Mail time!
So, instead of arting the deals, the US government is going to resort to the epistolary arts.
This may placate Trump supporters, but this is not “90 deals in 90 days.” Indeed, these aren’t even deals.
We’ll see what happens next. How much the rates will be, what kind of exceptions and carve-outs will be in place, and how trading partners react.
Whatever this might be called, it is not sophisticated deal-making. It is simply dictating terms and hoping there will be no significant response.
@Kurtz: My bad. I failed to double check spelling and don’t twit (but am one, in some cases 🙁 ).
How the f@ck is any other state supposed to be able to deal with the US on this sort of basis?
Standard MAGA response, as with much else, seems to be: “That’s your problem, chumps! lol-a-lol, troll-a-lol!”
Which might be fine, from a strictly American perspective, but only if the assumption is the other parties cannot respond.
Rule #1 of international relations: if you can, a good for a good, and a bad for a bad.
Also, as arguably the keystone of the current global trading and finance system, the US has a good deal to lose from its ending.
It’s all just shits and giggles until you set off a chain reaction in the currency, bond, and stock markets.
Then you get the call: “This is 1929 on the line; we’d like a little chat about the downsides of being a dimwit …”
As someone once said: “First as tragedy, then as farce.”
@JohnSF: I think the 1929 comparisons are a bit silly, and show a lack of basic understanding.
Smoot-Hawley tariffs were in 1930 and merely worsened the Great Depression. They were also passed by Congress, which is a much slower and less capricious process, so the situation was at lot more predictable — businesses really don’t like volatility. And the US imported a lot less stuff at the time, so the American consumers weee far more protected from it.
It’s an utterly absurd comparison. 😉
@Gustopher:
There would not be any current congresspersons named Hoot and Smawley, by any chance?
‘Cause if you have to go, you might as well go giggling.
