Summary
U.S. CEOs and business executives are alarmed as Donald Trump remains firm on imposing high tariffs on U.S. allies, despite warnings from economists about potential economic harm.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s late-night social media announcements have blindsided both his advisers and business leaders, leaving them scrambling to react.
While Trump consults some advisers, like Marco Rubio and Treasury pick Scott Bessent, his unilateral approach limits their influence.
The uncertainty has left business leaders struggling to find ways to alter his stance on trade policies.
They thought they’d vote anti-tax first, then pushover trump on the tariffs when they had the time. Looks like they were wrong.
More faces being eaten.
If this was his first go-around I could see some rationale to that idea. But holy shit, has there been a case of collective amnesia among business ‘leaders’?!!
They knew exactly what they were getting. Because we’ve seen all this before. Usually this is the definition of madness. But in this case it should be the definition of stupidity.
This same surprised Pikachu shit is going to happen over and over and over again over the next 4+ years. Even right now, the media keep assuming what he says is what he will do. And I have no idea why. He demonstrated in his first term that at least half of what he promises he either backtracks on he doesn’t follow through on. Why they think things will be different this time is beyond me.
has there been a case of collective amnesia among business ‘leaders’?!!
Business leaders in the last decade or 2 have increasingly been laser focused on nothing beyond the next 6 months - AKA short term returns.
The long term survival of their business or what has happened in previous years are simply not part of their thought process when the next quarter’s profits are all that matters.
The one singular upside of Cheeto 2.0 is that I’ll get to enjoy some guilty schadenfreude as the face eating leopard starts eating the faces of the party-for-face-eating-leopards.
I hope he ruins all of them. Every last one.
You had four whole years of Trump to realize he never jokes around, he doesn’t bluff, and he’s never going to pivot, change directions, or admit he made a mistake. He means what he says and there is no nuance or subtext.
He means what he says and there is no nuance or subtext.
Well, there is a sort of nuance here.
In that he’s also terrible at doing literally anything, and fails constantly at achieving promises.
He also has so many plots and schemes cooking at any given moment with so many other people and organizations that you absolutely cannot trust or predict any outcome. This is the real thing that nobody learned about Trump is that he is completely unpredictable because he can’t be honest about the color of the sky if asked.
There were also guardrails to stop his half baked schemes from being implemented, or people with integrity in career positions that had the hard option of saying no.
I’m just worried this time he will tell his head of the EPA to make the sky that color.
And the head of the EPA will.
My only solace is that Trump kills everything he touches and betrays everyone who is loyal to him.
In some regards, I hope so too. The old Fuck Around and Find Out bit. The fucking MAGAts will look like deer in headlights when the economic freight train derails and crashes.
I’m already stockpiling popcorn.
Might be a bit of a contrarian take, but at this point I think Trump needs to have a gigantic fuck up to drive people to the streets in anger, South Korea style. One of those ‘we need our medicine before we can get better’ moments.
For some reason tens of millions of people buy his “'I’m the greatest - only I can save you - they’re evil and stupid” rhetoric.
So it’s going to take a truly epic fuck up that he can’t bullshit his way out of - and that the media can’t ignore - for people to finally see that him and his cronies are all gigantic pieces of shit.
He did have a gigantic fuck up. He fucked up the response to covid-19. Badly. And how much did his fuck up make the situation worse in the rest of the world?
74 million people still voted for him in 2020. During and immediately AFTER that fuck up.
Yeah, but the alternative was voting for a woman, so…
A half black, half Indian woman, though!
It’s going to take something monumental for the US to ever change- and even then I doubt it will. People seem 100% stupider than 15 years ago and some study just showed adult intelligence has dropped in multiple areas. I wonder if people infected with COVID literally got stupider on top of all the lead poisoning from pre-90’s.
There wasn’t a woman running in 2020.
January 6th has entered the chat…and quietly left unnoticed.
His entire first administration was a series of such fuckups. I am not hopeful that consequences (for him) are ever coming.
I don’t think that’s possible, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure he knows he can get away with anything, and his stupid fans will still gladly follow him. He will put the blame on someone else, every time, and they will believe him, every time.
South Korea wasn’t in a cult for that leader AND what he asked for was essentially what… Something that equated to the build up to January 6th, without even a January 6th style failed coup attempt to show for it.
No, they did what we should have. We failed.
South Korea values education. The Republican party has been destroying the public education system for decades.
So south Korea does not have as many braindead people as we have here
This is the whole issue. Republicans, a cult, can only exist in pretend political party form because they have convinced their base that literally–literally–anything that has a big ol REPUBLICAN label slapped on it is the highest moral good.
