If there was ever a time in history where America should not upset the apple cart, this is it, but instead, America decided to punch itself in the face and install Trump AGAIN.
• Tariffs function as a consumer tax, and while they bring in short-term revenue, they also raise prices and trigger retaliation.
• Massive U.S. debt — over $34 trillion and rising — makes every economic misstep more dangerous. Debt servicing (just paying interest) will soon surpass military spending.
• Foreign divestment from U.S. Treasury bonds (especially by China) is a looming risk. If they sell off in bulk or stop buying, the dollar weakens and interest rates rise.
• Meanwhile, China is building an alternative global system that could slowly sideline U.S. economic dominance — not through war, but through infrastructure, trade, and currency innovation.
So yes — the debt is the kill shot, not the tariffs themselves. Tariffs just make the symptoms worse.
How the American people allowed this to happen is beyond me. Somewhere between outrage fatigue, partisan tribalism, and the endless distraction machine of modern life, a nation that once prided itself on pragmatism and fiscal responsibility now seems content to burn tomorrow for the illusion of winning today.
You have landed on the right target for GOP administration policy moves. However you are not close on the motive. Jackson as President sold huge amounts of land owned by the US government to wealthy people, some of them land speculators that were his friends, and paid off the debt. Kinda. The debt was paid down to not run a deficit. When the debt gets center stage, Trump (the real estate president) will sell off Federal land to people of wealth to pay off the debt to not run a deficit. Then he will proclaim ‘I saved Social Security!’ And We The People will have lost our public lands.
The goal of Trump's China tariffs are to open China’s consumer markets to US business. US consumer markets are in decline due to the increasing income inequity of shareholder capitalism. The share of the US income going to 90% of the population has declined from 65% to 50% over the past 40 years. That decline is the equivalent of $2.5 trillion per year today. He is ignoring the US middle class problem and solving a US business problem with China's consumers.
Not sure he’ll win on that because China itself is trying to encourage more domestic consumption. If they succeed, that then becomes an even bigger problem for the US methinks.
... yes, China will have to work on demand too, which is a challenge because then they need people who WANT stuff, and that dangerous... ;) We all will have to, actually. Since the US have been the "spender of last resort" for the whole global economy. Which has stabilized it.
Which makes me wonder if we TOO will have to begin to be as big advertisers and bullshitters..? ;) Or if we can actually agree on spending money on doing important investments in the common stuff again, when demand is low and its actually relatively CHEAP to build...? We have to. We just have to.
I'm considering making a bug report site, open to all swedes to report what needs fixing, vote on the bugs for priorisation, and also do improvement suggestions. And also possible for people from the government to answer on the bugs, explaining how things work, redirecting them to those who can fix them, etc. Just the way we handled bugs at Opera Software when I worked QA there. Its an excellent way to do communication and public education around practical cases. <3
Could Truth Matters write more on the need for a shared capitalism that benefits all Americans over our current shareholder capitalism that benefits the top 10% and leaves the remaining 90% of Americans behind? Although difficult to address, without the truth about our most fundamental problem being discussed it will never be addressed.
Great and insightful, revelatory article on this trade wars/tariff situation. I suspect that things will only get worse. But, I hate to say this or be the first one to raise this, you need an editor or proof reader. There were many grammatical errors that sort of tripped up my reading. I’d recommend Grammarly Premium for you who writes for the public. I use the basic Grammarly, which is suitable for my purposes. Keep up the good work! I’ll be eagerly waiting for your subsequent articles!
Thank you for addressing the elephant in the room Tony. I know my grammar is a weakness. I know it exposes my writing to criticism. I’ve said from the outset, I’m a work in progress and please don’t think I’m glib in my approach. I check it again and again then check again, but I still miss stuff.
it’s not laziness, it’s maybe an inability to spot what others see. I am VERY aware of it and will do as you suggest and get Grammarly. My fear is, I don’t want to sanitise what my brain throws to my fingers and it become clinically ‘correct’ at the expense of being me faults and all.
