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Comment by magicloop | Hacker News Reader

That's fair but I suggest that they are actually deficit hawks for the long term. In the short term, they've got financing troubles hence they care about the yield.

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What if (and I realize this is an extremely pessimistic take) their plan is to just default on the debt and rely on military blackmail? Sure, there's a Constitutional prohibition on questioning the validity of USA debt, but the administration shrugs at the Constitution on a weekly basis. The endless whining about how 'unfairly' other nations are treating the US, 'ripping us off', 'laughing at us' etc is a precursor for aggressive action, and I think it's quite likely that at some point they'll come out and say 'we don't have to pay debts to countries that have been scamming us the whole time.' About one quarter of the population will support MAGA no matter what, and if things get bad enough the administration can just announce they've been 'forced' to take over Greenland and Canada.

A flashing negative warning sign of this would be issue of new kinds of Treasury securities with new complex rules.

That sounds like it would completely destroy the US economy and government budgets (at which point the only thing left to do is to establish a war economy under authoritarian rule and continue war? I don't even know, it sounds completely bananas...)

Didn't they just announce a 1 trillion budget for defense?

Yep, apparently that's in the works. They aren't going to reduce the deficit or debt. It soared during Donald's first term and will again.

Subtext: $1T executive slush fund.

Back to the days of the military acting like thugs, slightly worse than acting as the world police.

Deficit hawks would not lower taxes for richest segment, which were sure money in exchange of maybe money. Nor would they slash IDS

No, they are nor deficit hawks. They don't care about deficit, except when trying to blame it on someone else.

There are very few politicians that are actually deficit hawks. The majority that claims that position are actually entitlement hawks. That is, they use fear of the deficit to talk about the need to reign in social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, and any other form of government assistance regardless the size or impact on the government budget.

Meanwhile the DoD, CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA, DHS, and ICE have never had a politician seriously consider reducing their funding.

Gotta be honest, I think it's more likely that Trump just has a strange fixation on tariffs. I don't really think there was a whole lot of planning around them other than "I want them".

How he's deployed them and spoken/written about them makes me think he thinks it's a good way to strong arm countries and he wanted to strong arm everyone.

Well congress has until July to reign them in before they (and the people) lose even more money in their savings. They better be swift.

What's in July?

That's 90 days from now.

Could you elaborate on what will happen in July?

That's 90 days from today when the tariffs are supposed to take effect again.

There's no actual commitment here. He could reverse again tonight. He signaled ongoing dissatisfaction with countries that had retaliated, so may well take further action there during the 90 days, which 90 days are, again, meaningless in that they don't bind him at all, and even if they did, he's done a bunch of things he's "not allowed to" and so far has gotten away with tons of it.

You're right. But as we see with TikTok, he loves to talk big but keep kicking thr can down the road instead of backing off. There will inevitably be more spats in the meantime (especially with the EU), but I wouldn't be surprised if he extends it more when July looms (assuming that congress bill is still struggling to pass).

I think it's because it's one thing he can control all by himself. Look at all the attention he's receiving. The "will he/won't he" reality TV. Put a tweet saying X%. No, they won't be cancelled. Yes I'm suspending them for 90 days. And so on.

He has a long record of advocating for tariffs. He thinks they're a good idea.

Except he can't. They're abusing a legal loophole that probably can be easily defeated in court if anyone interested can actually locate their balls to do it

All the way up to the SCOTUS, at which point it'll be a 7-2 vote in Trump's favor.

I'm not saying he won't win the case but you're daft if you think it won't be 5-4 on the grounds that congress actually has to pass something to signal their intent to the courts.

The question here is not whether congress has to pass something, the question is can congress delegate this authority which is explicitly set by the constitution.

There were a bunch of sentences regarding non delegation of powers of congress, mainly for federal agencies, and courts deciding that congress can't delegate those faculties, so, by the book, this would be a similar situation. There is actually an ongoing case for this aspect of the discussion:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/trump-tariff...

The are a few republican judges that dont seem too keen on having their names attached to the demise of American empire

maybe 2 which is not enough

I believe that particular ship has sailed.

Even fewer that won't fall in line if threatened to be doxxed to the MAGA mob via Xitter.

How many of them are on the SCOTUS?

I don't believe he can get a 7/2 ruling in SCOTUS. But I do believe he can get Republicans in the current Congress to jump for him, and to try to ensure their majority by disenfranchising people before the midterms.

reasonably he can, even if its illegal. unless he gets inpeached and removed, theres no mechanism to stop him.

even then, congress can vote but who would actually remove him from power?

> I think it's more likely that Trump just has a strange fixation on tariffs

It's the only "powerful" thing he can use that doesn't require him going back to congress.

That's obvious. You can find news clips from the late 80's/early 90's where he is mouthing off about tariffs. That rut is eroded deep in his brain...

He definitely does, and has since at least the '80s.

That and his self-image as The Best Negotiator (while his actual "negotiating tactics" are really just mob-boss intimidation and bullying) are a huge part of what's going on here.

Trump has had a bizarre fixation on trade deficits since the eighties. Back then he blamed Japan. Now it's China. It's his one and only ideological commitment.

Everyone’s a deficit hawk in the long term. It’s easy to talk tough on reducing dept at some non-specific time in the distant future probably after you leave office.

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