These Tariffs Aren't Dead, They're Just Resting

From Jeff Tiedrich:

they're pining for the fjords.

to paraphrase Mark Twain, "suppose that you were an idiot, and suppose that you were one of Donny Convict's ace team of economic advisors. but I repeat myself."

we keep being told that these are the finest financial minds in the world, but all that ever comes out of their mouths is incoherent twaddle—and none of these chickenfuckers can keep their stories straight for five consecutive minutes.

tariffs are on. no wait, they're off. they back on again. oops, they're back on. ok, they're off again — but this time it's only temporary.

need proof? look no further than the tariffs Donny has slapped on China. the goal, we were told, was to bring manufacturing back to America. we were going to sweatshop our way to prosperity, and return to the glorious 1950s, when nobody fucked with us because everything was Made In Amurica.

once Donny's tariffs took effect, we were told, millions of happy housewives would be kissing hubby goodbye every morning, before sending him off to his job at the iPhone factory.

leaving her free in his absence to carry on some intense affair with her vacuum cleaner.

don't ask me. I was a toddler in the 1950s. I guess some wild shit went on that I was too young to understand.

seriously, "we're going to make iPhones here in America" was literally the rationale that the Sewer Clowns repeated over and over again to justify tariffing the shit out of Penguin Island China.

granny-starving billionaire Howard Lutnick said exactly that, just one week ago.

 

"we are going to replace the armies of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones. that kind of thing is going to come to America."

a couple of days later, Jailbird Pete Navarro corroborated Howie's story, adding that some of those iPhone jobs would be filled by happy robots.

Laura Ingraham: "are we going to make iPhones in the US?"

Peter Navarro: "we're to be able to do it through more automation and there's going to be plenty of jobs for robots, plenty of jobs for humans."

then, on Friday, Donny announced a special tariff exemption for cellphones, chips and computers, because of course he did. a guy like Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't "donate" millions of dollars to Donny and expect nothing in return.

President Donald Trump exempted smartphones, computers, and other tech devices and components from his reciprocal tariffs, new guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows.

The guidance, issued late Friday evening, comes after Trump earlier this month imposed 145% tariffs on products from China, a move that threatened to take a toll on tech giants like Apple, which makes iPhones and most of its other products in China.

but wait. if the goal is to bring iPhone sweatshoppery back to America, how the fuck do you do that if you're going to give a free pass to any CEO willing to bribe Donny for an exclusion?

that's exactly what Meet the Press host Kristen Welker wanted to know, as she actually committed a journalism and insisted that Jailbird Pete Navarro explain Donny's tariff incoherence.

Kristen Welker: "the commerce secretary, the treasury secretary, the president himself said there would not be exclusions, and yet just yesterday there were exclusions. so is there in fact a plan, or is the president making this up as he goes along?"

Jailbird Pete: "the policy is no exemptions and no exclusions."

Welker: "but there were exclusions."

Pete: [filibusters for a full minute]

Welker: "I hear what you are saying, but there's currently an exclusion for some products."

Pete: "you call it an exclusion, potato, potahto."

Welker: "it's not me. the White House called it an exclusion."

ah yes, the well-known potato-potahto theory of economics, first espoused by Ron Vara, the Nobel-prizewinning economist who Jailbird Pete completely invented, so he could have an "expert" to quote in his books — because no real expert would support his batshit theories.

but wait — here comes Howard Lutnick! he's back, to explain that these don't-call-them-exclusions are only temporary, because [insert gibberish here].

Jonathan Karl: "so you're saying that the big tariffs on things like smartphones and laptops, all those iPhones built in China, that those tariffs are temporarily off but they're gonna be coming right back on in another form in a month or so? what are you saying?"

Howie the Lut: "correct. that's right."

so, we all thought these tariffs were dead — but apparently no, they're just resting. they're pining for the fjords.

has your head exploded yet?

then, yesterday afternoon, Donny took to his crappy app and posted that nuh-uh, I had my fingers crossed behind my back when I said there were exclusions.

oh joy, it's going to be a fucking bucket brigade of tariffs, or something. who can even wade through Donny's incoherent gibbering? all you need to know is that Donny is "taking a look," is Donny-speak for "I really am making this shit up as I go along."

how many times did we hear this during his first presidency? he'd announce some nonsensical policy. a reporter would ask for an explanation of how it was supposed to work, and Donny would answer "we're going to be looking at it very strongly, and we'll see what happens."

Donny was so fucking sure that the moment he put tariffs on Chinese goods, those commies would fold like a pack of cards. so far, it ain't happened — but apparently Donny's nonetheless waiting for a call from Xi that's never going to come.

The Chinese were also told – once again – that Chinese President Xi Jinping should request a call with US President Donald Trump.

Instead, US officials woke up to news of increased Chinese tariffs and no request for a leader level call. Xi also made comments that only dug him in further.

instead, China has implemented a fun little policy of their own, called We Ain't Fucking Around, Dickheads.

