In discussing Trump’s presidency, I though that one of the few things that he cared about, other than his own business interests, was the stock market. It looks like I was wrong. His imposition of drastic tariffs on pretty much all countries have tanked stock markets worldwide and led to fears of a recession. Even he must have known that this would happen and yet he went ahead anyway, raising the question: Why?
One answer is that he thinks that the tariffs will raise enormous amounts of new revenue, enough to pay for the tax cuts for the rich. Of course, since the costs of the tariffs will be borne by the importers of goods who will pass it on to consumers in the form of higher prices, this is just another typical reverse Robin Hood plan by Republicans, taking from the poor and giving to the rich, a policy much favored by the oligarchy. The higher costs paid by most people will be more than what they will receive in the form of small tax cuts, but that inconvenient fact will be omitted while Trump brags about the tax cuts.
But I have to think that there is more at play here, that the tariffs are really a power play. A clue to what might be going on can be seen in some comments he made.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump claimed “every country has called us” since his announcement on Wednesday.
“That is the beauty of what we do, we put ourselves in the driver’s seat.”
Trump is am insecure bully who likes having world leaders come begging to him and so he makes policies that threaten all economies, including that of the US, in order to achieve that. In this case, he uses the excuse of trade imbalances to slap huge tariffs, knowing that other world leaders, trying to prevent an escalating catastrophe, will try to find ways to get him to see reason. Ideally, other countries would unite and give him the middle finger and start increasing trade amongst themselves and slowly shutting out the US. But this is a form of the Prisoners Dilemma. In the classic form, the prisoners do not get to talk with each other whereas in this case the world leaders can. But it takes time to agree on creating a united front and in the short term, each country will try to carve out small exemptions for themselves, playing into Trump’s hands.
Trump is doing the same thing with universities. In that case, the excuse for his extreme actions is antisemitism. He is suspending all grants to elite institutions like Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, using the pretext that they are not doing anything about combating antisemitism whereas in fact his own administration has many people, including Elon Musk, who are very Nazi-adjacent to say the least. He must enjoy having the presidents of these institutions coming to him to plead their case.
US congressman Jerry Nadler has called bullshit on Trump’s claim that he is concerned about campus antisemitism.
Jerry Nadler, the most senior Jewish member of the House of Representatives, has accused Donald Trump of being a “would-be dictator” who is cynically exploiting the fight against antisemitism as a ruse to stamp his will on top-flight universities.
In an interview with the Guardian, the New York congressman lashed out against the president for using genuine dangers confronting American Jews as a guise to justify his attacks on Columbia, Harvard and other universities. “Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism, this is just an expression of his authoritarianism,” he said.
Nadler’s broadside came as the Trump administration is stepping up its attack on Ivy League and other universities in an unprecedented challenge to academic independence. This week $210m in research grants to Princeton University were suspended by the energy and defense departments and NASA, under the mantle of a federal investigation into “antisemitic harassment”.
Earlier this week Nadler released a sternly-worded statement denouncing the attacks. He said the president was “weaponizing the real pain American Jews face to advance his desire to wield control over truth-seeking academic institutions”.
In his Guardian interview Nadler expanded on his stance, warning fellow American Jews not to be taken in by Trump’s rhetoric. He said that if the president were allowed to get away with his efforts to restrict free speech on campuses, Jews would be among those most impacted.
“Whenever freedom is curtailed, Jews in particular become victims,” Nadler said. “That’s the history.”
He added that Trump’s actions in the name of fighting antisemitism would paradoxically make the lives of American Jews less safe. “There are always antisemites looking for an excuse to react, so this is dangerous and it certainly does not help at all.”
Nadler said that if Trump were sincere about protecting Jewish people he would root out the “numerous antisemites he has appointed to some of the highest positions in government”. Asked to specify which officials he had in mind, the congressman named Kingsley Wilson, a Pentagon spokesperson.
Seth Meyers weighed in on the tariffs and the bullying mentality.
So did Stephen Colbert.
Saturday Night Live also had something to say.
The Dow looks set to open tomorrow on a 2500 point drop. In spite of the fact that it impacts my retirement money, I am happy to think of all the financial and corporate types who supported Turnip, feeling regrets.
