So we're all in for another ride like this in 3 months? How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?
As nice as this surge is, I'm more focused on upping my cash reserves and bracing myself for a recession.
As nice as this surge is, I'm more focused on upping my cash reserves and bracing myself for a recession.
They're not supposed to. The only people who are planning anything in this scenario are Whitehouse insiders coordinating stock frontrunning from Signal group chats.
https://bsky.app/profile/unusualwhales.bsky.social/post/3lmf...
Which is perfectly fine, now that we have Executive Order 63, Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement to Further American Economic and National Security. This is no longer something the DOJ looks for or tracks, with AG Pam Bondi having to sign off on any potential investigations after a 180-day pause.
Trump also all but disbanded the DOJ Public Integrity Section, that watches for public corruption. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-...
Who cares? Business leaders & the politicians they helped elect are stripping the copper from the country. Whatever's left when they're done is someone else's problem.
All of this chaos is specifically because they have chosen to be complicit instead of opposing the president. If you want the madness to stop, call your representatives. Speak to your family and ask them to do the same.
So if they can find like 20 R senators who realize that they no longer support a Mad King, they're all set.
After overriding a veto, which Trump has already stated he'll use, to block Congress taking back the power of tariffs:
https://bsky.app/profile/sahilkapur.bsky.social/post/3lmak2w...
Theyll need 19 or 20 to get the inevitable veto override. I guess we'll see how these events have shaken congress and if thars enough to take trumps toys away.
Me either. I'm afraid you'll have to ask the people who did elect the copper thieves for an explanation.
We didn't vote for any of this to happen. We voted for the adult. But the reality is that this country held fair elections and the population democratically elected someone that is a somewhat ambiguous melange of amoral, stupid, craven, venal, and selfish.
Many of us knew shit like this was going to happen and that it's going to be a very long 4 years. We are getting exactly what we collectively asked for.
I'll poke my head out for the 2026 elections and see if there's anything worth saving...
Beyond that, IMO, the public doesn't really care about tariffs. Right now there is a lot of noise because this kind of capricious threat/application of tariffs is something new, but the tariff chaos will become boring background noise in a few months and people will move on to the next thing.
Yes, but the big problem is that these same business leaders and politicians are going to be the ones who get first bite at the apple. And so how they plan is going to impact what's left for everyone else.
I don't care because they burned the system to the ground, I care because they're gonna salvage what they need and nothing else.
If I don't know if Trump is literal or serious about re-shoring to normalize trade deficits, or its just a revenue gimmick, or if its all going to be delayed, or negotiated away ... am I moving any production back to the US? No.
Plants are cancelling orders as they are uncertain what the tariff might be by the time goods ship.
Etc.
Burn it all down is not a governing philosophy.
It's also unlikely that it would have been split between only two additional parties. In my state we had 5 parties on the ballot. Colorado (to pick one at random) had 12.
If there was any real movement to get non-voters to vote for a third party, there would likely be even more of them. As it is, each of those parties took a fair bit of effort to get on the ballot, knowing that at best they would "send a message".
If the message is "we don't like you", then the message has been received, for many years. But the reply is "OK, go get people to agree on somebody else", and that's the sticking point.
We don't necessarily feel it when it's up though. As seen from 2024.
I'm doing the same because I'm legitimately in fear of both economic troubles and/or losing my job as a result of all this uncertainty.
I have cut my personal spending to nearly zero aside from essentials and have been hoarding my money. It's the only sensible option when planning for one's future becomes impossible.
I have been in the job market since 1996 and had to find a job both last year and the year before. I’m on my 10th job. None of the fundamentals ever change:
Live below your means so you can take a job that pays less than you are making, keep an emergency fund, keep an updated resume and career document. Also keep an active network and always be interview ready.
Also play the political game at your job and be sure to be in profit centers not cost centers. Market yourself both internally and externally.
Rides like this have happened regularly for longer than I can remember. The details always change, but there is nothing new.
And exactly there is a recipe for recession. A self fulfilling prophecy.
Not that you are to blame but the reason why politicians usually avoid projecting uncertainty.
> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?
They cannot. This is how you can tell Trump was never a real businessman, but rather a TV host and a celebutante. I'd venture nearly all major American business, public and private, depend on stability in the American government. Trump's actions make it painfully clear he is not, and never was, really part of the "business" or "deal making" world.
We in Argentina feel for you: it's exactly the same for us, replacing Trump with Milei. And with the added humiliation of Milei being a lapdog to Trump.
This phrase of yours "unless congress grows a sack" is exactly how we feel about our own congress in Argentina.
Or one that makes people pray that one of those cheeseburgers he's been eating finally does something...
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/07/trum...
from 2021-01-03 to 2021-01-28 by HR 8 [4],
from 2021-03-13 to 2021-04-22 by HR 118,
from 2022-08-01 to 2022-09-30 by HR 1289,
from 2022-10-03 to 2022-11-11 by HR 1396,
from 2022-11-21 to 2022-11-28 by HR 1464,
from 2022-12-22 until the end by HR 1529,
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1546
[2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CLERK-RULE-PAMPHLET-...