Hehe, ive been doing my walking around in circles too :D . like I do when debugging somehing really fishy, like this - what the FUCK is the REAL matter? From what angle does this make sense? - and here's what Ive gathered, for comparison, quoting a comment i wrote elsewhere. (I often think the best when talking or writing, answering, trying to explain...
===
… This is the distinct feeling i get - the deal, the grand bargain between rich and poor, that social liberals and social democrats globally pushed, to stick together and share profits - that deal is now ending. :/
Why now? … Yeah. I just got that Its not even JUST the US being surpassed by China as top market, as i thought.
When zooming out even more, remembering - its the IT revolution, with all its disruptance of existing work already, ending up in the coming AI slaugher of work (and possible even armageddon-by-Skynet, if we dont release the pressure from the competition by coming up with new deals and agreements. :p).
This slaugher goes so quick that there is NO chance we will add newly invented work in the same rate. We only have so much bandwidth in our brains. Youval Noah Harari points it out and warns for it in Nexus.
The only rational response for that, is simply redistributing the enormous profits to everyone. The UN is already discussing this, believe it or not.
Because thats the only sane way to do it, and to keep capitalism sane and occupied with providing for basic needs for everyone, as it should! With gradual universal basic income, kind of like Alaskas common oil dividend, which works fine. … Or as negative tax, as the neoliberal Friedman preferred.
But what happens if you are rich and dont believe in the sane solution, according to your conservative, anticommunist values, that you need as a justification for being that ineually rich? (The strong tendency for these are scientifically proven.)
They you MUST believe in going back to the “good old days” that actually never existed… or were bearable ONLY because of hope that things would be allowed to get BETTER, not worse.
Even if that means flipping the absurdity switch. Because there is NO way there that does not imply constant lying and insincerity, to rationalise “worse” actually being “better”. :p Orwellian double-speak.
… The rich have known it for quite some time, they always have an eye open for the future as investors, and see the patterns, since those are what they use to invest… but nobody else knows.
Thats we start to see all these absurd things. In that light, good is bad and the other way around. Because good is about preserving basically status quo. Keeping the bargin keeping everybody content. But that is not a valid goal anymore. Either everyone must suffer togerher (and THAT they never believe in unless we make them an offer and make them see its the best option, they NEVER suggest that themselves, I must assume its simply against the code in their part of society) - or the many must suffer for the few.
… The grand bargain was only lucrative enough for the rich as long as it generated enough growth to keep both workers and them happy - and that started to fail after the 70s. Reagan and Thatcher started to keep it alive with larger and larger deficits, and then we made do with productivity gains from IT, “jobless growth” and the precariar, and private borrowing. And now thats at ways end. :o
This, we need to haul up on the slab to talk about. They wont do it. Nobody who’s invested in the current system either. They will have a heck of a time understanding this, since its so existentially scary on a subsistence level.
And that’s why i want it everybody to know as soon as possible - so we have time to talk about it before things blow for real and people get scared and traumatized - and probably creates a market for a Lenin 2.0 to present himself... :p
I want none of that.
I want us to be prepared for ANY scenario. Because that makes us fight best.
And that’s why Im proposing independent self-organisation first.
Along with fighting the current bullies in any way - or MAYBE even USING them, since they seem really prectable at some levels, and thats always usable. But never trusting, just showing them their only personal way out, because they seem quite lost right now.
Hmmm.. i bet they are mostly showing off their violence capital for the world to COME, where rule of law is not a factor!?! ;p
Well.. lets not end up there, shall we? And practice offense too, the best we can! To show them we can.
China has not "moved on". They are hurting Bigly! That's what happens when you can't use American Consumers to buy your cheap crap, made by slaves, to make Billions without making a fair deal!
I’m afraid with respect you are living in the past. China has and is as we speak reducing dependence on the US market and the US had better hope that they do not more closely align with the EU or that could be the nail in the coffin
Here’s the hard truth:
• Tariffs function as a consumer tax, and while they bring in short-term revenue, they also raise prices and trigger retaliation.
• Massive U.S. debt — over $34 trillion and rising — makes every economic misstep more dangerous. Debt servicing (just paying interest) will soon surpass military spending.
