Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Trump’s EU trade deal is only a win if a 15% tax on imports from Europe is a win. Things from Europe being more expensive, and importing companies making less money, are bad for the economy and the people in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6htfcWxknU
“in fairness, tariff-free trade into Vietnam is good news for American farmers and manufacturers that export goods to that country, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has argued. And the reduction in tariffs may marginally increase our exports to Vietnam.
For the vast majority of Americans, however, trade with Vietnam matters on the buying side, not the selling side. For them, this deal accomplishes very little.
The deal also sends a clear signal to other countries that Trump’s promise of reciprocity was bullshit.
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Free trade between the U.S. and Vietnam would be a win-win for both countries. That’s not what Trump has delivered with this deal. Vietnamese businesses and consumers got free trade. Americans got more taxes.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/03/trumps-new-trade-deal-has-a-clear-winner-vietnam/
Two percent of working Americans get tips. If you are a waiter who gets tips, you get a tax cut, but if you are a dishwasher who doesn’t get tips, you don’t get a tax cut. If you are getting tips and stay within the bill’s 25k limit, you aren’t paying much taxes to begin with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNjSrXnMY4Y
“If Trump’s goal here is to strike deals that will lower foreign barriers to American exports and deliver better trading conditions for American manufacturers (who rely on imports), then hiking tariffs on South Korea makes startlingly little sense.”
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“the new tariffs seem to violate an existing trade deal between the U.S. and South Korea. That deal, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, was signed in 2007 by President George W. Bush and implemented in 2012. Under the terms of the deal, about 95 percent of the goods traded between the two countries are imported tariff-free. Among other things, that deal put an end to high South Korean tariffs on American cars and light trucks, which has boosted American exports and U.S. auto manufacturing jobs.
On the whole, the deal has been good for both countries. Bilateral trade between the U.S. and South Korea expanded nearly 70 percent in the first 10 years that the deal was in place. As the Heritage Foundation noted in 2022, the deal was particularly good for American farmers (who saw exports to South Korea hit record highs) and for foreign investment in American industries (South Korean investment in the U.S. nearly tripled during the deal’s first decade in force).”
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“Trump himself signed a renegotiated version of that same trade deal in 2018. The so-called KORUS 2.0 rolled back some of the free trade provisions in the original deal—most notably, it limited exports of Korean steel to the U.S. and postponed a planned elimination of the U.S. tariff on imported light trucks.
Still, it was mostly “a minor tweak” to the previous deal, as the Cato Institute termed it at the time.
Trump called the reworked deal “fair and reciprocal” and said it was “a historic milestone in trade.”
Now, less than seven years later, he’s effectively torn up that deal. Or he’s pretending that it never existed (or he forgot about it).
So, here’s the question: What is the White House hoping to accomplish with this latest maneuver?
If the goal is to lower tariffs across the board, then KORUS already did that. If the goal is to increase American exports to foreign countries by getting them to lower their trade barriers, then KORUS has already done that too. If the goal is to allow Trump to renegotiate the supposedly flawed trade deals from previous generations of American leaders, then KORUS 2.0 did that.
And, of course, if the goal is to strike more deals with more countries—as the White House keeps claiming—then this seems to be a step in the wrong direction. What other leader will be willing to negotiate seriously with this administration, knowing full well that it does not respect the deals it reaches?”
https://reason.com/2025/07/07/with-new-25-percent-tariffs-trump-just-blew-up-his-own-trade-deal-with-south-korea/
“Asked whether the U.S. would be flexible with any countries about on the July 9 deadline, Trump said, “Not really.”
“They’ll start to pay on Aug. 1,” he added. “The money will start to come into the United States on Aug. 1, OK, in pretty much all cases.”
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Tariffs are paid by importers — which can pass on part or all of the costs to consumers — and not necessarily by entities in the goods’ country of origin.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-secretary-says-countries-without-170129594.html
“That unwillingness to significantly budge on his array of tariffs has bogged down trade negotiations and hindered the administration from crafting substantial trade deals. As the U.S. has set out to negotiate deals with more than 60 trading partners, world leaders have grown increasingly frustrated with what they say are unbalanced demands from the U.S.
Other trading partners, including the European Union, have bristled at the terms of the UK framework and said they would not agree to a similar deal. That arrangement left a 10 percent so-called baseline tariff in place, while laying out a path to slash sector-specific tariffs.
The bloc isn’t alone, and Trump’s numerous demands and “do-it-or-else” approach have made it challenging for countries to corral the domestic political support they’ll need in order to sell any deal at home.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/28/trade-talks-morph-into-trumps-global-bargaining-table-00430160
“Trump’s all-sticks-and-no-carrot approach to trade talks is making it difficult for even friendly foreign governments to reach an agreement they fear could be political suicide back home — no matter how much the White House threatens their economies.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/29/us-india-trade-deal-00430438
“China on Friday signaled it would approve the export of rare earth minerals to the US, hours after White House officials said the two sides had reached a deal, in what would be a major breakthrough following weeks of negotiations over US access to the key materials.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-china-formalize-deal-rare-075006013.html
“In 2023, the most recent year for which full data are available, the average U.S. tariff on British goods was 3.3 percent.
That means this “deal” charges American consumers a 10 percent baseline tax on goods that were previously taxed at 3.3 percent. That’s not a win for free trade or lower prices.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/09/the-u-k-trade-deal-screws-american-consumers/
“Some people, including a former Trump administration official speaking to Politico, speculate that China’s threatened rare earth cut-off was more damaging to automakers and the defense industry than anyone’s letting on, and that China actually can log this one as a W; “China’s export restrictions to the United States worked. It created enough pain to compel the U.S. government to plead with the Chinese government to reverse course,” the official told Politico.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/13/no-divorce-from-china/