Reported by – Ben Dover
The Trump administration has chosen to use tariffs against the world, not even penguins on distant islands are immune. And today, brings a new tariff to the film industry of 100% on movies filmed outside of the USA.
After the shock and awe bombshell from President Trumps so called liberation day on April 2nd with steeper than expected tariffs causing a serious downturn in the stock market (and so goes everyone’s 401K). As of today, we made it back to close to even from Trumps liberation day offensive, but the downhill slide is back in force.
We’re still down 8 to 10% in the market overall from January.
I think it’s safe to say that Trump has brought back the use of fuzzy math in their calculation of how they calculated the tariffs they’re using to justify this attack on countries. Who thought a president and his administration would turn the United States of America into let’s make a deal. Dictate vs. collaborate.
On May 5th Bessant stated that they have 17 deals from other countries on the table with China on the sidelines, with that thought, to date over a month later NO DEALS. All this administration can say is deals are on the horizon, deals coming in a couple days …. Hopefully.
Let’s face it President Trump has created a self-inflicted, destructive trade war against the world, friend and foe alike. In the process damaging the American brand, pushing our allies and adversaries to work together on arrangements to work around the USA, we can only hope the damage isn’t permanent. We can only hope the world knows the disrespect President Trump shows world leaders, the American citizens, and even the Pope in his passing, that this is not who Americans are and not what America is about.
Reminding all the quote from Warren Buffet “Trade should not be used as a weapon”. The fact is the world needs trade, it makes us all stronger, it makes countries stronger, there is opportunity for the world to grow together. In a world order where roles evolve, Third World countries can grow as each trading partner contributes something valuable. We should all do what we do best and be partners in business and in life.
Americans are starting to realize and feel the damage this tariff war is causing, as the reality hits the marketplace, one of the first places we see the magnitude of this damage is in the ports and with the longshoreman. These ports are leading economic indicators that impact all 50 states. The west coast ports see a 35% and more drop in imports/containers. This is causing layoffs to start with the longshoremen, this then in turn impacts the trucking companies that move the containers across the nation. This in turn trickles down to all the businesses that are supporting these two main industries, restaurants, lodging, trucking support companies, you get the idea. The trickle-down effect is destructive and damaging to the community’s small businesses. As Americans see the shelves go bare, and prices skyrocket, those who didn’t pay attention or believe the impact was real, well feel the pain and realize the damage this President and his administration is causing America. Where we are today with imports and exports and the supply chain is far worse than the impact from the Covid crisis 5 years ago.
This doesn’t even touch on the impact on small businesses who can’t access products or absorb the cost of these tariffs. And there’s a portion of exporters around the world are choosing to not even do business with the United States, this is just the beginning. Think about the impact on the holiday season, businesses need to be planning now but can’t with all the uncertainty. How is recovery going to look? How long is it going to take to recover? What percentage of businesses well survive?
We did not ask for this – this is all because one man, Trump chose to pick this fight with the world.
Americans will be bearing the consequences of this administration’s actions for years to come. We might not make through four more years. And this is what he’s doing to what was the best economy in the world when he took office, all in less than 100 days.
The reasoning to start tariffs started with Mexico and Canada to stop fentanyl from coming into our country, which I need to point out Canadas fentanyl amount coming over the boarder was around 50lb’s.
With Mexico, Trump used an embellished narrative to exploit and inflame his base as well as the American public with repeated ad nauseum grossly exaggerated numbers of what he called murderers, thugs and the most dangerous people in the world, again to justify his tariffs and border shut down. Granted Biden acted to slow in working with congress to fix the cause of the boarder crisis. What gets lost in the wash is that a bipartisan bill was presented February 4th, 2024, by republican Senator Lankford which went a long way to helping resolve the issues impacting immigration. Trump with the help of Mike Johnson killed the bill which passed in the senate. With Trumps pressure, Mike Johnson didn’t even let the bill get voted on in the House which was suggested it would pass with no problem. It’s widely known that Trump had the bill killed because he didn’t want Biden to have a win regarding the border with the elections right around the corner. Which would have been a win for America.
