Trump apparently was doing these tariffs based on trade deficits (Which is stupid on its own, if your dentist doesn’t buy the widgets you sell, that’s not a tariff.), if Russia wasn’t running one, then there you go.
U.S. total goods trade with Russia were an estimated $3.5 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to Russia in 2024 were $526.1 million, down 12.3 percent ($73.5 million) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $3.0 billion in 2024, down 34.2 percent ($1.6 billion) from 2023. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Russia was $2.5 billion in 2024, a 37.5 percent decrease ($1.5 billion) over 2023.
Based on that math, with the CNN article I linked for the formula (the country’s trade deficit divided by its exports to the United States times 1/2) we get - (2,500,000,000 / 3,000,000,000) * 1/2 = 0.416666…
So Russia should have a 42% tariff based on their purported 83% tariff on us.
Trump seems to think the trade deficit is some sort of debt that we’ll have to pay off in the future.
The overall goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US isn’t necessarily a bad one, but this is probably the worst way to go about doing it. One article I read pointed out that it would take many years of consistent tariffs to generate that kind of interest and investment - but anyone with half a brain knows these tariffs could be gone tomorrow, so there’s little inclination to actually try to build factories in the US based on this move. No reasonable investor would want to bet their company on Trump acting consistently.
You can view this one of two ways, possibly both:
To rebuke 2 I present the following- https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia-and-eurasia/russia
Based on that math, with the CNN article I linked for the formula (the country’s trade deficit divided by its exports to the United States times 1/2) we get - (2,500,000,000 / 3,000,000,000) * 1/2 = 0.416666…
So Russia should have a 42% tariff based on their purported 83% tariff on us.
Trump seems to think the trade deficit is some sort of debt that we’ll have to pay off in the future.
The overall goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US isn’t necessarily a bad one, but this is probably the worst way to go about doing it. One article I read pointed out that it would take many years of consistent tariffs to generate that kind of interest and investment - but anyone with half a brain knows these tariffs could be gone tomorrow, so there’s little inclination to actually try to build factories in the US based on this move. No reasonable investor would want to bet their company on Trump acting consistently.
That’s the scary thing. Citrus-Hitler assumes he’s gonna have himself and his policies in place for “many years of consistent tariffs.”
And that’s how you end up in Guantanamo.