• Foreign divestment from U.S. Treasury bonds (especially by China) is a looming risk. If they sell off in bulk or stop buying, the dollar weakens and interest rates rise.
• Meanwhile, China is building an alternative global system that could slowly sideline U.S. economic dominance — not through war, but through infrastructure, trade, and currency innovation.
So yes — the debt is the kill shot, not the tariffs themselves. Tariffs just make the symptoms worse.
How the American people allowed this to happen is beyond me. Somewhere between outrage fatigue, partisan tribalism, and the endless distraction machine of modern life, a nation that once prided itself on pragmatism and fiscal responsibility now seems content to burn tomorrow for the illusion of winning today.
You are absolutely on the money (pun intended). I really don’t think people are aware of just what a tightrope walk the US is embarking on.
You have landed on the right target for GOP administration policy moves. However you are not close on the motive. Jackson as President sold huge amounts of land owned by the US government to wealthy people, some of them land speculators that were his friends, and paid off the debt. Kinda. The debt was paid down to not run a deficit. When the debt gets center stage, Trump (the real estate president) will sell off Federal land to people of wealth to pay off the debt to not run a deficit. Then he will proclaim ‘I saved Social Security!’ And We The People will have lost our public lands.
Interesting John, I’ll certainly take a closer look into this. Cheers
The debt is certainly one of our biggest vulnerabilities. We must demand our politicians reduce it if we have any wisdom at all.
You don’t reduce it by adding $7 trillion to the debt for unfunded tax cuts, it’s economic suicide.
The goal of Trump's China tariffs are to open China’s consumer markets to US business. US consumer markets are in decline due to the increasing income inequity of shareholder capitalism. The share of the US income going to 90% of the population has declined from 65% to 50% over the past 40 years. That decline is the equivalent of $2.5 trillion per year today. He is ignoring the US middle class problem and solving a US business problem with China's consumers.
Not sure he’ll win on that because China itself is trying to encourage more domestic consumption. If they succeed, that then becomes an even bigger problem for the US methinks.
... yes, China will have to work on demand too, which is a challenge because then they need people who WANT stuff, and that dangerous... ;) We all will have to, actually. Since the US have been the "spender of last resort" for the whole global economy. Which has stabilized it.
Which makes me wonder if we TOO will have to begin to be as big advertisers and bullshitters..? ;) Or if we can actually agree on spending money on doing important investments in the common stuff again, when demand is low and its actually relatively CHEAP to build...? We have to. We just have to.
I'm considering making a bug report site, open to all swedes to report what needs fixing, vote on the bugs for priorisation, and also do improvement suggestions. And also possible for people from the government to answer on the bugs, explaining how things work, redirecting them to those who can fix them, etc. Just the way we handled bugs at Opera Software when I worked QA there. Its an excellent way to do communication and public education around practical cases. <3
Could Truth Matters write more on the need for a shared capitalism that benefits all Americans over our current shareholder capitalism that benefits the top 10% and leaves the remaining 90% of Americans behind? Although difficult to address, without the truth about our most fundamental problem being discussed it will never be addressed.
Great and insightful, revelatory article on this trade wars/tariff situation. I suspect that things will only get worse. But, I hate to say this or be the first one to raise this, you need an editor or proof reader. There were many grammatical errors that sort of tripped up my reading. I’d recommend Grammarly Premium for you who writes for the public. I use the basic Grammarly, which is suitable for my purposes. Keep up the good work! I’ll be eagerly waiting for your subsequent articles!
Thank you for addressing the elephant in the room Tony. I know my grammar is a weakness. I know it exposes my writing to criticism. I’ve said from the outset, I’m a work in progress and please don’t think I’m glib in my approach. I check it again and again then check again, but I still miss stuff.
it’s not laziness, it’s maybe an inability to spot what others see. I am VERY aware of it and will do as you suggest and get Grammarly. My fear is, I don’t want to sanitise what my brain throws to my fingers and it become clinically ‘correct’ at the expense of being me faults and all.
Hope this makes sense, but I AM listening.
