Summary
U.S. CEOs and business executives are alarmed as Donald Trump remains firm on imposing high tariffs on U.S. allies, despite warnings from economists about potential economic harm.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s late-night social media announcements have blindsided both his advisers and business leaders, leaving them scrambling to react.
While Trump consults some advisers, like Marco Rubio and Treasury pick Scott Bessent, his unilateral approach limits their influence.
The uncertainty has left business leaders struggling to find ways to alter his stance on trade policies.
How the actual fuck are people “blindsided” by this?
Because folks do their 5 minute research by reading conservative mainstream news outlets and safe space enclaves that Tariffs are good.
Talking points to the contrary are not allowed, so they get to find out the hard way.
To be fair. The message they’re receiving is that tariffs will hurt the people that deserve it. And they’re absolutely right. But while they’re suffering, so will the rest of America.
Remember that Trump lies about everything, often in both directions. Everyone knows this, including his supporters. That gives his supporters the mental freedom to make up whateverthefuck policy positions they like and find proof that they are Trump’s real plan.
Donald Trump is the human version of a Bible. If you’re a Believer, god says he will implement your Desire. If you’re a Heretic, god says he will destroy the world. All with the same words.
But… But… Genderless bathrooms! /s
They thought they’d vote anti-tax first, then pushover trump on the tariffs when they had the time. Looks like they were wrong.
More faces being eaten.
If this was his first go-around I could see some rationale to that idea. But holy shit, has there been a case of collective amnesia among business ‘leaders’?!!
They knew exactly what they were getting. Because we’ve seen all this before. Usually this is the definition of madness. But in this case it should be the definition of stupidity.
This same surprised Pikachu shit is going to happen over and over and over again over the next 4+ years. Even right now, the media keep assuming what he says is what he will do. And I have no idea why. He demonstrated in his first term that at least half of what he promises he either backtracks on he doesn’t follow through on. Why they think things will be different this time is beyond me.
Did you only now notice that he only cares about himself?
And he’s mind-bogglingly stupid on top of that.
Americas leader and figurehead.
Truly a man of the people.
I hope he ruins all of them. Every last one.
You had four whole years of Trump to realize he never jokes around, he doesn’t bluff, and he’s never going to pivot, change directions, or admit he made a mistake. He means what he says and there is no nuance or subtext.
He means what he says and there is no nuance or subtext.
Well, there is a sort of nuance here.
In that he’s also terrible at doing literally anything, and fails constantly at achieving promises.
He also has so many plots and schemes cooking at any given moment with so many other people and organizations that you absolutely cannot trust or predict any outcome. This is the real thing that nobody learned about Trump is that he is completely unpredictable because he can’t be honest about the color of the sky if asked.
There were also guardrails to stop his half baked schemes from being implemented, or people with integrity in career positions that had the hard option of saying no.
I’m just worried this time he will tell his head of the EPA to make the sky that color.
And the head of the EPA will.
In some regards, I hope so too. The old Fuck Around and Find Out bit. The fucking MAGAts will look like deer in headlights when the economic freight train derails and crashes.
Might be a bit of a contrarian take, but at this point I think Trump needs to have a gigantic fuck up to drive people to the streets in anger, South Korea style. One of those ‘we need our medicine before we can get better’ moments.
For some reason tens of millions of people buy his “'I’m the greatest - only I can save you - they’re evil and stupid” rhetoric.
So it’s going to take a truly epic fuck up that he can’t bullshit his way out of - and that the media can’t ignore - for people to finally see that him and his cronies are all gigantic pieces of shit.
He did have a gigantic fuck up. He fucked up the response to covid-19. Badly. And how much did his fuck up make the situation worse in the rest of the world?
74 million people still voted for him in 2020. During and immediately AFTER that fuck up.
Yeah, but the alternative was voting for a woman, so…
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His entire first administration was a series of such fuckups. I am not hopeful that consequences (for him) are ever coming.
South Korea wasn’t in a cult for that leader AND what he asked for was essentially what… Something that equated to the build up to January 6th, without even a January 6th style failed coup attempt to show for it.
No, they did what we should have. We failed.
South Korea values education. The Republican party has been destroying the public education system for decades.
So south Korea does not have as many braindead people as we have here
This is the whole issue. Republicans, a cult, can only exist in pretend political party form because they have convinced their base that literally–literally–anything that has a big ol REPUBLICAN label slapped on it is the highest moral good.
They see children getting murdered in cold blood in schools and take the side of the guns. I should probably repeat that four or five times with varying emphasis.
Trump could bomb an orphanage, brag about it, and within a week Fox Lies & Propaganda would be running stories about how the orphanage made a mistake on its taxes that was falsely flagged as fraud, and how orphans might become criminals.
It won’t undo the current disaster, but the real path back is probably more like talking to one person who’s trumpy but still somehow you kind of like anyway, with a tone of…come on now. Are we serious with this? You see this for what it is, right? You gotta put a stop to this, it can’t go on. Or just plain old Lakoff advice about getting your racist grandpa to tell you a story at thanksgiving of a time he helped somebody. This is one step in restoring his brain to its unpoisoned-by-conservatism state.
You gotta attack the foundation of fascism and conservatism, which science seems to think you do with empathy.
If this could have happened it would have happened during covid
Didn’t he literally campaign on these tariffs?
Where were these titans of industry in October?
Yup. This is not a new thing. If these guys had lined up to say this at a microphone during the campaign it could have had an impact. But no, they thought they could just control him after the fact. After having seen how uncontrollable he was during his first term. This is what happens when you equate wealth with intelligence. You get dumbasses who think they’re playing 5d chess.
They thought they could control the guy who stared at the sun during an eclipse after he was told if he did, he might go blind.
You can’t control Caligula.
The German corporate elite thought they could control the last guy as well…
All part of Putin’s plan. He probably gave him the advice on tariffs.
You let the fox in the henhouse. Why would he listen? He’s not planning to win over hearts and minds
unilateral
authoritarian*
FTFY
Trump’s late-night social media announcements have blindsided both his advisers and business leaders, leaving them scrambling to react.
He said he was going to do this long ago, dipshits. “Seriously, but not literally?”
He has already shown them what he wants them to do.
Just donate $1 million to him and he will help your business
It was a billion.
After the great depression, tariffs were implemented and failed to do anything other than fuck over the American people.
The event that finally ended the Great Depression was the United States’ entry into World War II, which significantly boosted the economy through increased demand for war materials and created millions of jobs in defense industries. While President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs aimed to alleviate the Depression, they did not fully end it. The massive production needs of World War II essentially pulled the US out of the Depression. The government spending on war materials created a significant economic stimulus.
Leopards, faces, etc.
What are they expecting, exactly? Even Musk was saying a day before the election that Trump was going to tank the economy. I’m sure Trump will just say “things are going to get worse before they get better, but believe you me when they get better, you’re all going to be filthy rich!” The typical Trump supporter will assume he’s talking to them, but he’ll only be talking to those who are already filthy rich.
