25 Comments
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Lance Khrome's avatar

You want an Occam's Razor explanation? OK, how about Apple/Tim Cook lobbying strenuously for an "exemption carveout", greased up by a sizable "contribution" to a tRump PAC, or to his — you know — "presidential library fund", or...well, you see my point.

tRump is purely transactional — and corruptibly so — in his decisions, and pay-to-play is how he essentially governs...no other explaining will carry the day, IMHO.

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Jared Bernstein's avatar

Yep--Cook's one of the people I was thinking of re "tech bro funders." Contributed a cool mil to Trump's inaugural committee, which I view as pure investment for moments like this.

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Lance Khrome's avatar

Ah, but once one pays, the payee comes back for more, it's the nature of extortionate "tributes".

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Richard Friedman's avatar

What it shows is if you don’t reward people who bribe you, they won’t bribe you anymore. Can you say “Tim Cook?”

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Frank  Beal's avatar

Jared, please ...all of his advisors are irresponsible. Don't give Bessent any credit - he let it get to this point. And I know you're not referring to Navarro or Lutnick "we're going to bring those jobs screwing all those screws into iphones here".

We on the left do not need to always "go high" - especially when there is not an iota of evidence that these people are anything but irresponsible.

Anyone in this administration is part of the problem.

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Partha's avatar

“why did we have to go through all this market turmoil, wealth loss, and whiplash, just for you to backdown when it became clear how nuts it was??!!,”

Because that is the MAGA way. And as long as a majority of the Electoral College does not see it for what it is, we are doomed to repeat that experience over and over again.

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Charles E Lewis Jr's avatar

Chips Act was a good attempt at getting USA in the game. There doesn’t seem to any chance of bringing those jobs here.

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Robert Emmett Dolan's avatar

A “close shave by Occam’s razor” gets my vote for most appropriate turn-of-phrase of the week.

Your summary nailed it.

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lojack's avatar

How is this going to be spun by MAGA cohort? A win? Or another "divine" plan? But here is the other piece of news for the local slow brain crowd. Trump plans to deport up to a million immigrants. Right, another shiny object to chase. How long is that charade going to continue. Maybe by the middle of the summer when prices squizing their wallets dry, they stop paying attention to the shinny objects?

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Carlisle Landel's avatar

What's going on? Maybe the question is: how many Tech Bros bought Trump and Melania coin recently. Or just paid him outright? After all, it would be in the performance of official duties, and therefore not a crime to accept bribes.

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Rima Regas's avatar

Imagine how much worse it would be today, had Trump gotten his way and the CHIPS Act had been repealed last month when he called for it?

As for the damage taking years to fix? China hasn't forgotten what the Western powers did in the 1900s and, in the intervening centuries, we keep reminding them of our hostility every now and then, though nothing like what Trump and Vance are doing.

It pays to know world history and our part in it. Then again, most people reading this page know that...

---

From a recent news curation post: JD Vance referring to the Chinese as peasants

https://rimaregasblog42.substack.com/i/160915734/china-condemns-jd-vances-peasants-jibe

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Skybo's avatar

Reading on sunday eve. Just wanting to say thx for the clarity and thoughts. Fastening seatbelt for whatever awaits next week.

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Claes Winqvist's avatar

It has been clear now for some time that Trump is not as smart as he thinks he is. Regular people have figured this out.

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Tracy Mayne's avatar

Someone got a call from “Tim Apple.”

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Greg Pickle's avatar

So this is good. On the other hand Trump and the Enablers have established a long track record of learning from experience and applying better policy going forward. :-) Your "years to unwind" is probably prophetic, sadly.

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Kel Feind's avatar

This is just Tim Cook's return on his investment. It also continues to undercut whatever "negotiation position" he claims to have. All China and other countries now have to do is sell some US treasuries and wait a few weeks or months. What a way to run a country.

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Jackie Kemp's avatar

But don’t these project 25 guys want the dollar to stop being the global reserve currency and they want it to fall - is that correct?

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