Politics Japan and Trump 2.0

My brother in law here in the States had his company close up shop due to Trump tariffs. He is a little younger than me but also his 50s so he gets to try to find a new job. It is a pain as 50s are often prime saving years for retirement.

Manufacturing in the US can not be set up within a presidential term, it just leads to higher costs for regular people likely allowing the wealthy to pay less taxes while taxing the regular population more through tariffs.

Oh yes in addition to the tariff itself is as I understand $17 processing fee to each package.

salyavin said:

My brother in law here in the States had his company close up shop due to Trump tariffs. He is a little younger than me but also his 50s so he gets to try to find a new job. It is a pain as 50s are often prime saving years for retirement.

Manufacturing in the US can not be set up within a presidential term, it just leads to higher costs for regular people likely allowing the wealthy to pay less taxes while taxing the regular population more through tariffs.

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That's aligned with the plan. Small businesses will fail and the oligarchs will swoop in and pick up the pieces.

I was at a fair today and a young adult came by advocating for a candidate for Governor, handing me a flyer. It didn't clearly say Republican or Democrat but when I read the key line "appointed by President Trump as prosecutor for..." I pointed it out to him and gave him an emphatic NO, handed it back to him and sent him on his way. In hindsight I wish I had engaged with him a bit. Maybe ask him if he feels a sense of pride when his president accuses immigrants of eating pet cats and dogs. Or when he sees a hard working farm laborer in handcuffs. etc.

I think your engagement would've fallen on frustratingly deaf ears. The young person will be well aware of those things but will have rationalised them in that weird MAGA echo chamber.

We must keep the Epstein File scandal alive!

Back to "Japan and Trump 2.0."

President Trump finally put his signature on an executive order Thursday that reduces tariffs on Japanese car imports, bringing them down from 25% to 15%, according to the White House. The new structure means Japanese automakers will face a 12.5% additional tax on top of the existing 2.5% rate that was already in place. The administration will release more specifics about when this change kicks in over the next week. This move represents a notable shift in trade policy toward Japan. However, the total burden on Japanese car manufacturers will still be considerably higher than what they faced before the previous tariff increases. The timing and implementation details remain unclear, with the White House promising clarification within seven days of the order's signing.

Let's hope he doesn't change his mind again.

Paywall alert:

at every "negotiation"...

That's called strategy.

Altering the deal and flip floppibg makes it hard for businesses to plan, this includes US businesses. Fast changes rather are also difficult for businesses to plan for. Is this really helping the economy? Even if one accepts his policy is correct a more controlled implementation and consistancy is needed for companies and governments.

Korea and Trump 2.0.

This was an interesting post from Facebook. I'm sure Japanese companies investing in the US, or considering doing so, will be taking note.

The Trump administration just pulled off the industrial policy equivalent of lighting your own house on fire to prove you have working smoke alarms. On September 4 federal agencies swarmed Hyundai's gleaming Georgia battery plant construction site like it was Pablo Escobar's hacienda. Four hundred seventy five people were arrested, most of them South Korean nationals flown in by subcontractors to help build the very factory Trump's White House has been bragging about for two years as proof America is "open for business." It was the largest worksite raid in DHS history, which is less a milestone than a confession that your economic strategy and your immigration crackdown are literally punching each other in the face.
Diplomatically, Seoul is furious. The South Korean foreign ministry expressed "concern and regret," which is diplomatic code for "you clowns just humiliated our investors and we have to pretend we still like you." Keep in mind South Korean firms have pledged one hundred fifty billion dollars in U.S. investments, twenty six billion of that from Hyundai alone. So Washington begged Seoul to anchor its electric vehicle supply chain here, gave them fat tax incentives, and then Trump sent in stormtroopers to drag their engineers out of the trailer office. Nothing says 'welcome partner' quite like zip ties and detention buses.
Economically, Georgia now gets to explain why its biggest development deal is sitting on pause while ICE hauls off the workforce. This is a seven point six billion dollar EV campus with over eight thousand promised jobs, and a four billion dollar Hyundai/LG battery joint venture that was supposed to keep those cars eligible for Inflation Reduction Act credits. Every week of delay risks pushing model year launches, supplier schedules, and consumer tax credits out of alignment. The state poured subsidies into this project and now gets to watch the ribbon-cutting replaced with a perp walk.
Politically, the contradictions are almost operatic. Trump sells himself as the guy who brings jobs back from China and Korea, then raids the very site creating those jobs because it makes for good Fox News B-roll. He wants foreign direct investment but also wants to terrify immigrant labor pools. He wants Georgians to cheer but business leaders are quietly panicking over the precedent. Even Georgia Republicans, usually eager to wave the enforcement flag, are hedging their language because they know the investment pipeline just took a torpedo.
Meanwhile, South Korean diplomats are camped out in Atlanta trying to free their nationals, Hyundai is phoning Washington to figure out if it still has a reliable partner, and American workers in Savannah are wondering why their future paychecks are chained to immigration theatrics.
This is what happens when a government tries to run an economy and a culture war on the same stage, your EV supply chain turns into a hostage drama, your allies question whether you can be trusted, and your big economic development win becomes the largest immigration raid in history. Industrial policy as performance art, starring Donald Trump as the sheriff who raids his own ribbon cutting.

