This is the same guy who used the Defense Production Act to accelerate vaccine production during COVID only to support anti-vax quackery like bleach and ivermectin as "cures" and the whole anti-mask thing.

Par for the course with the scatter brained orange buffoon.

Ah yes, wasn't it the BBC who were promoting making masks from old t-shirts? How effective were they? Zero? And it has been admitted that the 6ft rule was pulled out of thin air.

It was particularly funny when one of the very vocal anti-Trump US media talking heads admitted to taking ivermectin for covid after previously making fun of people for taking 'horse medicine'.

"This is the same guy who used the Defense Production Act to accelerate vaccine production during COVID only to support anti-vax quackery like bleach and ivermectin as "cures" and the whole anti-mask thing."

Really? Yes he accelerated vaccine production but he didnt turn into an authoritarian dictator and forcing people to take it. Instead he had it provided quickly for the states to distribute as they see fit WHICH IS HOW IT SHOULD WORK. The debunked bleach crap and the severe propaganda against ivermectin as not for human use was also exposed. I dont know if he was anti mask but then wasnt it state level again?

It’s unclear if Trump’s remarks apply to reality.

It’s unclear if Trump’s remarks apply to reality.

Pretty clear that they don't.

Reality between 31°N and 49°N in the western hemisphere appears to have wandered off for a wee lie down and the prospect of her ever returning is doubtful at best.

Well, as this is the same Orange Idiot that is now blaming Ukraine for starting the war against Russia, we can all see how strong his grip on reality is...

That was a talking point from Russian media back at the start of the war - "The Ukrainians are talking about joining NATO, that can only mean they want to join in an attack on Russia, we have to attack first. See, the Ukrainians started it." Presumably Trump finds it useful to accept his pal Putin's version of events.

Under Drumpf, it is becoming abundantly clear that the Americans have NO "friends" in the world, just victims to plunder and rape.

"Americans have NO "friends" in the world, just victims to plunder and rape"

Doesn't that describes The Convicted Felon in Charge himself?

Does he have friends or is everyone around him just a future victim to plunder and rape?

Is he actually in charge, though? It's looking increasingly as if he is just the front man for some very nasty people behind the scenes. Musk does the publicity stunts while poor old Trump signs executive orders about drinking straws.

Everyone seemed happy with 4 years of Biden as a puppet for the deep state. Why suddenly get worried?

Why get worried? Well, let's see:

the election of another individual with severe cognitive decline?

a president who this time is a rapist, a tax dodger, a bribe payer?

a president who stole classified documents last time he left office?

a president who is busy cosying up to shit-hole countries like Russia?

a president who's given vast power to a billionaire racist creep, who's then doled that power out to spotty kids he likes?

a president intent on crashing the US economy with tariffs that can't possibly meet his aim of re-shoring production

a president who appoints not on the basis of talent, but from his revolting family plus a coterie of billionaires all out for themselves

a president who understands nothing about what government does......

etc etc

"the election of another individual with severe cognitive decline?"

Ah, you now admit that Biden was in severe cognitive decline! Trump, however, isn't.

"a president who this time is a rapist, a tax dodger, a bribe payer?"

Frist one is false, second and third apply to EVERYONE in US politics.

"a president who stole classified documents last time he left office?"

Hmm.. I remember them finding classified docs at Biden's house which he had even less authority to have.

"a president who is busy cosying up to shit-hole countries like Russia?"

Short memory eh? What did Obama do when Crimea was annexed? Oh, nothing! For the best part of 2 years after the invasion in 2022 Macron was busy trying to appease Moscow as was Scholz. Lets not forget it was Germany that has been cosying up to Russia for decades, getting cheap gas, coal and oil and even having an ex-chancellor on the board of a Russian energy company. Europe did not want to get stuck in the middle of a proxy war between the warmongers in DC and Russia. Everyone knows the US has been meddling in Ukraine for decades.

https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-putins-last-open-line-to-the-west/

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-crisis-we-dont-want-war-in-europe-putin-says-in-talks-with-scholz/a-60785295

"a president who's given vast power to a billionaire racist creep, who's then doled that power out to spotty kids he likes?"