The economy is okay today, tomorrow…but ye better buy the products while on the shelf, without the TARIFF. Expect end of May.
Hehe, ive been doing my walking around in circles too :D . like I do when debugging somehing really fishy, like this - what the FUCK is the REAL matter? From what angle does this make sense? - and here's what Ive gathered, for comparison, quoting a comment i wrote elsewhere. (I often think the best when talking or writing, answering, trying to explain...
===
… This is the distinct feeling i get - the deal, the grand bargain between rich and poor, that social liberals and social democrats globally pushed, to stick together and share profits - that deal is now ending. :/
Why now? … Yeah. I just got that Its not even JUST the US being surpassed by China as top market, as i thought.
When zooming out even more, remembering - its the IT revolution, with all its disruptance of existing work already, ending up in the coming AI slaugher of work (and possible even armageddon-by-Skynet, if we dont release the pressure from the competition by coming up with new deals and agreements. :p).
This slaugher goes so quick that there is NO chance we will add newly invented work in the same rate. We only have so much bandwidth in our brains. Youval Noah Harari points it out and warns for it in Nexus.
The only rational response for that, is simply redistributing the enormous profits to everyone. The UN is already discussing this, believe it or not.
Because thats the only sane way to do it, and to keep capitalism sane and occupied with providing for basic needs for everyone, as it should! With gradual universal basic income, kind of like Alaskas common oil dividend, which works fine. … Or as negative tax, as the neoliberal Friedman preferred.
But what happens if you are rich and dont believe in the sane solution, according to your conservative, anticommunist values, that you need as a justification for being that ineually rich? (The strong tendency for these are scientifically proven.)
They you MUST believe in going back to the “good old days” that actually never existed… or were bearable ONLY because of hope that things would be allowed to get BETTER, not worse.
Even if that means flipping the absurdity switch. Because there is NO way there that does not imply constant lying and insincerity, to rationalise “worse” actually being “better”. :p Orwellian double-speak.
… The rich have known it for quite some time, they always have an eye open for the future as investors, and see the patterns, since those are what they use to invest… but nobody else knows.
Thats we start to see all these absurd things. In that light, good is bad and the other way around. Because good is about preserving basically status quo. Keeping the bargin keeping everybody content. But that is not a valid goal anymore. Either everyone must suffer togerher (and THAT they never believe in unless we make them an offer and make them see its the best option, they NEVER suggest that themselves, I must assume its simply against the code in their part of society) - or the many must suffer for the few.
… The grand bargain was only lucrative enough for the rich as long as it generated enough growth to keep both workers and them happy - and that started to fail after the 70s. Reagan and Thatcher started to keep it alive with larger and larger deficits, and then we made do with productivity gains from IT, “jobless growth” and the precariar, and private borrowing. And now thats at ways end. :o
This, we need to haul up on the slab to talk about. They wont do it. Nobody who’s invested in the current system either. They will have a heck of a time understanding this, since its so existentially scary on a subsistence level.
And that’s why i want it everybody to know as soon as possible - so we have time to talk about it before things blow for real and people get scared and traumatized - and probably creates a market for a Lenin 2.0 to present himself... :p
I want none of that.
I want us to be prepared for ANY scenario. Because that makes us fight best.
And that’s why Im proposing independent self-organisation first.
Along with fighting the current bullies in any way - or MAYBE even USING them, since they seem really prectable at some levels, and thats always usable. But never trusting, just showing them their only personal way out, because they seem quite lost right now.
Hmmm.. i bet they are mostly showing off their violence capital for the world to COME, where rule of law is not a factor!?! ;p
Well.. lets not end up there, shall we? And practice offense too, the best we can! To show them we can.
We need both Machiavelli and Jesus.
China has not "moved on". They are hurting Bigly! That's what happens when you can't use American Consumers to buy your cheap crap, made by slaves, to make Billions without making a fair deal!
I’m afraid with respect you are living in the past. China has and is as we speak reducing dependence on the US market and the US had better hope that they do not more closely align with the EU or that could be the nail in the coffin
You are most welcome. Information is only useful if people can understand it and that is one of my key objectives here.