"Idiocracy" was a prophetic movie. Probably just the tip of the ICEberg.

thomas said:

"Idiocracy" was a prophetic movie. Probably just the tip of the ICEberg.

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Idiocracy was overly optimistic, even according to Mike Judge himself

@Lothor, I had heard about the raid but everything made it sound like it was a factory already in full swing, not one of the new campuses still being built. Do you know if there were any actual shenanigans going on with the arrested workers' visas or immigration status? If they were bringing Korean workers to build a plant for a Korean company, it makes sense that a lot of them were on a temporary work visa or something sponsored by Hyundai or its subsidiaries.

What an absolute clown show. Between this and literally declaring war on American cities, I don't really see America recovering from this administration. It's that bad

nice gaijin said:

Idiocracy was overly optimistic, even according to Mike Judge himself

'Idiocracy' creator: I was optimistic about America lasting until 2505 (until Trump)

The creator of Idiocracy, a film set in the year 2505 of a dystopian America completely run by idiots and Carl's Jr., believes the movie was too

www.washingtonexaminer.com

@Lothor, I had heard about the raid but everything made it sound like it was a factory already in full swing, not one of the new campuses still being built. Do you know if there were any actual shenanigans going on with the arrested workers' visas or immigration status? If they were bringing Korean workers to build a plant for a Korean company, it makes sense that a lot of them were on a temporary work visa or something sponsored by Hyundai or its subsidiaries.

What an absolute clown show. Between this and literally declaring war on American cities, I don't really see America recovering from this administration. It's that bad

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Sorry, I don't have information beyond the post.
Edit: Just found this. 300 South Koreans detained at Hyundai plant in US to be released, says Seoul

Lothor said:

Sorry, I don't have information beyond the post.
Edit: Just found this. 300 South Koreans detained at Hyundai plant in US to be released, says Seoul

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yeah the information is slowly coming out, truly we live under a kakistocracy

Some coverage from a leftist streamer:

We're forced to sit back and wait for actual facts, but it sure looks like they just shot their big infrastructure move in the foot. Korea is responding with "concern and regret," which is about as close to swearing as a diplomat gets.

nice gaijin said:

Some coverage from a leftist streamer:

We're forced to sit back and wait for actual facts, but it sure looks like they just shot their big infrastructure move in the foot. Korea is responding with "concern and regret," which is about as close to swearing as a diplomat gets.

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Seems many had B1 visas Attorney says detained Korean Hyundai workers had special skills for short-term jobs

One could argue they are abusing the system but it's really the U.S.' fault for not putting in place a system that satisfies the need. Same with the agricultural guest worker system. If they issued the needed visas then illegal immigration would be vastly reduced. It does make you wonder who is master minding these enforcement actions. It may be a political win scoring points with the deep MAGA adherents but not for anybody else.

Japan is mentioned in here but it's only for the purpose of pointing out irrelevant facts like the fact that they don't have hardly any gun deaths. But it's still a good excuse to post this video.

mdchachi said:

Japan is mentioned in here but it's only for the purpose of pointing out irrelevant facts like the fact that they don't have hardly any gun deaths. But it's still a good excuse to post this video.

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Hoo wee, thanks for showing me the video im gonna watch during lunch today!

And as a side note, God it's been forever since ive been here. But im back, gonna try to be more active now. Hope you enjoyed the peace and quiet, that will change. (Joking, guys. Please don't ban me for trolling)

Ur_fave_american said:

Hoo wee, thanks for showing me the video im gonna watch during lunch today!

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Definitely not possible to finish during lunch. In fact you might not be able to watch it at all given the fact that the youth of today can't focus on things like this for more than 60 seconds at a time before scrolling to the next item in their feeds.

Ur_fave_american said:

And as a side note, God it's been forever since ive been here. But im back, gonna try to be more active now. Hope you enjoyed the peace and quiet, that will change. (Joking, guys. Please don't ban me for trolling)

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Definitely been quiet. No bans. But may have to give you a timeout. We'll see how you behave.

Hopefully you'll recognize the fallacies in the youths' arguments but I doubt it.

Let's hope Takaichi (and other leaders) refuses Trump's request to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. Having treated his traditional allies (particularly the European ones) like dirt since being elected, Trump cannot expect us to help clean up the mess that America and Israel have made in the Middle East.
Update:

Japan has refused!

NATO members and "friends" should not be expected to step up to a conflict they did not agree to start in the first place. Perhaps it is not such a good idea to base military decisions on what someone claims to feel in his bones.

I really hope Trump's chickens are finally coming home to roost!

Ukigumo said:

I really hope Trump's chickens are finally coming home to roost!

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Although I look forward to his inevitable downfall with great anticipation, Trump is a symptom as well as a cause. A healthy society would never have voted someone like him in.

Whenever a nation starts feeling financially poorer and thus insecure about a comfortable future, they are liable to manipulation from their politicians. The MO is very predictable and well-characterised:
And yet some fall for it, over and over again. Humans are incapable of learning from history.

Devastating commentary by the Guardian: