Possibly the reason Trump wanted to deal with the Ukraine and the rare earth material that is found there.

Read in a Danish article hours ago, that China could punish USA by selling their Bonds-China have bought for trillions of dollars worth of Bonds

Trying to find the article again to know what exactly it said.

Markus

China was selling last night.

For whatever its worth...

https://www.germanbusinessusa.com/fi...T_Flyer_24.pdf

https://www.germanbusinessusa.com/

Thats from the Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer DIHK (German Chamber of Industry and Commerce). 6,000 German owned companies in the US, having invested a total of 658 bn in the US until 2023, and maintainign research and further investement at rates around 13 bn per year. This creates around 871,000 jobs in the US.

I imagine this all produces quite some tax revenues, too.

Also, do not forget that what your president accuses others of, your country excessively practices itself in the branches of IT and computer services and internet control, in form of companies like Microsoft, Amazon Servers, Google, Meta, and so forth. For understandable reasons, Trump does not lose a single word about them. The internet is - American-owned.

You can hurt China, and the EU, you absolutely can, yes. But you are ignoring the degree to which others can hurt you as well. It seesm in Europe there is a bigger awareness for that trade wars like Trump is unlocking one, hardly sees any winners, only everybody loosing. What he wants to give you back, or so he implies, is the production and industry of the 1950s. Problem is the world is heading into the 2050s... The man is one century behind.

[Die Welt] Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick described Donald Trump's post on Truth Social as "the most extraordinary of his presidency." Just twelve minutes earlier, the US president had defused the trade war with much of the world. The increased "reciprocal" tariffs will be paused for 90 days to allow for negotiations. During this time, a new universal tariff rate of ten percent will apply. Except for China. Because Beijing had shown a "lack of respect," Trump said, he increased the tariff on the country from 104 to 125 percent.

With this, Trump has done what he and his staff have vehemently ruled out in recent days: giving in. As recently as Tuesday, his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt insisted that the president was definitely not considering pausing the tariffs. But Trump had no other choice.

The fact that the US President started the trade war in the first place was due to what he perceived as "unfair" trade relations with the vast majority of countries in the world. He was concerned not only with import tariffs imposed by American trading partners, but also with non-tariff trade barriers imposed by other countries.

With the tariff announcements, the President wanted to force other countries to the negotiating table. "The phone is ringing nonstop," the White House rejoiced on Tuesday. Seventy countries had announced their willingness to talk. "I don't even know when I'm going to talk to them all," Trump joked on Tuesday. In his eyes, the strategy worked.

The fact that the entire global economy was threatening to slide into the abyss in the meantime didn't bother him. "Stay cool," he wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning, in light of the stock prices that had been steadily plunging for days. He studiously ignored criticism from his wealthy donors, such as Bill Ackmann, who themselves lost millions in their fortunes. The hedge fund manager accused him of instigating a "nuclear economic winter." Even Elon Musk publicly criticized the tariff policy and publicly attacked trade advisor Peter Navarro. The Tesla CEO wrote on X that he was "dumber than a sack of bricks."

Unlike all economists, Trump never saw a problem with tariffs. Quite the opposite – they even had positive effects. They would "generate trillions and trillions of dollars to lower our taxes and pay off our national debt," he said in his speech on April 2, "Liberation Day."

In recent days, however, it has become clear that this calculation will not work. A threatening development has occurred in the bond market. The yield on ten-year US Treasuries has risen to over 4.5 percent. 30-year bonds even yielded above the five percent mark. Thus, within just a few days, yields have risen by more than 0.6 percentage points.

This had two serious consequences. For one thing, this caused panic among economists. US Treasury bonds are considered a safe haven, especially in times of uncertainty. If their interest rates rise, it also becomes more expensive for companies to borrow money. Combined with the burden of tariffs, this would have been a toxic mix that would have fueled a recession.

Donald Trump likely attached even greater importance to the second consequence. Higher yields meant that the annual cost of the US's $36 trillion national debt would have increased by $216 billion if this interest rate increase were sustained. Americans already have to pay almost $1.2 trillion in interest. This would have wiped out any potential additional revenue from tariffs.

In the afternoon, Trump confirmed that the bond market had partly influenced his decision. "The bond market is very tricky. I've been watching and I've seen that people are a little uneasy," the president said.

The financial markets reacted with great relief to Trump's withdrawal on Wednesday. Just seconds after Trump's announcement, stocks skyrocketed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up six percent, and the Nasdaq tech index is up around ten percent.

But there is no lasting all-clear in the trade war. "Even with a ten percent tariff, we have the highest tariff rate since the 1930s," said the former deputy chairman Ed Gresser, former trade representative under Trump and Biden and current vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute, told WELT. While the White House reportedly "got cold feet," it hasn't completely reversed course. "It remains a destructive policy," Gresser said.

