Tag: tariffs

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The Trump Administration began raising tariffs back in April. Since then some have been lowered and some have been raised mostly based on the feelings Trump has towards the particular countries involved. In a remarkable display of peevishness, he raised tariffs on Canada based solely on the behavior of one Canadian citizen who deigned to remind Trump of Ronald Reagan’s Free Market philosophy. One Canadian playfully reminds Trump of one of the base tenants of market capitalism and all of Canada must suffer.

There is no explaining Trump at this point so I won’t even try but it is interesting how business people and libertarians continue to support Trump when his actions are contrary to their philosophy. Trump clearly believes that government can be used to interfere in the market and help individual players he likes. This isn’t laissez faire capitalism.

Raise tariffs to protect American businesses. Lower tariffs because Americans need cheaper beef. Raise tariffs because someone was mean to me. How are businesses supposed to rationally price their products in a global economy based on the capricious actions of one man is beyond me. But then, and this is the real lesson here, American Business has never been a big supporter of laissez faire capitalism. No matter what they say.

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I try not to read too much news as I find it depressing and unhelpful. I am sorry but there is only so much time I am willing to give to Donald Trump’s shenanigans. There has to be more life than complaining about him so I was struck by a friend’s post in Facebook about Trump. I missed it and it was indeed shocking. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, prostrated himself before Donald Trump in order to ensure that his company is exempt from Trump’s tariffs.

This isn’t the way government is supposed to work. Trump’s whole theory behind the tariffs is that he wants to bring back jobs to American workers. Yet, Cook, a large company with a large contingent of Chinese labor, bends the knee, buys a present for Trump and is now free from the high tariffs on Chinese manufacturing. Cook supposedly agreed to house more manufacturing in USA but the details don’t sound very promising. It sounds like a lot of paperwork on how Trump’s Team defines foreign made for Apple while allowing Apple to continuing making its phones in China.

So what did American Labor get out of this deal? Vague promises. All Cook had to do was throw a little gold Trump’s way and then, in public, kiss Trump’s abundant ass which I am pretty sure was the most unpleasant part of the whole deal for Cook. I am sure he would have preferred a much quieter deal without the cameras and the transfer of the gold present.

But that isn’t the way Trump operates. He doesn’t think tit for tat is wrong, he doesn’t think accepting gifts from anyone may be suspect, and he likes people to bow before him. I am not naive enough to think this doesn’t happen. It probably does. What is troubling is that Trump fails to see the problem with his behavior and that Cook consented to such a naked display of corruption.