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does Trump realize he's already mashing the button that makes prices go up before these new tariffs?
pretextual investigation to support pretextual tariffs is a bit more proper
https://ustr.gov/about/policy-office...and-productionIn a process that is likely to result in a fresh round of tariffs in the near future, the Office of U.S. Trade Representative is opening the formal probes into major trade partners that include the European Union, Mexico and China — each of which ranks among the top five sources of U.S. imports.
Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan and India will also be the targets of investigations under the trade statute known as Section 301.
“These investigations will focus on economies that we have evidence appear to exhibit structural excess capacity and production in various manufacturing sectors, such as through larger, persistent trade surpluses or underutilized or unused capacity,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on a call with reporters Wednesday.
“We expect that this investigation will uncover a variety of unfair trading practices,” Greer added.
Greer said the U.S. would also be moving to launch an investigation related to the import of goods made with “forced labor,” in a second announcement set for later this week.
does Trump realize he's already mashing the button that makes prices go up before these new tariffs?
Trump is dangerous. I called this the day they started this. It was so ing predictable how they would respond. They are mining the damn strait and there is not a ing thing we can do about it.
tariffs are still inflationary
Trump is determined to raise taxes on US companies
https://apnews.com/article/tariffs-t...30a911e04aa8eaThe Trump administration this week stepped up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a range of the president’s import taxes.
Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multi-trillion dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say. The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new duties, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that U.S. companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield.
“I wouldn’t bet against this administration being able to get back on paper the same effective tariff rate they had before,” said Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. But the new approach will “make it easier for people to contest the tariffs, which is going to put a big asterisk on the revenue until all that is settled.”
"People" are dropping Trump in the frying pan
JD Vance was only the first
There's no ostensible reason to do it if there's an available solution that can quickly reopen the strait
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/18/why-...-iran-war.htmlIt’s not just oil: Aluminum prices have surged as Iran conflict chokes supply
The U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran has upended the supply of aluminum in the Middle East, sending prices of the base metal skyrocketing.
While aluminum may be the most abundant metal on earth, it is crucial to the function of the world economy.
It is an essential material across electronics, transport, and construction, as well as other industries such as solar panels and packaging.
At the outbreak of the Iran conflict on Feb. 28, 3-month LME aluminum futures initially jumped by as much as 10% by March 12 before paring some gains to land around 8% higher, as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused a significant disruption to supply.
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The answer as to where the price could be headed next lies with China, according to other analysts.
China is the biggest producer of aluminum and tends to keep production constrained at 45.5 million tons per year to reduce emissions and prevent overcapacity issues.
“If the Chinese government decides that the prices are too high they can restart a number of idle smelters in the country and the world will be full of aluminum,” Artem Volynets, CEO of miner ACG Metals, told CNBC’s Europe Early Edition on Wednesday.
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Trump did the one thing that can cause a worldwide recession and rampant inflation at the same time
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.htm
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/27/sony...rice-rise.htmlSony hikes PS5 prices by up to $150 citing ‘pressures’ in global economy
Sony on Friday said it will raise prices on its range of flagship PlayStation 5 consoles for the second time in less than a year, citing “pressures in the global economic landscape.”
In the U.S, the PS5 disc edition will jump from $549.99 to $649.99, a $100 increase from the last time Sony hiked prices of the console last year. The digital edition of the device will also rise $100 to $599.99. The PS5 Pro, Sony’s most powerful version of the console, gets a $150 hike to $899.99.
The price rises take effect on April 2.
“We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide,” Sony said in a blog post.
When Sony raised prices globally last year, it was against the backdrop of continually high inflation and uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...orld-s-dumbestThe World's Dumbest Tariff Has Been Revealed
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So far, this is a standard US tariff story, but aluminum isn’t a standard product. According to the US Geological Survey, imports cons uted approximately 60% of domestic consumption last year, even with high tariffs. This dependence does not reflect “unfair trade” but deep structural realities. Aluminum production is extremely electricity-intensive, and US power prices – along with fierce compe ion for electricity from AI and other high-value industries – have made smelting uneconomical relative to regions with abundant power and access to the core inputs bauxite and alumina.
In just the last few years, primary aluminum smelters in Washington, Missouri, and Kentucky have each shut down, and production has declined. Now, only four smelters are in operation, just two at full capacity. And this contraction occurred despite tariff protection expressly intended to boost output.
Taxes, regulations, and permitting burdens add to the headwinds, as do the cost and complexity of bringing a modern smelter online. Thus, the one new US facility under development in power-rich Oklahoma won't start until 2030 at the earliest. Until then, and likely well beyond, America will continue to depend on imports to keep store shelves stocked and factories running – and tariffs will continue to impose major costs.
