A Cowardly Congress Is Letting Trump Crash the Economy - The Nation

[justaprogressive]

onald Trump’s startling new tariffs amount to a declaration of war against the entire planet. In defending the president, Republicans are leaning into variations of the adage “short-term pain, long-term gain.” Republican Senator Tim Sheehy spelled out the argument on CNN, “There’s absolutely going to be short-term pain.… If you’re going to remodel your house to make it better in the end, it’s going to be really annoying in the short term when your house is getting remodeled and there’s drywall dust everywhere and there’s workers in your living room.”

The problem with Sheehy’s metaphor is that there is every reason to think that Trump’s tariff will bring both short-term pain—and even more long-term pain. In other words, far from remodeling the house, Trump is firebombing the entire neighborhood. The short-term pain is easy to see: The stock market dropped by 6 percent, losing $3.1 trillion in value. This is the steepest decline since March 2000, when the global economy was spooked by the rapid spread of Covid. But the stock market is only one measure of the damage.

More troubling is the prospect that Trump could be triggering a global trade war, one that could lead to a crash comparable to 1929 or 2008. In making the case for his policy on Wednesday, Trump offered up some typically nonsensical history, saying, “In 1929, [an era of prosperity] came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy, would have been a much different story.” In point of fact, after the stock market crash in 1929, Congress enacted the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which historians often cite as a major factor in making the Depression much more global and longer-lasting than typical economic downturns. Trump’s new tariffs are comparable in severity—indeed, arguably worse than—Smoot-Hawley.

Any criticism of Trump shouldn’t be mistaken as a defense of the old neoliberal consensus (one shared by presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama) in favor of globalized free trade, which was often rightly denounced by left-wing stalwarts such as Bernie Sanders for outsourcing manufacturing jobs, hurting the environment, and incentivizing predatory exploitation of workers in poorer countries. But fixing the old neoliberal order required the targeted use of tariffs as part of a careful industrial policy and the creation of new agreements to safeguard the rights of labour and the environment. What Trump has adopted instead is a sledgehammer approach, applying a one-size-fits-all formula to virtually any country the United States has a trade deficit with.

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/trump-tariffs-congress-constitutional-crisis/

[Dumpy]

1. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930) didn't cause the crash of 1929.

The crash happened before the tariffs.

[krawhitham]

2. The article clearly states that, it also clearly states the act made the Depression a lot worse

[Dumpy]

7. It was not clearly stated here and it implied

"More troubling is the prospect that Trump could be triggering a global trade war, one that could lead to a crash comparable to 1929 or 2008."

i wanted to be let known which came first.

The market has been bubbly and frothy. Back in Feb PEs of Mag Seven were off the charts and scared me out of the market. Now sitting in cash.

[krawhitham]

8. It clear as day from the posted info in this message about the article.

"In point of fact, after the stock market crash in 1929, Congress enacted the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which historians often cite as a major factor in making the Depression much more global and longer-lasting than typical economic downturns"

[krawhitham]

3. Disagree, it is not a Cowardly Congress, it's a Complicit Congress

Trump would veto anything they pass, and you would need 292 house members to override that veto

Dems only have 213 members, that leave you 79 members short

I doubt there are 79 GOP members that agree the tariffs are a bad idea


They are not cowardly they are complicit

[RandomNumbers]

4. The pro-tariff repukes are complicit, the 213 Dems are powerless

without being able to get those 79 GOPers to join them.

[sop]

5. That's a really stupid analogy:

"If you’re going to remodel your house to make it better in the end, it’s going to be really annoying in the short term when your house is getting remodeled and there’s drywall dust everywhere and there’s workers in your living room." I'm sure MAGA morons will go, "Yeah, it's just like remodeling your house," as Musk tears down of their homes to put up a new Trump luxury condo they can't afford.

[gulliver]

6. It's the curse of group think that makes cowards of everyone

We know that group think is the kiss of death, but we practice it anyway. The group has been mollycoddled by agreeableness fans to the point that it has become a surly, silent, easily agitated idiot.

(And, yes, I deliberately used the word "we" in the presumptuous, group think way, as a demonstration.)