“Heard and McDonald Islands, an uninhabited Australian territory, will now pay a 10 percent tariff on any exported goods the penguins there manage to export to the U.S.
So will the British Indian Ocean Territory—a U.K. overseas territory that (thanks to a mid-century ethnic cleansing) is depopulated but for military personnel and contractors at the island’s British and American bases.
The White House’s list also includes the French overseas departments and regions of French Guiana, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Mayotte—all of which are legally part of France proper, and therefore have their trade policy set by the European Union.
How exactly uninhabited islands and administrative regions of France ended up on the White House’s tariff list isn’t exactly clear.
All do have their own two-letter country code on the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations (UN/LODE), which is used to facilitate trade and generate trade data.
It’s possible then that the White House just cut and pasted from this list to create its own tariff targets.
To be sure, there are about 50 countries and territories on the UN/LODE list that don’t appear on the Trump administration’s tariff list. The White House’s list is at least curated enough to exclude U.S. overseas territories, the Vatican, and Palestine—all of which have their own UN/LODE code.”
…
“Amazingly, the inclusion of uninhabited territories and administrative regions of larger countries and trade blocs fails to even match the administration’s own protectionist logic.
If the new tariffs are supposed to equalize bilateral trade balances between the U.S. and every other country, it makes little sense that the White House also levy tariffs on places that have no economic activity.
It also doesn’t make a lot of sense that it would tariff European overseas regions that don’t set their own trade policy.
If the White House is trying to create an equal balance of exports and imports with French Guiana, as opposed to France as a whole, why not also have Paris-specific tariffs?”
Ukraine’s biggest problem is a lack of manpower. Russia’s manpower advantage is growing. Russia doesn’t want a ceasefire, because Putin believes he has the advantage and can gain more by continuing the war.
“When it comes to implementing those tariffs, Miran repeatedly stresses the need to move deliberately and in ways that “are minimally disruptive to markets and the economy.”
“There is a path by which the Trump Administration can reconfigure the global trading and financial systems to America’s benefit,” Miran wrote at the end of his essay, “but it is narrow, and will require careful planning, precise execution, and attention to steps to minimize adverse consequences.”
“The “reciprocal” tariffs that President Donald Trump announced this week are based on a flagrant fallacy: the idea that there is something inherently suspicious about trade deficits. Unlike many of the positions that Trump has adopted as a politician, this one seems heartfelt and long predates his presidential campaigns. His comments on the subject during the last four decades reflect an unshakable belief that international trade is “fair” only when the dollar value of imports from any given country happens to match the dollar value of U.S. exports to that country.
Trump’s long history of economic illiteracy suggests he is determined to pursue this trade war, which features import taxes that are much steeper and far broader than the ones he imposed during his first term, no matter how much pain it inflicts on American consumers and businesses.”
“A deal to spin off the U.S. assets of TikTok was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve the deal following President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Trump on Friday extended by 75 days a deadline for ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of the popular short video app to a non-Chinese buyer, or face a ban that was supposed to have taken effect in January under a 2024 law.”
‘Trump is post-literate, meaning he can use social media, but doesn’t read books. He doesn’t understand the origin, history, and nature of the Western alliance because he hasn’t taken the time to understand it. That would require reading.’
Trump doesn’t understand complex global supply chains.