Trump Tariff on China Will Gouge U.S. Poor and Middle Class to Prop Up Zelensky

 President Trump plans to put 100% tariffs on Chinese imports to help Ukraine’s quasi dictator Zelensky survive a few more months in Ukraine. Because Wal-mart imports 60% of it’s stuff from China the tariffs cost will be passed on to poor and middle class Americans that shop at Wal-mart.

Eighty percent of global solar panel production is also Chinese. Trump’s actions won’t help reduce the cost of energy self-reliance off-grid further.

One might guess that the tariffs won’t be popular with consumers being gouged at Wal-mart because of the tariff on China. There will be mid-term political repercussions for the new tariff that won’t be helpful for the United States as more lunatic Democrats may be elected to take over the House and Senate.

Tesla is set to introduce sodium batteries in its 2026 modules that recharge in 4 minutes to 80% of capacity, last for a half million miles and have a range of over 500 miles. Solar power is important for Americans that will want to recharge the new batteries in lower priced cars because sodium is far cheaper than rare Earth minerals to buy. President Trump may not be aware that Tesla should not be impeded with Chinese auto sales next year as its battery advantage may not last forever. Tariffs could permanently damage American auto sales advantages in the Chinese market.

If the thoughtless billionaire league would double American wages and make a 100% cost of living adjustment for social security then the 100% Trump tariffs would be more tolerable. Yet it is the bloody aloof rich that have no trouble paying for food and basic items that configure such importunate policy deeds. The ultra rich and their  mindless class of the West feel they can corner the global market and reduce wages while raising the cost of living for the majority of Americans under the guise of punishing China. It is the rich that invested in and built up the China trade to start with while transitioning the U.S.A. into a service economy rather than manufacturing.

 Those rich that have invested in China the past several decades are not being sanctioned- just consumers in the United States. They outsourced U.S. jobs, imported cheap illegal workers, invested in China and made the cheap Chinese imports the rationale and excuse for stagnating U.S. male wages since the 1970s. Now they want to sanction American consumers. The sycophant media would criticize Americans who criticize the sanctions yet did not invest in China like the 1%ers. Americans are supposed to patriotically support the sanctions in effect, on themselves placed by a first generation American.

Trump’s America First Policy Coincides with an Environmental Conservation Goal

 One of the ways to move toward ecological sustainability is to produce as much locally, reducing transportation costs and pollution from the transportation of goods globally. It is a paradox that President Trump’s very antipathetic economic policies of sustained tariffs to stimulate domestic industrial production entails a plank from ecological economic methods of reducing global greenhouse gassing and other unsustainable, deleterious environmental policies.

Some future President may be able to capitalize on the new paradigm of national production and graft in to the economic tree, additional environmental economic policies that will adapt the national economy to environmental economic policies. The pathetic job creation numbers for July of just 73,000 jobs created due to Trump’s disrupting tariffs are a harbinger of what will occur when a significant ecological economic policy is implemented. Between that change and the disrupting effects of generative and super-intelligent generative artificial intelligence on the workforce that will put much of the workforce out of work, the need for a national basic income for all citizens earning fewer than the national average income is clear.

Americans will need to find a new way of ecological sustainability in the era where old economic policies have reached their maximum life span of several thousand years. The new policies will need to provide adequate income for citizens to live reasonably well and secure as they seek to find some way to apply themselves to tasks of life when machine, robots and artificial intelligence take over much of the work. Eventually the entire planet will need to adapt that way too. It is necessary for some large nation to lead the way.

Reorienting U.S. Economy To material Production instead of the Losing Policy Abroad

 President Trump has no easy task. The nation after Reagan moved toward shifting production overseas with the end of Cold War 1.0. The nation moved toward being a service and finance economy running federal budget and trade deficits as a permanent paradigm. That of course couldn’t last and as the President has tried to recover the national production ability with tariffs feathers have been ruffled for those invested in America losing on all fronts. I wonder though if the huge trade problem with China could be offset by some kind of reciprocal investment and development in Mexico instead of China?

Mexico is a close neighbor and needs to become even more productive to keep its younger workers home. It would be easier to share production with Mexico and the nation on things like manufacture of aircraft instead of China. Not an economist myself, it is something I wonder about.

