I keep seeing confusion about what Trump’s trying to accomplish with his new “tariffs on the world (except Russia, of course)” strategy.
Some have come up with partial truths, like him crashing the economy so that his billionaire friends can buy the dip, and while that may be a side benefit, it misses his BY FAR most important motive:
His goal with these tariffs is to force corporations to submit to his direct control (a, by definition, fascist takeover FWIW).
This is classic mob boss “carrot & stick persuasion” tactics & they are terrifyingly effective.
By imposing mixed levels of industry and country-specific tariffs & making it clear that these are all being imposed (& removed) at his will, Trump is able to dramatically (& immediately) influence nearly every company’s relative costs & competitiveness.
Within an astonishingly short period (likely just a matter of weeks or months) this financial control will force even the largest companies to submit to his demands in order to get the specific tariffs driving up the cost of *their* products & supply chains reduced or removed. Those who don't play by his rules will end up having to charge more & profit less, & will eventually be driven out of business by the competition that does play along.
With this latest move, he’s given the CEOs & board rooms of America a very clear, stark choice:
Do whatever he says (likely including in the long term purging your company of anyone who publicly opposes him & no longer advertising on platforms that allow opposition messaging), publicly praise him and “donate” millions to his “campaign" (for a 3rd term?), and the tariffs that most directly affect your bottom line will be magically reduced or removed overnight.
Do anything he doesn’t like, in contrast, and he’ll reimpose or increase them instead.
His calculus is simple:
He’s got another 3 1/2 years of executive power, minimum (you’re dreaming if you think BOTH the Republican-controlled house & 2/3rds of the Senate would ever vote to remove him, and even if they did, Vance would likely just continue with these tactics).
Most CEOs can only survive a year at most of continually losing market share to the competitors that are willing to pay to play before they’ll be replaced by someone more compliant.
This means that by the 2026 midterms, any remaining corporate opposition will be substantially weakened and on its way out the door. By 2028, they will be utterly marginalized or gone.
For anyone who thinks this is alarmist, you only have to look at the brazen effectiveness of his most recent targeted attacks via executive order on the nation’s largest law firms.
Law firms that had previously participated in cases against him (or his cronies) have been individually named and prohibited from entering federal buildings (obviously a necessity to participate in federal court cases), had their security clearances threatened and been banned from working with federal agencies (often a multimillion dollar portion of their business).
The result?
One by one, and within just a few weeks, they’ve ALL bent the knee and not only dropped the cases they were working on, but also “donated” tens of millions in free legal work for organizations that Trump likes in order to get his executive orders reversed (successfully, btw). Understanding the clear intended message of these targeted attacks, many of the other big law firms have already announced plans to preemptively bribe (er, provide) him with over $100 million in pro bono services(!):
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-big-law-firms-retribution/
FWIW, this has been Trump’s MO forever, so no one should be surprised. He has always used his outsized wealth and power to bully others into doing his bidding. Whether it’s stiffing small contractors out of millions after they’ve done all the work, then burying them in legal debt when they try to complain until they've commit suicide (https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-business-plan-left-a-trail-of-unpaid-bills-1465504454) or publicly humiliating fellow Republicans into complete submission (eg. Lil Marco Rubio, Lyin' Ted Cruz, etc), this is simply how he operates.
This is all out of the Dictator’s handbook, of course, and it’s why our founding fathers designated the power of the purse to congress instead of the president alone. Unfortunately, congresspeople are far too cowardly to assert their rightful power and will passively watch our democracy die long before they do anything about it. It seems highly unlikely that any company can resist this type of targeted coercion long term.
How we the people respond will determine whether the country we grew up in still exists in recognizable form just a few months from now.
TL,DR: The “emergency” powers Trump currently has allow him to start, stop and dramatically alter international tariffs at will.
Given his extensive record of abusing power for personal gain (as demonstrated recently by him sabotaging individual law firms’ ability to conduct business with individually targeted special orders, forcing them to not only stop all work on cases against him and his cronies, but also give him hundreds of millions of dollars in free labor in order for him to rescind them. These orders caused other law firms to preemptively offer him hundred million dollar bribes as well).
I’m suggesting that he is likely to abuse his power again, effectively controlling many companies’ ability to compete depending on their compliance with his demands. By suddenly raising and lowering tariffs by large amounts (currently 50% in some cases, and there’s no reason he can’t go higher to make a point), he can attack individual companies’ respective weak points and sabotage their operations, making them consistently less competitive. He can also pair this with reduced tariffs on their rivals, making them MORE competitive. He can thus pit them against one another, consistently punishing the least complaint and rewarding the most compliant to strengthen their hand.
