1. make players in the room happy - tax cuts and deregulation
2. make his voters happy - tariffs and immigration control
3. enjoy the power - memecoin and cola button
and there are indeed some 'well thought out' economic strategies behind tarrifs
> "In theory, tariffs would be a shrinking ice cube. That you would tariff a country and then as the production comes back to the U.S. the income tax - the corporate revenues and the paid income tax - goes up and the tariff income would go down."
I think the main purpose of tariffs is to serve as a 'stick', to (supposedly) punish other countries for not doing what they're told. Trump has no concept of 'constructive engagement' or negotiation. He thinks in black and white -- do what I want or else. Tariffs are 'else', despite the fact they'll likely hurt America more than help.
> there are indeed some 'well thought out' economic strategies behind tarrifs
but that's not what's happening here
these are retaliatory tariffs used to get other concessions out of countries -- look at Canada and Mexico
besides, as you pointed out, what domestic laptop manufacturing industry is there to protect?
Even if Trump were employing tariffs as intended, I'm not sure how many industries the US have that could benefit? Maybe lumber, computer chips (force TSMC to open factories here), car batteries (?)
1. make players in the room happy - tax cuts and deregulation
2. make his voters happy - tariffs and immigration control
3. enjoy the power - memecoin and cola button
and there are indeed some 'well thought out' economic strategies behind tarrifs
> "In theory, tariffs would be a shrinking ice cube. That you would tariff a country and then as the production comes back to the U.S. the income tax - the corporate revenues and the paid income tax - goes up and the tariff income would go down."
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/treasury-secretary-bessen...
it is the strategy, as long as the US is building a laptop production industry in domestic