On April 4, the Chinese government ordered restrictions on the export of six heavy rare earth metals, which are refined entirely in China, as well as rare earth magnets, 90 percent of which are produced in China. The metals, and special magnets made with them, can now be shipped out of China only with special export licenses.

no rare-earth magnets for America, is that bad?

If factories in Detroit and elsewhere run out of powerful rare earth magnets, that could prevent them from assembling cars and other products with electric motors that require these magnets.

oh. huh.

gee, I thought trade wars were good, and easy to win. at least that's what the guy who went broke running casinos told me.

now get ready for the crowning moment of chickenfuckery: remember how Donny's been bragging that thanks to his tariffs, billions of dollars are already pouring into our country?

well, HA FUCKING HA. it turns out that foreign goods are showing up at our ports of entry and are being just waved on through without any money changing hands — because nobody is collecting the tariffs!

Thanks to a technical glitch, Donald Trump's tariffs haven't even been collected at U.S. ports.

On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that an entry code in the U.S. system for American ships to use to have their freight exempted from tariffs isn't working, and "the issue is being reviewed." As a result, no tariffs are being collected by the U.S. government for the time being.

these incompetent chickenfuckers can't even fuck a chicken properly. excuse me, but what's the point of pouring gasoline all over the world's economy and putting a match to it, if you're not even going to collect the money?

damn, and I had just finished gluing my head back together.

Some Stupid To Start Your Day

From Mock Paper Scissors:

The animal magnetism of Stephan "Pee-Wee Himmler" Miller is undeniable.

With a screech only bats and certain dogs can hear, Field Commander PeeWee Himmler declares that Hair Füror will make America the manufacturing capitol of the world…

an angry, twitching Stephen Miller yells on Fox News that Trump will "make American the manufacturing capital of the world"

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-04-08T19:26:16.656Z

Watch his eyes. You don't have to be a Truthsayer of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood to know that liars usually blink rapidly and in excess.

Hilariously a percentage of the Maga Kult think that this is all some really smart, carefully designed plan to show the media up and to break down the facade of the deep state when really we're just seeing the end of the white supremacist patriarchy, how stupid and incompetent they really are and what happens when they think they can just get away with being their real authentically stupid, ignorant selves

[Source]

It's Happening

From Palmer Report:

Last month I wrote that by the time we got to the hundred day mark in Donald Trump's presidency, if he was unpopular enough, House and Senate Republicans would begin selfishly prioritizing their own reelection prospects over their support of Trump. You can almost never count on Republicans to do the honest thing, but you can nearly always count on them to do the self interested thing.

We're still only sixty-seven days into this debacle, which means that in theory Trump should still have some more time to get his act together. But the funny thing about political scandals – real scandals, the ones that move the ground under everyone's feet – is that they can throw all the timetables out the window.

This brings us to Donald Trump's Signal-gate scandal (it's going to need a better name than that). Half of Trump's top handpicked people, including Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, Mike Waltz, John Ratcliffe, and Tulsi Gabbard, are now embroiled in a scandal that keeps getting worse by the hour. It was bad enough that they all committed a felony just by discussing military attack plans in Signal. They've since all blown the coverup entirely. They can't get their stories straight, it's top headline news every day, and it's just not going away. Trump's refusal to fire anyone over it is making it an even bigger scandal.

Suddenly it no longer appears to matter that Trump is still in his first hundred days. He had his chance to make this scandal go away by firing people, and he missed his window. Now he's at a point where he'll probably end up having to fire people over this in the end, and it still won't make the scandal go away.

How do we know this? Because House and Senate Republicans are now making it very clear (not with their words but with their actions) that they know this scandal is toxic and isn't going away. On Thursday the Republican House forced Trump to pull the plug on his cabinet nomination of Elise Stefanik, for fear the Democrats could win the resulting special election and take control of the House. That's a Republican plus-nine district. But things are just that ugly for Trump and his Republican Party right now.

The Republican Senate is also taking its own first steps toward insulating itself from Trump's Signal-gate implosion. The Republican Chair and the Democratic Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee have jointly asked the Department of Defense Inspector General to investigate this scandal. We know that Trump and Hegseth aren't going to allow the DOD to investigate this. But this letter is the Senate's precursor to launching its own investigation into the matter, likely complete with public hearings where all of these Trump buffoons will have to testify (or make the headlines even worse for themselves by fighting the subpoenas in court).

We all know that the Republican House and Senate won't go one inch further in this direction than they think is necessary to protect their own reelection prospects. But they are indeed going in this direction. As has been said many times, ignore their words and instead focus on their actions. House and Senate Republicans are afraid that this Trump scandal will cost them their seats and majorities unless they selfishly do something to distance themselves from it. Whether you trust them or not – and you shouldn't – this does tell you just how damaging and long lasting this scandal is going to be.