The truly ironic bit is that Ford was most likely built and assembled in Mexico
All models are manufactured at Ford’s Cuautitlán Assembly Plant.
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Trump is incapable of thinking of things in anything but an ego-driven way. In the “They’re sending their rapists” speech isn’t just notable because of the obvious incitement to violence against people with brown skin, I always thought a lot about “they’re sending”. Who is they? For Trump everything that happens is either a friend helping or an enemy attacking. It’s impossible that it’s people who don’t know or care about Trump making decisions that are completely unrelated to Trump’s interest.
So yeah, it “makes sense”, but only to Trump (not even to other narcissists, since for them it everything would be about them not about Trump).
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Exactly. Can you imagine, say, China, discussing its next steps in trade negotiations? “So, the United States is going to illegally break an existing trade agreement that will increase the taxes its own citizens pay on Mexican products to… punish Mexico for letting Guatamalans and Nicaraguans seek asylum in America?”
“That’s… The Art of the Deal!” Aristocrats snap
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Ah, sorry. I left out the “/s” tag. Nothing he does “makes sense” to any sensible person. To be clear, I think this is another stupid idea he’s lobbing out there to further muddy the muddy waters, and to show his base that he’s willing to “show those Mexicans what for!”
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It is I who has miscommunicated. I knew you meant “makes sense” as in “does not make sense” but I was just taking an opportunity to deliver my slam poetry about narcissists.
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For Trump everything that happens is either a friend helping or an enemy attacking.
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Trump’s doing it wrong! You’re supposed to use splitting to maintain a negative self image and feed into anxiety and depression. Everyone knows that!
[I phrase this as a joke to mask the reality that there is a party of me that *really* feels this way]
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He really does think that companies IN Mexico will pay the tariffs - I’m not misreading this am I?
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everyone just needs to say TAX not tarrif - Trump is raising taxes
the number of people who understand what a tarrif actually is/does is about equal to the people who’ve actually read any significant part of the Mueller Report
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The only other place you hear this kind of negotiation style is terrorists and psychopathic bank robbers “…after that I will shoot a hostage every 15 minutes until I get my plane!”
Also, obvs, “the beatings will continue” etc, etc…
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btw, eliminating jobs in Mexico, that will definitely slow down immigration for work… wait, what?
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This idiot.
You don’t need a wall. You don’t need a tariff. You need MANDATORY E-VERIFY to make sure someone can work in America Legally, and MANDATORY CRIMINAL CHARGES AND HARSH PENALTIES for any employer who hires undocumented labor. Which, btw, Trumpy himself has done. People will come here illegally to change their lives, which is understandable; what’s not is letting America’s 1% line their pockets and cheat on their taxes by hiring undocumented labor they can treat like trash, underpay and not keep safe. Crossing our border without proper papers is a crime, but hiring someone who’s done that is a crime as well – and one that, for too long, has had no consequences and no ramifications.
The Dems are useless on undocumented humans as well – like campaign finance reform, like wartime spending and so on – and this again raises the question of what to do when the two entrenched political parties refuse to put responsibility on the shoulders of the people responsible.
If you know that hiring an undocumented person will see you in jail with your business seized, you’re less likely to do it. Think of it as like Polluter-Pay – not that undocumented humans are pollution, for christ’s sake, but rather in that nothing will change until we get serious about punishing people who make private profit by undermining the public good.
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Mmm - no it still makes sense because US companies have plants in Mexico. So if it costs more to import what they make back to here, then they may as well move back here to make the cars.
There actually is a tipping point where it would be cheaper to make them here rather than Mexico, but protectionist tariffs rarely work out the way you think they will. Furthermore, the Mexican plants serve more than just the US and Mexico. So if you moved back to the US you will hurt your sales in international markets because you can no longer compete there.
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If this was someone else than Trump, I’d think that’s a genuine possibility. I mean, it would be a stupid, self-destructive tactic, but it’s logically consistent and could work.
But Trump? So far, every time he does something blatantly stupid, and people come up with an ulterior motive or cunning plan to explain it, in the end it has turned out that no, he was just being a moron.
So I don’t think you’re right here. This is just Trump not understanding how tariffs, international trade, US economy, or diplomacy work, and doing stupid, counterproductive things because he’s a horrible parody of a human being and completely unfit for the presidency.
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So, typical Trumpost thought process. Gottcha.
(The Trumpost started as a typo, but I liked it, so I left it! Compost + Trumpist = Trumpost)
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Hence the “if”.
Village Idiot is Village Idiot
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At this point we have ample, ample evidence of that, unfortunately. I don’t know why anyone would, for anything, negotiate in good faith with the US (knowing this administration isn’t negotiating in good faith). Why would anyone make a new deal with this administration when it’s violating the existing ones?
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One of my fears is that this will become a permanent state of affairs. No one will negotiate with us since we have established that we are prone to electing assholes who will trash any and all previously agreed to treaties. It is hard to get these things agreed to in the first place, why would they do so if we cannot be expected to abide by the terms past the current administration? (Assuming we return to sanity with the next one, there will be no guarantee of remaining sane.)
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Yeah, anyone who thinks things will “go back to normal” once Trump leaves is deluding themselves. At the very least the US has destroyed its reputation as a consistent, stabilizing influence because we are now the country that elects people like Trump, who will blow up partnerships, agreements, the international order (and potentially countries) unpredictably.
I’m just not sure quite how bad things will stay after he’s gone. I at least expect that any future agreements will be put together with the possibility that the US will violate them in mind (and have enforceable penalties for when that happens). At worst the US will be treated only slightly better than some unstable third world country, sidelined from leading cooperative international ventures, and if we want something to happen, we’ll have to find another country to advocate for us, essentially.
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