Even creating dental labs in Mexico instead of China would return denture production closer to home and lower transportation costs. The administration could research the issue and perhaps build a fresh water making desalinating salt-water security canal along the entire Mexican border using solar power for pumping water uphill to Deming New Mexico for trickling downhill east and west.

Pres. Trump's Tariff Medicine is a Hard Economic Remedy

 Usually I would prefer classical free trade economics without tariffs. Since the USA began outsourcing jobs and the country began trade deficit increases decades ago it was plain that some kind of correction would need to occur at some point. Debt can’t be used to finance a national economy forever. I guess the time has arrived to correct the unbalanced national economic structure. It is tough to regard President Trump as a kind of pragmatic 19th century country doctor amputating a gangrenous policy, yet his economic surgery is a bold move.

I am not sure of what impact the tariffs will have, yet it could be positive in the long run. The minimum wage adjusted for inflation is far less now than it was in 1970. After the Cold War ended global labor competition to American workers increased about 80%. Cheap Chinese labor made American industry invest overseas, in Mexico, India,Vietnam etc- basically anywhere labor was cheap. The theory is that while wages are rising in China and America's working class economy relied on cheap foreign imports for consumer goods and vast federal deficit spending the economy was OK. American wages stagnated except for the rich that saw tremendous income increases because of all the foreign based investments and profit with low taxes in the U.S.A. as well. Low taxes on the rich are supposed to create job growth and it does-overseas.

https://suno.com/song/9e65a66d-a822-43d3-8831-ebcd0235924a?sh=LVeInrKa1hVauYW7

Tariffs may reverse the investment flow a little. With public debt at 33 trillion something had to be done. The planetary tariffs are a bold move and I am surprised that Pres Trump actually had the will to try it. Public debt and federal deficit spending couldn't just be allowed to keep increasing by a trillion or two every year until it hit 50 or 100 trillion while American wages were poor and imports became more costly because Chinese wages are increasing and the rich can hide their foreign profits in bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Foreign economies grow stronger and America's comparatively weaker. The tariffs are a real attempt to change things positively. I hope that it works.

Those Ford Galaxy 500s were pretty decent cars. T.V. seemed fine. The moon landings were clear enough, and Superbowls. Chryslers had some manufacturing issues. Detroit partly closed down. The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 gave small foreign cars a huge boost in American sales because people wanted fuel efficient foreign cars. It was amazing to see the year by year increase of small Japanese cars like the miniature Honda civic in size- and of course today the Toyota trucks are almost as large as 60s American trucks.Detroit tried retooling while iron production declined in the Midwest- lots of political issues. Environmental issues loomed large. The national highway sped limit was 55 m.p.h. for conservation. It was a time of change. Establishments drag their feet on change sometimes. The effort to produce synthetic fuel from coal at Parachute Colorado to replace embargo'd fuel reminds one how tough the lack of fuel was- long lines on even and odd days to buy gas.

The N.Y.S.E isn't a list of American businesses located in America. Tariffs into America and exports-even Boeing parts for China and vice versa, are going to slump sales and increase costs for a lot of people. A time for adjusting to a new balance might take a while.. The N.Y.S.E. has 530 corporations from 48 countries. Even small changes in costs require price adjustments, much less large tariffs. Even resetting pricing will take time. Some multi-national corporations will get around tariffs, yet other could pay tariffs in two-way trade (i.e. 35% plus 35% equals 70%).

Canadian Tariffs Bring Opportunity for Zinc Ore Processing to Alaska

 The Red Dog mine is America's largest zinc and germanium producer. The ore is processed in Canada travelling hundreds of miles. The new tariffs have unintentionally made an opportunity for a new source of good jobs in Wrangell, Anchorage or Fairbanks should mine owners decide to build.

Creating new quality jobs in Alaska isn't easy. Besides tourism the employment numbers don't change a lot. The opportunity to create a new heavy industry employer doesn't arise every day. The state could pursue bring ore processing to diversify the economy.

https://alaskabeacon.com/2025/01/31/a-major-alaska-mine-could-end-up-in-the-crossfire-of-trumps-trade-war-with-canada/