They see children getting murdered in cold blood in schools and take the side of the guns. I should probably repeat that four or five times with varying emphasis.
Trump could bomb an orphanage, brag about it, and within a week Fox Lies & Propaganda would be running stories about how the orphanage made a mistake on its taxes that was falsely flagged as fraud, and how orphans might become criminals.
It won’t undo the current disaster, but the real path back is probably more like talking to one person who’s trumpy but still somehow you kind of like anyway, with a tone of…come on now. Are we serious with this? You see this for what it is, right? You gotta put a stop to this, it can’t go on. Or just plain old Lakoff advice about getting your racist grandpa to tell you a story at thanksgiving of a time he helped somebody. This is one step in restoring his brain to its unpoisoned-by-conservatism state.
You gotta attack the foundation of fascism and conservatism, which science seems to think you do with empathy.
If this could have happened it would have happened during covid
Trump accelerationism, lesgo
“Stupid CEOs are left dumbfounded when a greedy selfish narcissist who only listens to those who pay him the most is a greedy selfist narcissist.”
I know CEOs are never the smartest people, but Jesus Christ. Milk spoiling in the summer heat is less obvious.
Wait, what CEO is surprised that Trump won’t look at data and make decisions on that? Anyone this foolish should have their stock shorted.
“we thought we could control the face eating leopard.”
Honestly yeah they still see him as corrupt and able to be bought. He is except where he isn’t. He can be bribed like a 5 year old can, he’ll take the money and like you more because of it, but his whims will always come first
Trump doesn’t look at data. Ever.
Doesn’t surprise me, but I guess I’m not a US CEO.
I’m not even sure he can read
Looks like Americans are about to go through their version of brexit. Good luck, it’s going to be rough.
Those are nothing alike. The UK has become an empty shell of its former empire. It lacks the access to resources for a closed economy and the military strength to steal them elsewhere.
For the US it is possible to return to a closed economy. The way Trump would do it is stupid and it would fuck over most Americans, but the end goal of a closed economy is viable in principal. For the UK it was impossible to achieve anything out of Brexit.
The only way the US could return to a viable closed economy is if the world jumped into a time machine and went back to the 80s.
Over here in the UK, whilst Brexit is an absolute clusterfuck and was always going to be, it was never the plan of even the most Faragian of people to enact a closed economy.
I don’t think any Westernised economy could successfully run a completely enclosed economy anymore.
We probably could ramp up some production here to survive this. But for it to actually work the way it’s proposed the general population will need to give up certain luxuries that are only available via import. And I can’t see that ever happening. The average American isn’t going to sacrifice anything for the greater good.
That would be glorious! But I’m seriously scared for Ukraine and Europe while Amexit happens…!
This guy has tanked all of his previous enterprises due to his poor decision making and lack of knowledge. What in their right minds made them think this would be any different?
Did you only now notice that he only cares about himself?
And he’s mind-bogglingly stupid on top of that.
Americas leader and figurehead.
Truly a man of the people.
Trump’s late-night social media announcements have blindsided both his advisers and business leaders, leaving them scrambling to react.
He said he was going to do this long ago, dipshits. “Seriously, but not literally?”
All part of Putin’s plan. He probably gave him the advice on tariffs.
“If you burn America to the ground, I will let you rule this ashes.”
I wonder if in a Freudian slip the translator said “Self Sanctions” when discussing tariffs
hell for all we know, that was part of his concession for putin helping him get elected.
Prepare for Russian Oil Imports.
unilateral
authoritarian*
FTFY
Just increase taxes on the wealthy…
All tariffs will do is put the additional costs onto the working class.
Working as intended.
I’d be happy paying higher taxes if they went towards things that benefit the community, like universal health care, improving quality of public education, etc.
You’ve got my vote. (I’m not actually allowed to vote in the US election)
He has already shown them what he wants them to do.
Just donate $1 million to him and he will help your business
It was a billion.
See? The poor billionaires suffer inflation just like everyone else. /s
I was wondering this morning as I was scrambling my eggs just how many of the grossly unqualified billionaires that Trump is trying to nominate to cabinet positions paid for those positions?
Donate enough and you get a cabinet position.
Donate even more and he’ll create new fake departments for you.
Can someone explain why no one takes Trump at his word?
From what I understand, is that his supporters know he lies, but they believe he is telling the truth about X, which is whatever his supporters think is the most important.
He is the embodiment of all of thier wishes they hear whatever they want when he speaks.
Leopards, faces, etc.