Because most companies legally exist to maximize shareholder profits, this will eventually force them to either acquiesce to his demands (no matter how extreme, eg. Demanding they replace employees he dislikes with people he does and participate in crimes) or be forced out of business, leading to what’s commonly known as a fascist state.
The Blindingly Obvious Goal of Trump’s Tariffs That Everyone Seems to be Missing…
byu/joe_shmoe11111 ineconomy
by joe_shmoe11111
24 comments
You give the clown far too much credit
I hope you are wrong but my guess right now is he just sees it as projecting strength, the way he is a huge loser with handshakes and makes sure he’s in the front of every picture and what not.
History repeating itself – dating back to the Roman empire, Kings & emperors have used taxes / tax exemptions as a means for corruption. It was a driver behind the French revolution and one of many reasons why King Louis XVI was executed
It could be. But iI can’t think of which corporations he is targeting by manipulating tariffs on the penguin island.😂
It’s a strong assessment. I was thinking the same things this morning, but I think he may have slightly different motivations. At his inauguration, we saw he had the most powerful tech titans present, and each paid fealty in terms of millions of dollars.
Now he’s demanding that all other nations (save Russia) bow to his will and pay tribute to him.
I think this is Trump’s real driver. He demands to be worshipped. I also think that when this economic stunt fails, he’s going to start dropping bombs.
Yes. Trump is either evil or stupid. He is either an undemocratic fascist using executive orders because he’s too weak to get Congress to pass a law. Or he’s just a dumbass narcissist who refuses to admit he came up with a dumb plan and will rather destroy global trade than admit he was wrong.
Flip a coin.
Agree with you. I also see parts of this repaying his biggest supporters: trash the economy so the billionaires can buy more stuff cheap which will regain value quickly with tariff removal; make government services fail to justify their privatization, creating an oligarchy; repay Putin by trashing NATO and our allies.
No chance that he is trying to correct trade imbalances and our long term debt problems.
Probably your hair on fire thing.
That’s literally the goal of Project 2025. Replace POTUS with a CEO of America.
I’m sure he wants to privatize the Fed or at least have it be part of the executive branch. Destroying the economy and creating The Yuge Depression is how he gets all the idiots to hand it over to him.
Saw a good explanation. He controls tariff revenue not tax revenue
You guys are giving these people too much credit. He’s just an idiot.
Yes and now I’m terrified.
Good lord. So did all his insiders sell their equities beforehand.
I think it’s more to do with being a tool to generate revenue in an effort to partially offset corporate tax cuts. It’s easier for his followers to digest tariffs than being told that their income tax will be raised. Make it appear that the world is treating us unfairly and divide us from our allies. After that, expand the spheres of influence to maintain permanent control without any backlash from the global community.
Putin said to crash the dollar. Yes Master.
And in the process the stock market continues to tank and we get squeezed. Yes?
Damn. Nailed it.
I am wondering if this is a play to force goods to go through Russia where there aren’t any tariffs levied so they can be resold here. Russia gets their cut
We saw this with Chinese steel dumping.
It’s the perfect time to do this is you’re about to force Ukraine to surrender and lift Russian sanctions
There are three law firms that are fighting him and did not bend the knee.
I can absolutely believe this. It’s exactly what he did in the last two weeks to some of the largest law firms in the country. Just a different “industry”.
Tl;dr?
Should we then assume that the billionaire CEOs (and companies) that attended his inauguration front row, will be benefiting from this the most?
I think you give him too much credit, and are forgetting the fates of most emperors and would-be emperors.
If he starts crossing the billionaires by tanking and threatening their companies, it’s best to bear in mind that wealth on that scale tends to make the owners of it sociopathic. We live in a oligarchy already, it’s just in drag pretending to be a democracy. Those guys aren’t the forgive and forget types, they tend to bear grudges, just like Trump. They’ll allow him to create chaos for a while so they can take advantage of it. But should he or his actions threaten to really harm *them*….well, all bets and alliances are off. Accidents happen all the time.
We’ve entered and era now where the rule of law has been deliberately shredded, and in a short time we will discover whether it will hold up under the assault or dissolve into the daily whims of the Boss, no longer cumbered with the name and idea for president. All businessmen are dictators within their own companies to the greatest extent they can manage. That’s why business people who get elected generally make a hash of things: they don’t understand how government works or should work, so they always try “running it like a business” because that’s all they know how to do.
Funny, I can’t think of any other professional class who says that if elected they would run government like .oh, say a classroom or school, or like a movie set, or like a farm….only businesspeople have the hubris to think that their skillsets automatically make them more qualified to run a government.
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