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bjkeefe's avatar

I think James Surowiecki has come up with a good explanation for where the numbers came from. The whole thread is worth reading, even if it's on the hellsite, but here is the gist:

"Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is."

https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942

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Jeffrey Kramer's avatar

It's like an ongoing experiment by some Trickster God to determine just what it would take for the GOP to abandon their naked raving emperor, or for the Serious Civil Centrist media to break with the cult of "Neutrality." The next escalation by Loki might take the form of:Trump "calculating" the number of troops to be sent to danger zones by multiplying the numerological value of the foreign leader's name by his shoe size. (Headline: "Trump's Unorthodox War-Planning Creates Controversy Among Critics.")

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