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Making matters worse, an easy solution to the aluminum shortfall lies next door – or, at least, it did. Canada has long been America's largest aluminum supplier, thanks to abundant hydroelectricity that gives its producers a decisive cost and environmental advantage. Canadian aluminum is also deeply integrated into US defense supply chains because the nation is a close ally that was officially made part of America’s Defense Industrial Base in 1993. With Canada specializing in primary smelting and the US focused on downstream fabrication and manufacturing, bilateral trade and investment flourished. Today, Pittsburgh-based Alcoa Corp. owns three Canadian smelters that collectively churn out almost 30% of the nation’s total output.
Comparative advantage was working exactly as advertised – until we blew it up. As Bloomberg News reported in September, Trump’s 50% tariff and removal of an exemption for Canada drove producers there to send US-bound shipments to Europe instead. In just a few months, Aluminerie Alouette – North America's largest smelter – saw its European sales rise from 4% of production to 57%. Rio Tinto Plc largely stopped shipping Canadian aluminum to the US, and even Alcoa diverted around 100,000 metric tons to non-US destinations.
These shifts are already coming back to bite the United States. With tariffs pushing Canadian aluminum elsewhere last year, American companies became “increasingly reliant” on imports from the Middle East, with almost a quarter of unwrought aluminum coming from the UAE and Bahrain. Those sources are now imperiled by the Iran war, and Canadian producers, already operating at full capacity, won’t shift back to the US market while the tariff wall remains - if ever.
Overall, aluminum protectionism has been a confounding own-goal. Tariffs haven’t just raised prices and harmed American manufacturers; they’ve actively pushed a top producer and close ally out of our market, with shrinking domestic sources unable to fill the gap. Given the metal’s role in the US defense industrial base, aluminum-related risks are likely higher today than they were before “national security” tariffs were ever enacted.
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Another thread that tsa will never visit ever again
America First policy is empirically harmful to America
Impeach and remove
or 25th amendment
the tariff-induced goods recession is hitting trucking and logistics
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fr...ile-chapter-11
below trend blue collar job growth
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/19/c...y-independenceTrump said wind power is for ‘stupid people.’ Here’s what European countries did 5 days later
In a speech at Davos last month, President Donald Trump railed against “windmills” as “losers” and called nations that buy them “stupid people.” Just five days later, nine European countries signed a deal to build a vast offshore wind power hub in the North Sea, the epicenter of the continent’s oil and gas industry.
The deal — not a direct response to Trump’s wind-bashing speech — offers an immense potential prize for Europe: it could increase energy security and wean the continent off its heavy dependence on US oil and gas at a time when the US is proving to be a volatile partner.
Europe is one of many energy-importing economic powers increasingly seeing renewables as synonymous with energy independence: India is adding solar at a rapid clip and China installed more wind and solar in 2024 than the total amount of renewable energy operating in the US.
The US is in stark opposition, going all in on fossil fuels while trying to shut down wind and solar projects. On energy, the US is now more “aligned with petrostates like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Russia,” said Thijs Van de Graaf, an associate professor of international politics at Ghent University.
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chaining America to a regressive industrial base is a catastrophe for the USA, but I see how it can benefit Trump short term
https://thehill.com/policy/internati...ses-us-gallup/China now tops US in global approval ratings: Gallup
Global approval of China surpassed the U.S. in 2025, the widest favorability gap between the two countries in almost 20 years, according to a new Gallup poll released Friday.
Gallup found that China’s global approval rating last year reached a median of 36 percent in support of the country’s leadership. U.S. leadership saw its median approval rating drop to 31 percent, a fall of 8 percentage points since 2024. China’s approval rose from 32 percent in 2024.
Disapproval of China’s leadership remained flat at 37 percent, Gallup found. U.S. leadership’s disapproval reached a record-high of 48 percent.
Last year was the second year on record where both countries registered negative net global approval ratings. The median net approval for China dipped to -1, with the U.S. dropping down to a median net approval of -15, the lowest on record.
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Making China Great Again
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...Y/myvmybzwbvr/A year after Liberation Day, what really has happened in the U.S. economy? Have tariffs had the impacts Trump claimed they would? We are giving you, the reader, the power to guess for yourself. Draw on the charts below what you think happened to the trade deficit, trade with China and tariff revenue, among other metrics, and then see how correctly you guessed.....
It'd be funny if it weren't so devastating.
How's Korea, tsa?
CBP to refund Trump's illegal tariffs starting today
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/how...tariff-refund/
How much are we getting back as consumers for paying for the price hikes?
Oh right, $0.
the average US family paid ~$1700 in tariffs last year
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