"a president who appoints not on the basis of talent, but from his revolting family plus a coterie of billionaires all out for themselves"

You do realise the same thing was going on under Biden, it was just hidden from view. HUGE amounts of money going to the billionaire class. Trump is just being very open about it and its bloody brilliant!

"a president intent on crashing the US economy with tariffs that can't possibly meet his aim of re-shoring production"

What about a president that gave away money like it was going out of fashion which added almost 3 extra points to inflation?

Or a president that ignored the courts and did what he wanted anyway?

"a president who understands nothing about what government does......"

C'mon man, corn pop was a bad dude! Biden understood that government is there to enrichen himself, his family and his cronies. If you can't see that then you have some major issues.

Careful now, your whataboutery is showing.

@Ian Johnston

"Is he actually in charge, though? It's looking increasingly as if he is just the front man for some very nasty people behind the scenes."

You are too late, Biden has left and this was pointed out for a long time before his mental state was publicly acknowledged.

"Musk does the publicity stunts while poor old Trump signs executive orders about drinking straws."

Here in the UK there seems some envy by my friends who even hating Trump wish we could go back to plastic instead of paper straws.

Tell me, would you trust your life to a construct that has no morality and a habit of hallucinations? It's going to take years (decades) before AIs can be trusted with that kind of research. Although it could probably qualify to be President now.

And why would you bet your country's future on a technology that can be offshored at the drop of a hat?

AI is already being used in many medical fields, one example is assessment of medical imaging. AI tends to be good at pattern recognition and is therefore a perfect fit for that.

You'd also be surprised how much of being a doctor comes down to "simply" working out a flowchart (which is what ended up making me quit the medical field), and AI is a perfect fit for that too. You need a human element to take the lead (and someone to take responsibility), but AI assistance could definitely be an improvement to medical care. And i'm hugely sceptical of AI in general.

Another benefit is that by allowing doctors to be more efficient in their routine tasks, they actually end up having more time for personalised care, or they just won't be as overworked as they are right now.

Pitfall: good doctors will pick up signs during these routine tasks that could be important, and AI might not.

AI is already being used in many medical fields, one example is assessment of medical imaging. AI tends to be good at pattern recognition and is therefore a perfect fit for that.

Isn't that just pattern recognition? Computers have been doing that for years.

You'd also be surprised how much of being a doctor comes down to "simply" working out a flowchart (which is what ended up making me quit the medical field), and AI is a perfect fit for that too.

Isn't that just following a flowchart? Computers have been doing that for years.

This business of calling anything in which IT is involved "AI" is a curious fad, and one which will doubtless go away in a bit.

"Trump has previously indicated he feels the CHIPS Act subsidies for companies that build such fabs are not as effective as tariffs, and reportedly hopes to revisit some planned payments."

Well it just shows how much of a numpty he is, cos no matter how many times he claims tariffs are paid by other countries, they aren't and its American companies and consumers who pay tariffs which pushes up the price of stuff. Since they have no choice but to buy them from overseas if there isn't the manufacturing capability in the US.

This is all from the guy who many voted for on the promise of bringing prices down, maybe his plan to do that is by crashing the US economy and causing a recession?

"Well it just shows how much of a numpty he is, cos no matter how many times he claims tariffs are paid by other countries, they aren't and its American companies and consumers who pay tariffs which pushes up the price of stuff."

I cannot believe it took this much scrolling to find a comment on topic instead of just TDS moaning. Domestically Trump is very pro-growth but as you said, for trade he seems to be the opposite. His comments on VAT seemed odd (from a UK perspective) as every supplier pays it domestic or foreign.

It's not just the fab. plants they need to build in the US: to avoid the tariffs, the chip will need to be assembled into a functional device on US soil too. If you sell to an International market, you then need to balance the added costs of building all that infrastructure and the inflated wages bills (there's a reason things are mass produced in the Far East: everything's local and labour's cheap!). In short, who will go to all that additional cost just to serve into the US market? IT in the US is fairly stable - the days of double-digit growth are long gone - but South America, Africa, India? They're growing markets. What's the motivation to try to address them all from a manufacturing and supply centre that has artificially high costs?

