As the Observer has noted this morning:
Donald Trump's presidential administration has exempted smartphones and computers from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China as well as other “reciprocal” tariffs, which experts had cautioned might cause electronic consumer prices to spike dramatically in the US.
The announcement was made late on Friday in a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) notice that said the devices would be excluded from the 10% global tariff that Trump recently imposed on most countries, along with the much heftier import tax on China.
Let's not beat about the bush about this. What this means is that Trump has capitulated. He has been forced to concede that his 'beautiful' tariffs cannot work. The disruption they would cause is too much for the US economy and the American voter to bear. The edifice he tried to create has collapsed.
The suggestion Trump made that tariffs would make the US rich again has been shown to be a lie. Stock and bond markets have proved that.
Tariffs have not made the US great again. Confidence has been lost in it, and the dollar, instead.
The idea that every American would pay less tax because foreigners would do so for them has been shown to be absurd. The average iPhone was going to increase in price because of tariffs from around $1,200 to about $2,100. The difference was tax, in its entirety, paid by people in the USA. Trump has been exposed as a liar.
And the price for all this has not been paid as yet. With Trump in office for almost another four years, no one is going to be lining up to do deals with the USA. They'll be looking at how to work around it instead.
Trump has had his moment when he thought he ruled the world. Now he will have to face the ignominy of being the President who claimed he could do just that, and who claimed the world would kiss his arse, only to find out that none of that was true. He will forever be, instead, the President who made a mockery of that office and the nation that elected him.
At least, that's what is possible unless the likes of Starmer remain in sycophant mode, which in his case is entirely possible.
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“Donald Trump’s presidential administration has exempted smartphones” I think you mean adult-pacifiers (aka dummies) – on the tram/bus/metro human looking at screens – stupified. As for those that voted Mango, this is quite interesting:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/11/2315964/-My-encounter-with-a-Kansas-farmer
The imbecile (Kansas farmer) still thinks Mango is doing a good job even as his market (China) disappears. There is no reasoning with some people & they still think Mango is doing a good job. On an quasi-related note: family farms are disappering in the USM(ango) as the US empire follows a trajectory identical to Rome (300BC – 100BC) in which farm land was bought up by the rich and turned into latifundi (lots of slaves see). If (big if) the USM holds together this is the future, but the Kansas farmer is far to stupid to see that.
I fear for that farmer’s shortsightedness
“The imbecile (Kansas farmer) still thinks Mango is doing a good job even as his market (China) disappears.”
There are many people in Florida on par with this imbecile (Kansas farmer). They say the exact same things.
Agreed.
This is the same numpty who told us that the Ukrainian conflict would be over within 24hrs of him being president. Yeah right.
What to say? There are three ways of looking at it: 1. Such people are gullible and stupid (the fly-over state mentality). 2. The capacity of social media platforms to dis-inform people at scale is being ruthlessly exploited by bad actors. 3. Hannah Arendt’s observation that there is always at anytime in history a group of people in society who are innately capable to respond positively to fascism. I’d say that all three are in play here. All shepherded toward their destination by Neo-liberalism.
To follow on from Mike’s input, I’ve been reading Hudson’s ‘The Collapse of Antiquity’ (2023) and it emerges that Rome was literally built on revenues from its conquests (war and ‘war booty’, p. 239 ) as it had little to nothing in terms of domestically raised revenues from anything self sufficient – war was the key to its existence. Captured land was handed out to those at the top of society, and land given to centurions was often let go by them under duress as they were always away fighting and unable to settle and cultivate and benefit from it!
The Roman model by the way is alive and well and still resides in the City and other cities around the world.
That is not quite right about Rome. Legionaries (not just Centurions) did get land, but only at the end of their service. By 300 AD that had become very extended and you could spend 25 years in service. Around the time of Julius Caesar is was more like 2 years. The City of Rome was mostly about administration of the Empire, and for the most part that was done efficiently. The Empire lasted 500 years or so which is pretty impressive. There was little rush of people trying to escape – quite the reverse as the Barbarians (which was just a name for those outside the Empire and not as pejorative as we see the term today) wanted to be Roman (but proper Citizens and not slaves).