The tariffs are a stupid idea and everyone has told him that, apparently. Another thing that I saw mentioned is that the Turnip administration have been using ChatGPT to write a majority of his executive orders. I wish they’d just let GPT run things. It understands the situation better (ask GPT “what is a tariff?” and you’ll get a pretty decent answer).
Since everyone has a theory, mine is that one of Turnip’s crowd read the condensed Readers’ Digest version of Dune and fixated on the part where Paul says “the person who has the power to destroy a thing, has control of it.”
Could that actually be a goal? Could the oligarchs be selling short now in the hope that the market recovers when Trump cancels the tariffs? Maybe that’s just a conspiracy theory on my part, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
oh there are definitely so many people doing insider trading right now. don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to get that notion. i do doubt that is the only motive.
It’s not for insiders. First off, it’s gonna be terrifying Wall Streeters. Secondly, if they wanted to shift the markets they could just as easily spew B.S.
I think we are looking at a politician who actually managed to come up with a worse idea than “let’s march on Moscow this winter! It’ll be yuge!”
Bonus hilarity: April is “National Financial Literacy Month”!
Here’s Trump’s message about it: Presidential Message on National Financial Literacy Month, 2025
Published the day before he threw the markets (including those for “digital assets”) off a cliff with a set of policies that almost everybody agrees are completely stupid and based on a complete misunderstanding of basic economic principles.
You couldn’t make it up.
The Swedish stock market Is also dropping by 5% today.
I am losing a horrible amount of money, but I realise it is necessary to smoke out the narcissist cretin in the White House and his Republican enablers,
as well as destroying the credibility of the billionaires that have been sponsoring the destruction of USA for the last quarter century but donating massive amounts to corrupt proxies at different levels of politics.
After Dubya came Obama, but he was the usual kind of corporate Democrat and opposed major changes, beyond carrying out Bill Clinton’s plan for health insurance.
This time the Democrats who want bad bipartisan agreements need to be primaried.
That he would do this was not a surprise to me. That he would do this repeatedly was not a surprise to me. I instructed my broker to sell high not too long after he was elected and now we have some nice tasty lows. That is to say a number of the much much higher $$ than I were sitting on a lot of cash that they were accumulating. They have a whole heckuva lot more money to come in a take advantage of this than I do. It remains to be seen if my profits will tide me until things even out again…
Yeah the moron is vicious and cruel and has no business anywhere but a jail cell. It could just be he isn’t a bully per se, so much as he is a criminal.
The idea that DT is truly a pathetic, insecure little bully and does things from that place is so incredibly believable.
It seems that Robert Reich had the same thought as I did @2, but with an additional detail. A message on his substack ends:
I hadn’t thought about the midterms, just the rich getting richer.
I very much doubt there’s a plan in there somewhere.
Alzheimer Don is simply enjoying his moment of power, following old brain patterns he laid down back in the 80s and denying any hint that reality may not conform to his wishes. He’s too far gone to analyze anything really, he’s pure instinct by now, all of it nasty.
Some commenters on the news are (slowly) putting together the picture, either mentioning that “economics won’t explain this -- we need a psychologist”, or “he’s far into not-giving-a-fuck-anymore territory”.
A total meltdown, instigated by a senile old wreck and his court of bootlickers.
birgerjohansson @ # 5: … Bill Clinton’s plan for health insurance.
Actually, “Obamacare” was created in reaction to the Bill/Hillary Clinton health care proposals (by the Heritage Foundation, now best known for “Project 2025”), and enacted first in Massachusetts, when Mitt Romney was governor there. I don’t know whether “Hillarycare” would have turned out better or worse.
Pierce R. Butler @ 11
I stand corrected. The 90s were a long time ago and I don’t recall every detail.
BTW a Trump apologist just used the argument “Losing money costs you nothing”.
Hooray! My stock portfolio has lost a lot of nothing!
re: #13 birgerjohansson
I presume the Chief Felon apologist does not know what a Required Minimum Distribution is. When the value of your 401k goes down the amount of the RMD you withdraw goes down. That is less money in hand.
These maga cultists are a toxic blend of arrogance and ignorance.