(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Was it all simply another scam and grift? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-10
We begin today with Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic writing that the utter chaos of Trump’s “pause” in imposing tariff rates for 90 days on all countries but China will not stabilize the economy.
Step one: Start a pointless, globe-encompassing trade war, rationalized solely by your own boneheaded innumeracy. Step two: Tank the markets. Step three: Pare the war back to a hot conflict with one of the United States’ most important trading partners and a warm conflict with every other country on Earth. Step four: Watch the market rebound and declare victory. That’s the art of the deal, when it comes to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies. This afternoon, Trump announced that the U.S. will pause the imposition of its “Liberation Day” tariff rates for 90 days. The markets surged in response; the president’s supporters cheered. But there’s no victory here, whatever the Dow Jones does and the Trump administration claims. The White House has risked everything, ruined plenty, and gotten nothing. The country’s economy is weakening, and the possibility of a recession remains.
Paul Krugman writes and his self-named Substack that market uncertainty continues.
Anyway, this new announcement still sets tariffs at a much higher level than they were before Trump took office, indeed higher than he suggested during the campaign. For example, during the campaign researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics constructed a model assuming Trump implemented a 10 percent tariffs across the board and 60 percent on China. The researchers concluded that this regime would impose a nasty shock on the US economy. Now we are facing a tariffs of more than twice that level against China as well as 10 percent on all other countries. How high are overall tariffs after the “pause” was announced? That’s actually a tricky question. China accounted for 13 percent of U.S. imports in 2024, and if you apply the newly announced rates to 2024 imports you come up with an average rate of 24.95 — higher than before the pause. Incredibly high tariff rates on China will, however, lead to lower imports from China, so a calculation based on 2024 trade is problematic. [...] The level of financial market stress declined somewhat yesterday, but the situation remains fraught. Trump’s next stupid policy move — and there will be more stupid moves — could quite easily tip us over the edge. Above all, don’t take yesterday’s relief rally as a sign that the danger is behind us….
Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times says that at this point, the tariff halt is about a lot more than just money.
Think of what Trump; his chief knucklehead, Howard Lutnick (the commerce secretary); his assistant chief knucklehead, Scott Bessent (the Treasury secretary); and his deputy assistant chief knucklehead, Peter Navarro (the top trade adviser), have told us repeatedly for the past weeks: Trump won’t back off on these tariffs because — take your choice — he needs them to keep fentanyl from killing our kids, he needs them to raise revenue to pay for future tax cuts, and he needs them to pressure the world to buy more stuff from us. And he couldn’t care less what his rich pals on Wall Street say about their stock market losses. After creating havoc in the markets standing on these steadfast “principles” — undoubtedly prompting many Americans to sell low out of fear — Trump reversed much of it on Wednesday, announcing a 90-day pause on certain tariffs to most countries, excluding China. Message to the world — and to the Chinese: “I couldn’t take the heat.” If it were a book it would be called “The Art of the Squeal.” But don’t think for a second that all that’s been lost is money. A whole pile of invaluable trust just went up in smoke as well. In the last few weeks, we have told our closest friends in the world — countries that stood shoulder to shoulder with us after Sept. 11, in Iraq and in Afghanistan — that none of them were any different from China or Russia. They were all going to get tariffed under the same formula — no friends-and-family discounts allowed.
Zoltan Kanno-Youngs, also of The New York Times, looks into accusations of stock manipulation on the part of Trump.
“BE COOL,” Mr. Trump told his followers on social media after the markets opened. Just a couple of minutes later he wrote, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Hours after that, Mr. Trump sent the markets soaring when he paused the levies for 90 days. The S&P 500 climbed several percentage points in a matter of minutes and was on its way to its best day since the recovery of the 2008 financial crisis. [...] The news of Mr. Trump’s pause came as Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, was testifying on Capitol Hill. Representative Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, pressed him on Mr. Trump’s aim. [...] White House officials have rejected such accusations as they have claimed that Mr. Trump’s post was meant to reassure Americans. They have tried to spin his decision to remove most of the tariffs as not a capitulation, but something that came only after some of China’s closest allies sought deals with the United States.
Yeah, right...an investigation.
Tessa Wong of BBC News reports on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claims that Chinese nationals are fighting for Russia in Russia;s war with Ukraine.
His comments come after two Chinese fighters were captured earlier this week - marking Kyiv's first official allegation that China was supplying Russia with manpower. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Zelensky reiterated his claim that there are "many more" Chinese nationals engaged in the conflict, based on information gathered by his government. Responding on Thursday, a Chinese government spokesman said they "advise relevant parties to correctly and soberly understand China's role and not to make irresponsible remarks". [...] "There are 155 people with surnames, with passport data - 155 Chinese citizens who are fighting against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine," he said, according to remarks reported by Interfax. He added that Russia was recruiting Chinese citizens on social media, and that "official Beijing knows about this".
Hussein Ibish of MSNBC looks at the future of Article 5 of the NATO treaty as part of his extended series about the future of the NATO alliance.
Trump is taking a sledgehammer to 75 years of consensus understanding of Article 5. The article in the North Atlantic Treaty reads, in part, “an armed attack against one or more [members] ... shall be considered an attack against them all.” Article 5 is more complicated, as we shall see, but decades of American strategic thinking, to the gratification of other NATO members, emphasized this passage to make guaranteed collective military self-defense essential to the logic of the NATO alliance. To maintain credibility against Soviet aggression in treaty-specified regions, Cold War-era Washington essentially threw a mighty conventional military (and even nuclear) umbrella over all NATO allies, literally drawing lines that could not be crossed. [...] But there has always been another interpretation of Article 5, which notes that it specifies only that each NATO member state will take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” Read literally, Article 5 does not commit any state to do anything it does not “deem necessary.”
Finally today, Chris Lunday and James Angelos of POLITICO Europe report that conservative leader Frederick Merz of Germany has reached a coalition deal with the center-left Social Democratic Party to fomr a government that will make Merz the new chancellor of Germany.
The deal came amid intense pressure on German politicians to quickly form a new government that can confront the historic challenges of United States President Donald Trump’s trade war and the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We have a strong plan before us with which we can move our country forward again together,” Merz said in Berlin Wednesday. “Above all, it is a very strong and clear signal to the citizens of our country, and also to our partners in the European Union. Germany is getting a government that is capable and strong.” [...] The agreement, which comes 45 days after Merz’s conservatives won a snap election, was reached quickly by German standards, as postelection coalition negotiations can often take months. The deal clears the way for Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, to be sworn in as Germany’s next chancellor, likely in early May.
Try to have the best possible day that you can!
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/10/2315652/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-Was-it-all-simply-another-scam-and-grift?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