It all boils down that prices for everything will rise in the US, while Trump effectively destroyed trillions of dollars on the stock market, "dealing" [sic(k)] a major blow just of all to the US' own economy.

"[...] tariffs — 25% on foreign cars, 10% on steel — were meant as friendly fire, tough love for our allies and rivals alike. But even friendly fire stings, and now friends and foes alike are quietly repositioning. They’re finding partners more reliable than Uncle Sam and discovering, perhaps to their surprise, they get along just fine. It’s as if someone started a musical-chairs game, and America just realized it’s short a seat."

We already see how it pans out, but watching all this our popcorn reserves have become legendary :03:

The world is re-arranging its trade ties and the US stay where they are.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tr...-last-90a94c3b

"Washington had better look up fast, or Americans will find they’re alone at the bar, wondering where everybody else went — and why nobody bothered to say goodbye."
I think this is not even good for the rest of the world. But it always is very unfortunate if people with no real knowledge take the helm.

re Canada. "TrumpÂ’s lurking assault on Canada rests on endless lies and irrational populism".

https://theconversation.com/trumps-l...opulism-249256

What I really do not understand is that people who seemed quite decent, have changed their stance and views the second Trump entered office.

“Tariffs protect the consumer from prices that are too low.” :D

If, you could move to the US where would you choose to plant a foot and raise a family ?

Everybody is linkin to some Brainpans' Bull, pookes and none of them know anything at all.

Europe and Germany, Have tariffs on Who ? and how long ? It's a simple question .

Jesse Watters? The guys a straw using cheerleader. :haha:

^^ that was interesting!

Anita Dunn
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Dunn_2023.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Dunn

Mike Donilon
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...nilon_2022.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Donilon

Steve Ricchetti
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Ricchetti.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ricchetti

Ron Klain
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...f_of_Staff.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Klain

[FOCUS] The US's so-called "tariff hammer" is based on a comprehensive report on global trade restrictions. Anyone reading this "bible" will come across examples of international trade barriers that cast Trump's demands in a different light.

Anyone who wants to defeat their opponent must know how they think. This applies to bloody wars, such as the one in Ukraine against Russia, as well as to trade wars, such as the one US President Donald Trump has now instigated with his so-called "tariff hammer."

It is therefore worthwhile to delve deeper and explore the president's motivations. Anyone who does so, however, must be prepared for their own worldview to be questioned. In this case, the EU will certainly also have to face uncomfortable questions.

Trump did not announce his tariff plan out of the blue. For a quarter of a century, his biography, from businessman to politician, has been permeated by the idea that the US is paying far too high a price for its prosperity and progress because other countries have erected trade barriers that do not exist in the US.

The country's high level of debt originates here. Trump, then a businessman and real estate tycoon, said on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1988: The Japanese were coming into the US market and flooding it with their products.

Conversely, anyone who went to Japan and wanted to sell something could forget it. "The Art of the Deal," Trump's view of the economy and trade, was published as a book in 1987 and describes his attitude towards it, which he still holds today. So, Trump can't be accused of being a "turncoat," like many in politics.

With his re-election as president, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the official US Chamber of Commerce, together with US embassies around the world, began working on a report listing the hurdles the US considers to be obstacles to its own trade.

The result is the "2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers." It explicitly addresses not just tariffs, but everything that, from the US perspective, restricts free trade. Anyone who now accuses Trump of destroying global trade needs to take note of this 380-page report.

The intention of this new standard work, the bible of US dealers, so to speak, is the opposite of destroying trade: From the American perspective, it is more about liberation. The report focuses particularly on two regions: 48 pages are devoted to China. And no less than 34 pages to the EU.

The EU chapter begins quite sympathetically. "The United States and the EU member states maintain the most extensive economic relationship in the world. Trade and investment flows between the United States and the EU are a key pillar of prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic and create significant economic opportunities," the US trade experts note.

But then comes the qualification: "Goods and services from the United States, however, face persistent barriers to accessing certain sectors of the EU market."

What follows is truly unflattering for the Europeans. The report goes into great detail and doesn't limit itself to complaints about high EU tariffs of up to 26 percent on fish and seafood or 22 percent on US trucks traveling on European roads.

Trump's troops are illuminating the EU's shoals and citing the banana example: After decades of disputes, the Americans reached an agreement with the EU in 2010 to achieve a uniform EU banana import regime, but this did not prevent Italian customs authorities from collecting tariffs on bananas from the US retroactively from 2004.

The Italian Supreme Court finally ruled in 2017 that this was illegal, which the Italian customs authorities happily ignored. They are still suing.

However, the Americans aren't so much upset about the Italian case, but rather about the fact that "despite the existence of customs regulations that apply to all member states, the EU does not have its laws run through a single customs administration." "Rather, there are separate authorities in each member state responsible for administering EU customs law."

