Why is no one highlighting how this is repeating history 8 years ago? I don’t get it, there’s this magical reporting gap where all of this is new strategy but it’s the exact same strategy. Why don’t we acknowledge this instead of searching for some new angle?
Here are a bunch of links from 2018/2019:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/apple-dodges-iphone-tariff-a...
https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s001-14-s...
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/07/trump-tariff-threat-...
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trumps-tariff-str...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-delay-tariff-increases...
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/19/hundreds-of-chines...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/china-threatens-retalia...
https://www.cfr.org/blog/trumps-tariffs-are-killing-american...
The articles you've linked are about threats of 10% to 25% tariffs in the context of active trade negotiations between the US and China. Here, there's an actually imposed tariff of 145% and no talks at all as far as has been reported. It's not the same situation.
Exactly. Anyone claiming it’s a repeat of history either doesn’t understand the history or doesn’t understand the current tariff proposal.
Order of magnitude difference. Hence the panic.
It’s a different situation because the numbers are different even though so far the outcomes are the same. Am I reading that right?
The outcomes are not the same because the numbers are not the same. A few days ago some Chinese journalists interviewed analysts familiar with CATL on batteries. At that time the tariff was 125%, and the analysts thought CATL could still eke out some profits: it's one of the very few Chinese businesses that can profit despite the 125% tariffs because China controls 75% of the world's battery anodes, 90% of cathodes and electrolytes. At 145% tariff CATL will be taking a loss and won't supply batteries at all.
I'm not sure what you could possibly mean by "outcome" that doesn't include a 145% tax as an outcome. Perhaps you've fallen victim to the misinformation that the exporting country pays tariffs? That's not so; a 145% tariff on imports from China means that an American business importing $10,000 of stuff from China is required to pay the US government $14,500 on top. (Or they can not do the import and lay off everyone who was involved in processing and selling the stuff, as many China-dependent businesses will likely do over the next few weeks.)
Still have another 90+ days to figure this out. Perhaps you have fallen victim to believing each move is a different game than last time. To me it appears all someone did was shuffle the pieces.
We don't have another 90+ days. The 145% tariff is in effect right now. Whoever told you about the 90 days was intentionally trying to trick you; there are other tariffs that were delayed for 90 days, but the announcement delaying those tariffs made it extremely clear that this one was not delayed.
No one tricked me, you’re just jumping to conclusions based on what I wrote and what point you want to make.
No it’s different because threats to get concessions, and actually enacting them to self sabotage your economy, it’s entirely different.
> Why is no one highlighting how this is repeating history 8 years ago?
Because it’s not? The tariffs which are currently in effect or soon to go into effect are so far out of line with anything in modern history that there is no comparison.
The reason everyone is panicking is because people expected more of the same as 8 years ago but instead we got something massively worse, without a hint of cohesive strategy, and that has gone into effect rapidly and on the whims of one person who can’t even appear to get on the same page as his advisors.
Everyone knows there’s some element of bluffing going on, but that’s also the problem; This administration knows their bluffs would be transparent this time so they decided to go extra big to make a point. This becomes a problem for all of the people and companies whose business was suddenly upended by out of control tariffs with little time to prepare (compared to the smaller tariffs everyone was preparing for)
They’re banking on the damage either not being directly noticed by their voter base, or being able to convince their voter base that the damage is actually a good thing. I’m already seeing people applaud these actions as if they were narrowly targeted at cheap Chinese goods on Amazon or fast fashion, without realizing how much of the inputs to our economy go through one of the countries with tariffs ranging from 25-145%.
Some people are determined to adopt contrarian positions and act like they’re above it all, but the people who have to deal with the consequences of this stuff (myself included) are taking a lot of damage from these supposedly no big deal negotiations. It’s not being handled well. Even if they were to disappear tomorrow, a lot of damage has been done and they’re hoping people like you will find a way to rationalize it away as not a big deal
For some reason, it stinks of a none too smart AI making economic decisions without taking psychology or a bunch of real life costs into account.
It is a losing strategy.
> They’re banking on the damage either not being directly noticed by their voter base, or being able to convince their voter base that the damage is actually a good thing.
Are we really still at the stage where we seriously think this is how people vote? Its not. You just need to energize enough people in your sufficiently big enough bubble to believe in a cause and make sure that the other side thinks "both sides are bad".
> without a hint of cohesive strategy
It's all quite cohesive once one stops the futile search for an underlying strategy that enriches america, and instead looks for evidence of a strategy that enriches Trump.
"These insects infected with cordyceps show no hint of a cohesive strategy for staying alive..."
Lol there was no 'cohesive strategy' 8 years ago, what the heck you wtite about. You suffer some memory loss?
He was chaotic, he was doing ego polishing reality show from day 1. The only difference was a 'barrier of sanity' that people around him formed, dampening his bipolar outbursts into more reasonable actions (or lack of thereof, often without his knowledge). He eventually fired all of them, forgot that part?
Now he has just pure yes men around him, licking his ass and patiently waiting for him to die or get killed (vance has a look and behavior of patient calculating sociopath for example, he may be much worse if given chance)
I think you misunderstood my comment as being pro-Trump in some way, but it absolutely was not. I was explaining why this round of tariffs is not a repeat of 8 years ago, it’s much worse. That’s it.
> what the heck you wtite about. You suffer some memory loss?
> licking his ass and patiently waiting for him to die or
I can see why political threads on HN are flagged away so aggressively. It’s hard to want to even try to have a conversation when this is the level of discourse getting upvoted.
