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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

Capitulate on what? Trump's senior trade advisor was on TV earlier today saying that the tariffs are not subject to negotiation and seemingly rejecting Vietnam's offer to zero out all their tariffs on the US. Trump himself has repeatedly stated that he thinks tariffs are good for the US and plans to keep them as long as there are trade deficits. Is there any reason to believe that there's some set of policy concessions the EU could make tomorrow that would convince the Trump administration to drop tariffs?

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If the concern is trade deficit then buying more imports would be the capitulation.

Are you seriously suggesting that countries will just force their citizens to buy products they can't afford and don't want? Especially democratic nations? Seriously?

Why don't you steelman the argument instead of using the most uncharitable interpretation possible?

If the parent is saying that other countries can compromise by "importing more" until the trade deficit is fixed, there is no alternative to my statement. That is the argument being made. The government of that country would need to require it's citizens to purchase US goods regardless of their will or ability or need.

That's how buying things works.

I reject the idea that it's my job to come up with a good implementation of an idea I don't support. I'm not on board with "buying more imports would be the capitulation" precisely because I can't imagine any sensible way EU regulators could achieve that. You could nibble at the edges and make the beef lobby happy, but the Trump administration's belief that trade deficits are necessarily caused by bad regulation which could be repealed is just wrong.

I’m not suggesting that anyone actually do it. I’m suggesting that it maybe what the Trump administration is looking for.

Ah, gotcha. Apologies for not reading usernames, I thought you were the grandparent!

What imports though? What the fuck is China supposed to do, buy 200,000,000,000 cases of scotch?

It wouldn’t be the first time a president played the roll of Boeing salesman.

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