[3] https://www.congress.gov/quick-search/legislation?wordsPhras...
[4] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolutio... (mutatis mutandis for the others)
> Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.
Referring to 50 U.S.C. 1622(c) [2]:
> (1) A joint resolution to terminate a national emergency declared by the President shall be referred to the appropriate committee of the House of Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be. One such joint resolution shall be reported out by such committee together with its recommendations within fifteen calendar days after the day on which such resolution is referred to such committee, unless such House shall otherwise determine by the yeas and nays.
> [and so on and so forth with fairly stringent time limits all the way through the legislature]
(As somebody who’s never been to the US—come on, am I the only one who finds legal questions like this to be basically irresistible RTFM bait?)
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolutio...
[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1622#c or https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:50%20section:...
And I mean, both of the houses participated in the first part but only the lower house in the second (AFAICT), so maybe there’s something iffy about that for example. Then of course there are all the suggestions about how the statute these tariffs were ostensibly instituted under (the IEEPA) may not actually authorize tariffs; or that if it does authorize that, then it effectively amounts to the legislature delegating all of its power over tariffs to the executive, which does not entirely sound in tune with the Constitution.
But you see how this starts to look like something you’d want to consult an actual expert on constitutional law about, not dismiss out of hand or listen to random opinions on the Internet on. It’s not immediately clear what even a perfect court would decide here.
This is also how this shambling ghoul gets what any actual citizen of earth would consider a third term. It's already done! This is why he said "you'll won't have to vote again."
The president is only 50 days into his term forever; time is stopped. Hell upon us eternal.
Anything that distracts the president from playing golf is an "emergency".
But nobody can predict recessions.
Also nearly 100% tariffs on one of the biggest trading partners is unlikely to hold for very long. There's probably a lot of options because of that.
Maybe if you already owned your final house and didn’t need healthcare or education.
Plan on relying less on the US market. Grow customers elsewhere.
The problem remains. Anyone who imports from China - which covers a lot of the economy - is screwed.
And Rest of World no longer trusts anything he says.
- not lying about tariffs being taxes on other countries that would replace us paying taxes
- not calling trade deficits tariffs and pretending to impose reciprocal tariffs
- negotiating ahead of time like normal people and clearly communicating the path forward
This is a fabricated justification. There has been literally zero public reporting of any trade negotiations post-tarifpocalypse. The only people saying there are deals being made are the White House, who have produce zero evidence of deals.
No, Trump was responding[1] to the movement of the market and in particular to the sudden spike in federal bond rates. This was absolutely not a win for Art of the Deal. There was no Deal.
[1] In "good faith", to be sure.
Honestly, that's one thing that makes me happy about these tariffs: big business is used to getting its way, and tariffs are very much not what they wanted. I've enjoyed the articles about Wall Street Billionaires getting mad and feeling helpless.
Separate, possibly unrelated question: what was trump’s goal when he created and rug pulled the Trump coin?
It doesn't make sense that the tariff policy can be both leverage in a negotiation with the ultimate goal eliminating trade barriers and also so high and predictable that they can raise something the 10-20% of GDP.
The logical conclusion is that there is no plan here - we're living in a world like England under Henry VIII, where everything is done based on the whim of the king, and the advisors try to justify it ex post facto.
They weren't saying that all along. They were saying that tariffs are a tool that will be used to reindustrialize the USA.
Full on grandmas off her meds level nonsense.
How did they do it in the past?
Do you believe that, if the environment stays this way, businesses will just cease to exist as a phenomenon?
How does that help? The steel and auto tariffs are still in place. There are plans on tariffs for other industries. You'll be hit 1 way or another.
The end goal would be 0% corporate and income taxes, funded with high tariffs. Over time the US re-industrializes.
Building a factory is a 3-5 year task, with a decade-long payback time. And at any point, tariffs can be removed, making all that investment futile.
And even then, there's no guarantee that the factory is going to help people. If it's a lights-out facility staffed with robots, then it'll just be producing more expensive goods, with all the profits staying in its owners' pockets.
> Over time the US re-industrializes.
Or just becomes another Argentina.
No part of your plan will happen.
Right, because the US doesn't have diamonds, vanilla, coffee beans or the many other things it needs? How do you avoid tariffs like this?
The US still needs fish from the penguins. What's the plan? To tell penguins to stop fishing and come to the US and work in factories?
> The end goal would be 0% corporate and income taxes, funded with high tariffs.
Well you have that right. When there's 0% of the people working no 1 will be paying corporate and income tax. It'll just crash.
> Over time the US re-industrializes.
Like it's gone? You do know the US is the 2nd largest global manufacturer right? That is even today. So do we need to blow that up 1st in order to re-industrialize?