> people expected more of the same as 8 years ago
Only ignorant close minded gullible people who refused to listen to all the experts and intelligent people paying attention, who have all now been totally vindicated, after warning about it at the top of their lungs, and who are now fully entitled to say "I TOLD YOU SO".
Expert Comment: What might President Trump’s second term mean for the world?
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-02-05-expert-comment-what-mig...
What to expect from Trump’s second term: more erratic, darker, and more dangerous:
https://thebulletin.org/2024/11/what-to-expect-from-trumps-s...
Accelerated transgressions in the second Trump presidency:
https://brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-transgressions-in-th...
Trump’s second term could bring chaos around the world. Will it work?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/09/world/analysis-trump-seco...
Donald Trump’s Revenge: The former President will return to the White House older, less inhibited, and far more dangerous than ever before:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/donald-trump-wins-a-...
Why the worst president ever will be even worse in a second term: I suppose some observers might think Donald Trump’s first term represented rock bottom. My advice for those thinking along those lines: Just wait:
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/worst-pr...
What the world thinks of Trump’s return to the US presidency:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-t...
How bad could a second Trump presidency get? The damage to America’s economy, institutions and the world would be huge:
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/10/31/how-bad-could-...
What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Helped Us Game It Out:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/10/country-a...
Trump presidency could damage economy if he weakens democracy, experts say: Trump has threatened to prosecute political rivals, including Kamala Harris:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-presidency-damage-econ...
What could Trump's second term bring? Deportations, tariffs, Jan. 6 pardons and more:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/second-trump-presidency-implica...
I’m an Economist: Here Are My Predictions for Inflation If Trump Wins:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/m-economist-predictions-infla...
Trump’s economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say: They fear that Trump's proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target:
https://whyy.org/articles/trump-economic-plan-worsen-inflati...
Thank you it seems everyone has already forgotten project 2025.
Look I don't want to be too harsh on Americans nobody took the Nazis seriously when they had already written a book about how they saw the world... But none of this is shocking.
There is an ideology behind what Trump is doing and he never hid it from the world.
As an American please be careful blaming all of us for this. Less than 1 in 4 Americans voted for Trump. It doesn’t mean you need to buy an F-150 but please separate the concept of the American people from the GOP voter base. The complexities of our electoral system and our unique racist history made this very hard to avoid. Please don’t assume Americans in general wanted this or are ok with it.
> nobody took the Nazis seriously when they had already written a book about how they saw the world.
This is completely false. A cursory internet search will find many examples. Churchill was a vocal opponent of the Nazis in the 1930s.
> But none of this is shocking.
Right. Nobody who was paying attention is shocked. This includes many Americans.
> Less than 1 in 4 Americans voted for Trump
Yea and it seems the 75% of population cannot do anything about Trump now.
I wonder when people will wake up to the fact that USA does not actually have a democracy.
The tariffs from 8 years ago were a seemingly rational policy and were largely upheld by the Biden administration.
These tariffs look designed to rapidly eject the US from the global economic order and hand over the reins to China. Though saying they were "designed" at all seems extravagantly generous.
I will be surprised if the dollar retains its status as the world’s reserve currency by the end of this administration.
Another reason why tariffs are upheld is that its very hard to remove them. The moment you add them, you now creates industries and jobs that assume those tariffs existed.
Which is to say, if this ridiculous tariffs goes on for long enough, its going to be there forever. So you guys are, ehem, fucked.
Only on China, the rest were largely removed.
> Only on China, the rest were largely removed.
No they weren't. They were changed to 10%. Prior to all of this the average was 2.5%. So that's not a removal at all, but a rather large average increase even if you exclude the omglol China rate.
> No they weren't. They were changed to 10%
Sadly that’s not even true. We still have excessively high tariffs on many shipments from Mexico and Canada. 25% for non-USMCA goods.
China, Canada, and Mexico are our 3 largest trading partners. The tariffs levied on them have an outsized effect on net tariff rates.
Also suspended is not removed.
I assume there is some kind of divide and conquer going on.
“Trump’s first term would probably have seen a version of this week’s debacle if he had chosen different advisers, and if he had not later been knocked off course by Covid.
For the first two years of his first term, in 2017-18, his instincts were largely kept in check by his economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, who dampened Trump’s determination to use tariffs to end trade deficits.“
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/12/did-trump-tari...
Wow you had these at-the-ready, didn't you. Thanks.
*I've read through a few of these and it seems like perhaps Trump still thinks it's 2018/19, but China's position has only gotten stronger.
It seems the attempt to jack up tariffs so high this time was a bluff to "show" how strong we can be, but he miscalculated on how shaky the stock/bond markets actually currently are and the financial players know we're not in a position to go it alone.
And China knows this and they know they can wait us out. I believe it will be considered a misstep, at best and a catastrophe at worst.
I did not have them at the ready but a Kagi News search with a date range allowed me to pull from quite a selection that seemed relevant to my point.
Because last time the US government required alliances to participate in the trade war. Maybe it is not rational, but the US is the leader, so most countries just thought, 'Ok, if you really need it...'. But this time, the trade war is against the whole world. Everyone is confused.
> But this time, the trade war is against the whole world.
Reminds me of this excellent Norm Macdonald sketch [1] on Germany of which I've learned only recently.
the most important tidbit
> Apple already pays tariffs on products including the Apple Watch and AirPods, but hasn't raised its prices in the United States.
so, they fear tariffs because their price is already at the highest their products would sell? that's an interesting point most people don't understand. the tariffs were only 15% then, but still interesting to see how it played out.