionism, and because it also perfectly fits Trump's fake "populism" and "America First" themes - his guru on this issue was lifelong Democrat Prof. Peter "Don't call it a trade war!" Navarro. It doesn't matter that the math or policy doesn't work - it worked/works politically for him, and that's all that matters to him.
It also made it difficult for Dems to explain why "Trump's tariffs are bad" when it's a policy they've been associated with all along.
www.yahoo.com - How Trump wins from his damaging trade wars - YFin, 2024-02-09
|------- The former president promised to boost American manufacturing through import tariffs and other protectionist measures, and it didn't work. Yet the voters Trump was appealing to rewarded him anyway, according to a new study by prominent trade economists. That may explain why Trump now says he'll intensify his trade wars if elected to a second term.
... Trump's first trade war helps explain why. The study, by economists David Autor, Anne Beck, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, found that Trump's China tariffs did more harm than good to the US economy. Yet they boosted political support for Trump in key parts of the country. Whether through Trump's hucksterism or some other machination, voters seemingly embraced a policy that helped nobody and hurt some.
The study has three conclusions: First, the Trump tariffs produced no boost in manufacturing employment. Second, China's retaliatory tariffs reduced US agricultural employment. Third, Trump's farm bailout helped offset some, but not all, of the job losses in agriculture.
The Tax Foundation, for instance, finds that Trump's tariffs lowered US employment by 166,000 US jobs, with retaliatory tariffs killing another 29,000. The higher taxes paid by importers, meanwhile, amount to $74 billion in increased government revenue over a decade. Contrary to Trump's insistence, however, it's not China paying those higher taxes. It's American firms that import the products, pay the tax and pass the higher costs onto consumers.
The tariffs worked to Trump's advantage anyway.
... "The trade war appears to have been successful in strengthening support for the Republican party," the study concludes. "Residents of tariff-protected locations became less likely to identify as Democrats and more likely to vote for President Trump. Voters appear to have responded favorably to the extension of tariff protections to local industries despite their economic cost."
... The Autor study proposes two possible reasons Trump gained politically from tariffs that didn't really help anybody. The first is that "voters were misinformed about the employment impacts of the trade war." Trump certainly did his best to misinform voters. He called the two-way tariff escalation an "amazing deal" and a "momentous step" and repeatedly bragged about a manufacturing resurgence that never happened.
... Or, Trump made a deliberate and cynical show of trying to help, knowing it wouldn't matter. Sometimes, telling voters what they want to hear might be enough.
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Because of general economic illiteracy and the allure of fake populism, often [both] parties choose "good politics / bad policy" over "good policy / bad politics."
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Argentina's President gets Impeachment Calls after Promoting Cryptocurrency
$WLFI, $TRUMP, $MELANIA, $LIBRA... - from "Crypto is a scam" to "Hey, crypto is a scam - I like it! Liquid gold! Crypto capital of the planet! Strategic Crypto Reserve! Sovereign fund!"
$LIBRA co-creator, market maker and "facilitator" Hayden Davis (a. Kelsier) who bragged "I control that n***a. I send $$ to his sister [Karina Milei] and he signs whatever I say and does what I want" revealed that insiders were able to buy into $TRUMP coin pre-ICO at "special access" dinner in DC... and confirmed that $LIBRA is a clone of $MELANIA and some other dodgy coins ($ENRON, $AIAI, $BOB, $M3M3/"Meme Launchpad"...) He also admitted that the team was sniper trading both $LIBRA and $MELANIA.
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Eric Trump's tweet on eX-Twitter ("In my opinion, it's a great time to add $ETH. You can thank me later. " Eric Trump (@EricTrump) February 3, 2025) pumped $ETH over +35% in a day, after WLFI (Trump family-affiliated crypto investment firm / slush fund) accumulated 1826 $ETH before. "You can thank me later" part of the post was deleted shortly after... just like Milei deleted his post few hours after promoting $LIBRA.
He also tried to do the same pump with Bitcoin, which is also held by WLFI, but $BTC didn't move... Maybe BTC is bigger than Eric?
Eric Trump is also pushing for 0% cap gains tax for US (?) crypto "projects" (XRP, HBAR...), while Ted Cruz is fighting IRS about DeFi reporting rules.
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Meanwhile...:
Bukele's El Salvador experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender is over, despite large number of the unbanked and installation of hundreds of Bitcoin ATMs. Beside many technical issues with rollout, it was never widely adopted (only 20% downloaded Chivo to get initial grant of $30 in BTC; ~6% of population used more than 3 times a year), and Chivo was hacked several times. IMF agreed to loan $1.4B (that much!) on condition that Chivo is sold or shut down, taxes paid in USD (not BTC) and private sector no longer mandated to accept BTC. Sorry, volcanoes.
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In [un]related news:
Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey's defense company Anduril takes over multi-m/billion DoD contract for HoloLens IVAS project, transferred to them by ODM Microsoft... as predicted in November - Palmer is BIL of Matt Gaetz.
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