After the Julio-Claudian line died out there was always a problem of succession. They never really acknowledged that Augustus had ended the Republic, so they carried on with the Senate electing two Consuls each year, who were supposed to be joint rulers. Except everyone knew one Consul was Imperator and nobody else really counted for much. However, when the Imperator died the Senate had a brief moment of power as technically it picked the next Consul / Imperator from among the Senators. That more or less worked from around 80 to 150 AD, for example. However later it just turned into a power grab by whoever could secure the Pretorian Guard and strong arm the Senate (with bumping off opponents if required). There was a run of weak and short lived Imperators before and after Constantine with one or two exceptions such as Diocletian (the only one who ever retired – he went off to live in Split in a vast palace that still exists today). The whole system actually survives to this day as it was adopted lock stock and barrel by the Church of Rome. Cardinals are Senators, the Pope is Imperator and even the name is the same since the Curia was the Roman name for the Senate in the Forum.
By 400 AD there was an insoluble economic problem. The Senatorial class (think todays billionaires) owned just about everything, especially as they had managed to dispossess many of the Citizens of their land, and were just as reluctant to pay tax as any MAGA enthusiast. They also had a taste for imported Eastern luxuries, such as Chinese silk and porcelain and Indonesian spices. Those had to be paid for in gold and silver as Rome did not really produce anything that was wanted in return. However, most of the gold and silver mines in Europe had been exhausted. So the Imperator was in a bind – there wasn’t the metal for creating new coins and the rich would not pay up either. Thus the military and administration got underfunded (think austerity).
So the Barbarians could not be stopped and arrived at the gates of the City in 410 AD. By that time it was too late for the Senators to pay their taxes! It was just a light sacking and not what was shown in Hollywood depictions, and the Visigoths dually carted off the gold and silver from the Capitol to North Africa (including the treasures from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem). The Empire picked itself up, mostly, and carried on for another 150 years or so. It was the cutting of the aqueducts in 537 by Alaric (another lot of Goths) which was the fatal blow. By that point the decay was such that there was nobody to organise the repair. Without the aqueducts what had been a City of over a million people became mostly uninhabitable (see what is being done to Gaza!!), and fell to about 50,000 only 30 years later, all living along the banks of the Tibur. What was left of the Imperial Government moved to Ravenna and Rome was left to moulder for 8 centuries.
Thanks
I am nit an arbitrator on this!
Agree with last sentence. About to write a paper on the subject – how people in Europe could have taken a quite different & more interesting path.
Now we are repeaating the past – imperium and eventually dissolution. It is pathetic.
This climbdown is nothing short of an admission that Trump’s entire tariff policy was a reckless con. From the outset, economists warned that these tariffs would boomerang on American consumers, and now we see the proof: when faced with the reality that iPhones might jump to over $2,000, Trump quietly scrapped the very tariffs he once bragged would “make America rich again.”
Let’s be clear — tariffs were never about sound economic policy; they were about political theatre, built on economic ignorance and nationalist bluster. Trump sold the fantasy that other countries would pay America’s bills, and far too many bought into it. Now, with confidence in the dollar shaken and global trade relationships fraying, the cost of that fantasy is becoming painfully real.
This exemption isn’t strategy — it’s surrender. It exposes just how unworkable and self-destructive these tariffs were. And worse, it shows that Trump’s approach to economic leadership was driven by slogans and spite, not facts or foresight.
And it raises another serious question: was insider trading happening while this tariff chaos unfolded? Some have suggested that individuals close to the administration may have used foreknowledge of tariff exemptions or policy pivots to make a profit — a charge that, if true, would take this from failure to outright corruption. In any other country, we’d call that what it is: looting in broad daylight.
I fear you are using the past tense too soon. There is still 25% on UK cars, for example.
There is an intriguing story from Canada that Mark Carney has been quietly buying up US Treasury Bonds, then co-ordinating with Europe and Japan to steadily dump them onto the market. Causing the Bond yield upsurge, and Trump to pull his “beautiful” tariffs for 90 days. Snopes.com has investigated this, not verified it, but hasn’t dismissed it either. If true, if only the economics pygmies in government here had the wit and courage to do something similar. https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/11/canada-mark-carney-treasurys-sell-off/
TIME TO CUT THE USA ADRIFT
https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/end-the-illusion-ditch-the-uks-special
I am sure I’ve read somewhere that Trump amongst other considerations I’m sure saw tariffs as a way of reducing federal income taxes and the size of the govt when combined with DOGE’s efforts.
The hope was the federal income tax burden would be lifted from those that do pay federal income tax to those that currently pay very little.
I don’t think tariff revenues were supposed to replace federal income tax just be a cover story for improving the tax position of those with much higher incomes who support Trump.
Meanwhile behind the scenes major firms & countries “do deals” to mitigate Trump’s tariffs/non tariff barriers allowing Trump to say whatever those who follow him wanted to hear about his efforts on MAGA.
Like the UK I hear 75 countries still want some kind of deal.