So: you have to keep your Far East plants open to serve the global market and stay competitive. You build and staff an entirely new supply chain just to sell into the US? Can you see shareholders backing that?

Quite so.

There could also be some additional problems for US manufacturers:

- unless the tariff were to apply to the total value of anything with a chip in it (which is quite a lot of stuff these days), there would be no incentive for US companies to produce locally, much easier to import the whole machine.

- if the tariff were to be applied both to the chips and anything with a chip in it, there would likely be retaliatory tariffs on US produced goods for export to other countries. So, the price of US goods for export would face a double tariff - once when importing the component, and again when the completed product is exported to another country. This would possibly mean that US manufacturers would be limited to the local market, while overseas companies could enjoy the advantages both of cheaper labour and the economies of scale by having a larger potential market. And, even with a 25% tariff, it could be harder for US companies to compete with imported washing machines (or whatever) from Thailand (or wherever).

Once upon a time the UK had this great idea, which seems to have become an EU idea as well, that the best way to grow a semiconductor industry was tariffs on components but they missed out components on pre-built boards. As anyone looking at a populated PCB knew the components on any one board came from multiple countries. Until the miraculous day dawned when the entire semiconductor BoM could be sourced from the UK any PCB assembler would be paying tariffs to bring in some of the components from abroad. Result - not that much of a PCB assembly industry in the UK, therefore not much of a home market for a semiconductor industry therefore not much of a semiconductor industry; that day never dawned.

TL;DR It's been tried before. It predictably didn't work then. It'll predictably not work now.

The odd thing is that, apart from a bit of nervousness around the Canada/Mexico/China tariffs, the markets have been pretty resilient to all of this, even when the rhetoric implied selective defaulting on US debt. It's almost as if they don't actually believe it will happen. They may, of course, be right: Trump really has no interest in the US economy except in so far as it affects his popularity and he may simply be looking for some pictures of earth movers clearing sites for manufacturing plants that never come to fruition.

The problem is that threatening maximum pain to achieve poorly-defined goals is going to do enormous long-term damage. The US no longer has any credibility as a negotiating partner, nor as an ally. The whimsical financial environment is making it a less attractive place to invest and the consequences for trade will reduce growth in the US as well as amongst its new economic enemies. And Trump effectively promised to replace tax on US citizens with tax on foreigners, which tariffs wouldn't achieve even if trade were increased rather than reduced.

The economic threats also contrast oddly with Trump's attitude to Russia where there are no threats, merely appeasement.

Assuming there is logic to all of this, and Trump wants to deliver his promises of making foreigners pay, the only possible conclusion is that Trump is looking for some sort of duopolistic hegemony with Russia - with Russia subjugating the East and America subjugating the West in some form of neo-colonialism. And that would fit with the reported demands on Ukraine to pay a perpetual and impoverishing tribute to the US for its post-war "support". It's only a short step from there to similar demands on NATO members.

The markets obviously think Trump is simply grandstanding and there is no underlying plan. But what if there is?

He will intact and repeal as he sees fit to benefit himself and his regime. One day it's this, the markets drop. He and his death cult buy it up, then he repeals it, and markets slightly rebound. Yes, it's criminal felonious market manipulation. What's new?

As a side note he just signed a decree claiming absolute power with no oversight. He eliminated the judiciary branch and fired anyone who opposes him. He is now Saddam Hussein, and America is owned by russia, who are currently playing him like a steel guitar. America is gone. You can joke about it, you can laugh about it, but what an incredibly sad day for humanity. We are all in serious deep shit. All of us. The world you knew does not exist. The death cult is in charge now, and they will have to be forcefully removed. Protect yourselves europe. I have a great love for you. Don't look back. America will only take you down with us. You can put the blame directly on the tech industry, turning everyone into want to be famous influencers, and controlling the media. Melting the minds of our children in the process. Nobody knows what's real anymore. It's a living nightmare. Our worst dreams realized.