The consequences are chaos and costs: "US exports suffer from the uneven and inconsistent application" of EU requirements. Member states use different data.

The EU-promised standardization of customs data systems was postponed from the end of 2020 to the end of 2025. The next reform is scheduled for 2028, and US companies literally only understand "banana."

Another example that is driving Americans to despair is the EU wine regulation. US wine merchants exported $170 million worth of wine to the EU in 2024.

The problem: It could be much more, but the EU prohibits the use of traditional designations such as "Tawny" or "Ruby" for port wines and "Chateau" for other wines originating in the US. For many US producers, however, these very terms are part of their brand names. This makes the EU market largely off-limits for them.

"The EU has taken no discernible steps to address the United States' concerns and has consistently refused to provide a timeline for reviewing applications for use of terms submitted by US industry," the trade report states. US winemakers are now annoyed.

Following this example, there's a key paragraph in the report that demonstrates just how far apart the US and the EU are: The United States is concerned about a number of measures the EU maintains, ostensibly for the purpose of food safety and the protection of human, animal, or plant life or health, it states.

"Specifically, the United States is concerned that these measures could unnecessarily restrict trade without furthering safety objectives, as they appear to be applied beyond what is necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health, and are not based on scientific knowledge or are maintained without sufficient scientific evidence."

The accusation is thus: The EU is using health mumbo jumbo to defend itself against imports that could make life difficult for its own manufacturers.

The 380 pages are peppered with examples of such things, which, from the US perspective, "distort or undermine fair competition." The report gains additional credibility because the authors themselves admit that in some cases they included "stakeholder valuations" in the data to estimate the financial impact of trade barriers.

"The methods used to calculate these valuations are sometimes uncertain." The government is aware of this and therefore does not rigidly adhere to such calculations. There is a hint of a willingness to negotiate here – another trait that has been evident throughout Trump's career.
-------------------


However, the US sometimes complains about tax systems in other countries that tax not only American products, but also those produced domestically. Such taxes may not be applied in the US, but they are in effect in many other countries, and the US cannot claim that other countries should do what the Americans do at home. That is one point of criticism of Trump's argument.

I attach importance to another, because the issue has interested me for years: food safety. American supermarkets are allowed to sell many toxic food additives in their food that have been proven to have toxic and carcinogenic effects—not just theoretically—and whose use is often only permitted in the USA due to the industry's strong lobbying efforts, but which are banned in many places abroad, and often everywhere. And rightly so. The USA really shouldn't want to sell this nasty crap to other countries; they should also abolish it at home (which is part of Kennedy's political goals; he's so right about these issues). The list of critical industry-added toxins in food is several hundred entries long, and it's only too often that it targets children's "food" in particular (but not exclusively). And no, I'm not talking about the most infamous "chlorine chickens."

From a health perspective, the trade in glucose syrup, HFCS, soy, and similar chemicals is fundamentally worthy of criticism. Farmers should be encouraged to switch to livestock farming, with cattle raised on pasture, and free-living chickens for egg production. The agricultural lobby, whose operators own the lion's share of large-scale monocultures, will of course vehemently oppose this - thery are driving forc ebehind the internationbal propagation of vegetariansim and veganism and fake meat: plant-based copy-crap that should replace real meat. These fields and acres should be converted to pastureland. Done correctly and not exaggerated out of profit greed, this is even more sustainable than anything else a farmer can do with his fields. Lets not forget: agriculture's invention 12 thosuand years ago has ruined human food and hralth and led to a huge delcine of the alotter, a massive physicla degeneration. Its not healthy what we eat- not at all! Its just that it can be produced cheaply and in large quantities.

On the wine names and simullair problems: why not just rebranding, relabelling export shares of a production to comply with regional custimer laws? In the end Eurooean wine name sindeed refer to regional names, and I dont see why totally difefrent wines form somewhere else shoud, then be marketed under these names. When I buy an original Parmigiano form Italy, i spend the money on some specific taste quality that indeed is the reaosn why I pay a bot more, if then I get some cheese from soemnmewhrer else that sues the same name and in the end tastes a little bit different (even if tasting good taken for itself), I feel betrayed. Thats not what I was willing to spend a little more for.

When i buy a Bordeaux, then I want to get (and taste) a Bordeaux, not some Californian wine abusing the name. This is not to say that californian wine cannot be good, in fact they can be excellent. But they are no Bordeaux, or Port, or whatever - they are Californian. As such they should be named and sold.

What the US sometimes demand here, is the right to label fraud. Granted, some Asian producers practice this excessively, but that does not make it any less wrong.

Needs to work out faster. Lost a lot of paper on Wall Street.

Yesterdays flash in the pan was just that from the looks of it. :hmmm: