The TRUTH About Trump’s Tariff Push

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my big fat Trump tariff epiphany. I spent a great deal of time yesterday. I don’t want to hit me. I watched Donald Trump’s, what was his speech? He was being interviewed, being interviewed at the Chicago economics club there and John Mickelway from Bloomberg. He’s the editor, chief editor over Bloomberg was conducting the interview.

He’d say also a former editor over at The Economist. And it hit me. It hit me that everything Trump is saying, it’s, he’s not so much speaking, well, he is speaking to the electorate and wanting people to vote for him, but he is actually conversing.

with Xi Jinping, with Vladimir Putin, with the European Union, with Modi in India, with the entire world. He’s basically putting them on notice. This is, again, his way of negotiating. And I went to my library and I pulled off the shelf, Donald Trump’s art of the deal. Went and kind of looked at

you know, his his past and actually listened again to some of the things that he said in that interview. One thing that really struck me was asked about the Nippon steel deal with Japan and US Steel. And he kind of threw it in there. He says, yeah, I’m against that deal going to be against that deal. You know, unless, you know, it passes before I get in, meaning like, get it done, get it done quickly. So I don’t have to deal with this thing.

He is a negotiator and maybe I because it’s something I don’t like to do. Being honest, I’m horrible at it. I don’t like negotiating. I hate buying cars. I don’t like negotiating prices. It’s something I’m not very good at. I do not like to haggle. I remember him.

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yesterday, what one tactic that he does that I do use, and I learned this from my father as well, is that when going out to to purchase something, you want to purchase a big item or purchase a car. Again, I don’t like to negotiate. I might say, okay, is the best you can do. I don’t really, you know, like talking about numbers. They’ll say, yeah, and I said, well, okay, thank you. You know, I’ll get back to you. And I don’t get back to people. And then

they end up calling you back with a much better deal. And Trump actually talked about that when he was talking about his negotiation when it came to Air Force one and getting the costs down for that. He thinks he’s putting forward when it comes to tariffs that they’re they’re not going to happen because we’re going to be able to kneecap many of these countries.

and basically dictate the terms. I hope I’m not wishful thinking. OK, I hope this is not wishful thinking because he did put various different tariffs on items that are still on. Biden didn’t remove them either. That again, I’m not a fan of. I don’t think that they’ve helped. I think they’ve hurt more than they’ve helped. But he seems like he’s going all in on these tariffs.

He actually, and I was shocked. He actually, he ended up turning a crowd around. I listened to it yesterday. I mean, at the first, there was some scattering applause in the beginning, and then eventually, I mean, you got to standing up at the end and taking on taking on the moderator going after him and the fact that he’s been wrong throughout his entire career.

Donald Trump is a, he’s salesman. Okay, he is what he is. He is a salesman. And again, I cringe every single time I hear commercials now for, he’s got his latest round of Trump sneakers and Trump watches and now he’s pushing his son’s Bitcoin. And again, it makes me sick to my stomach, but that is his nature.

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That is his nature. That’s what he does. That’s what he always has done. I’ve always made fun of it. I told the story, this is years ago, this is going back to like 2007, 2006, remember buying furniture for my house and going into the furniture store and him having this Trump line of furniture and houseware with his crest on it. I said, who in the world is gonna buy throw pillows for their house with

Trump’s family crest on it. They didn’t care. He doesn’t drink, he’s got Trump vodka, Trump, I mean, he’ll slap his name on anything. Again.

something I can’t Something that I am completely, I would never be able to do. And I actually wrote a column about this, went after him hard. This was during the financial crisis with apartment buildings that were never built, that, you know, he sold his name to these buildings and people lost money. And he’s, well, you know, they

bought my name, I had nothing to do with the building, it’s not my fault. Well, again, I have a different value set than he does when it comes to that, different belief system. Again, did he break the law? No. Ethically challenged in many of these things? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it’s what we’ve got at this point in time. It kind of resounded myself to it is what it is.

There was a story today in the Wall Street Journal talking about this European power grab and they’ve been doing this for a while going after a lot of our technology companies because they don’t really build or create much of anything over there. I forgot about this back in 2008. The United States and Europe had nearly identical GDPs by 2023.

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RGDP 75, think about that, 75 % larger than Europe’s. 75, we were equal in 2008, we’re 75 % bigger than Europe right now. Again, does Europe change their ways? Do they try to roll back regulations, try to be more competitive? No, no, they just continue to try to kneecap.

the United States in a myriad of different ways. These latest rounds of regulations forcing US companies to adhere to the EU’s net zero carbon emissions target and to comply with the labor related standards even when they exceed the requirements of US law. The rule establishes a private right of action that gives activists an incentive to bombard companies with frivolous lawsuits. Again, these go after companies that…

exceed revenue in the EU of 450 million euros. It also harms small businesses too, because it requires the big companies to police their subsidiaries and their supply chains. Again, you want to smack the European Union with massive tariffs on their vehicles to get them to shut the hell up and leave us to hell alone? Yeah, I can go along with that.

I can I can go along with that. He actually made fun yesterday of Mercedes Benz talking about how there’s Mercedes Benz assembly plant here in the United States. And he said, yeah, I said they make everything over in Europe and then they ship it over in a box and they put it together here. A child could put the thing together. And it was kind of funny. And he’s not wrong. He’s not wrong.

Again, I’ve talked about trade here in the past. And it’s one thing I never really seemed to get. know every country has their various different intrinsic interests, various different things. I mean, you see what happens with the EU. I remember Greece filing a lawsuit against France.

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because France was, you know, making goat cheese and calling it Feta and grease like you can’t do that. That’s not real Feta. Just as much as the French will say, hey, you know what, you know, you can’t call, you know, Prosecco champagne and champagne only is growing the champagne region going they fight over these things all the time. But anyway, neither here nor there. Trade deals trade deals should be on one page. One page and that’s it.

Okay, you know, you’re gonna stop us from selling our stuff there. You’re gonna put these tariffs on it. We’re gonna do the exact same thing. Case closed. Case closed, period, the end. And I think, I think that that’s what he’s trying to do. really don’t do, think he’s gonna slap 1,000 % tariffs on cars coming in from Mexico. No, I don’t.

No, I don’t. I do think that this is his way of negotiating. I’ve heard it and several other people aren’t laughing or making the same argument. Others as well, Stephen Moore did a recent debate at the Soho Forum also where he was kind of alluding to that. But again, he’s also hesitant when it comes to tariffs as well. Again, I’m hoping right now that my big fat Trump tariff epiphany is accurate. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.