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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @028559d218 6 Apr \ parent \ on: Worrying About a Dethroned Dollar (The Economist) econ
I wouldn't even call them 'reciprocal tariffs...'
They're not reciprocal tariffs as far as I can tell.
They're like... import taxes to reduce the trade deficit. They're "trade deficit disincentives" or "trade deficit taxes" on Americans to reduce the purchasing of overseas goods.
It's not even about other countries tariffs at this point
They're reciprocal against all forms of protection regardless of what the other countries call that, hense the multiple of the trade imbalance... This includes the aforementioned currency manipulation without which such imbalance is not possible
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Do you think the end goal then... is to balance the trade deficit with multiple countries? Make the balance of trade basically zero then?
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The goal is national security more broadly. Trade imbalance is a symptom, not the cause.
The cause is that we are at war, and have been for a long time.
You can't have a country if you don't make things, so in war you prevent your enemy from being able to make things they can fight you with. Historically that was kinetic, blowing up factories and bridges etc. But since kinetic wars between great powers today would result in nuclear armageddon, we now have 5th generation warfare. As citizens without secret clearance all we see is the tip of the iceberg played out as information operations in the media.
Currencies are just one battlefield in the 5GW battlespace. I don't think it will end once the dollar is weaponized to the same degree other fiats are, as I said before monetary zones reflect security zones. I stand by my predictions from last year that this results in territorial expansion and likely a constitutional convention.
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