'Catastrophic for American families’: Business leaders react as Trump imposes ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs on world

“Manufacturers are scrambling to determine the exact implications for their operations,” National Association of Manufacturers president and CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement on Wednesday. “The stakes for manufacturers could not be higher.”

The tariffs, which Trump continues to erroneously claim will mean other countries paying the U.S., will in fact “threaten investment, jobs, supply chains, and, in turn, America’s ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the preeminent manufacturing superpower,” according to Timmons.

That's pretty black and white honestly. You can do all the analysis you like but the president of the National Association of Manufacturers would know.

The hubris here is breath taking. We've all known since 2016 that Trump is an arrogant idiot but this seems to be an order of magnitude above anything that has come before.

I keep looking for the master plan, "what are they actually trying to achieve", but then something like the signal shitstorm happens and you realise - they really are just hapless idiots.

"what are they actually trying to achieve"
pooty looking to turn the us to ashes, and project 2025. Some of those goals overlap.
- I'd say grifting as much money as possible. In this case, they're trying to fund their tax cuts on the wealthy with these tariffs
I keep looking for the master plan, "what are they actually trying to achieve"
Sabotaging the US to help Putin really is the only motive that fits all the data.

Buh bye US economy....

brings back a good degree of manufacturing
The idea that manufacturing ever "left" is propaganda. Union factory jobs have gone down, but the US is producing more than ever. They just want to dangle the carrot of good jobs over people who don't realize those jobs have been automated.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2583/industrial-production-historical-chart
Have you ever actually worked in a factory? Things are way less automated than you would believe. I worked at a plastic injection molding company 5 years ago and we had exactly one press that would automatically apply stickers to the product once it came out, and it would break down constantly. Another factory i was hand sealing fiberglass sheets together for use in washing machines. Or when i worked at a tire factory, i was weighing out curing chemicals by hand into a scale, monitoring rubber coming out, and even handcutting rubber to recycle. The inly factories that have heavy automation are brand new, because management takes one look at the eyewatering price to repair automated equipment and find that it's cheaper to oay someone $20/ hour to do it by hand.
- I thought that was kind of his point. If we start bringing manufacturing back to America a large part of it will be brand new and thus automated.

The only real hope seems like enough wealthy people realizing that they need the poors to spend money to keep their investments valuable and nobody is going to do that if they can't afford anything. Everyone knows Republicans won't be convinced by the suffering of their constituents, but they're usual open to bribes.

Bread and circus. The dial on the circus went up (social media) so the powerful can now steal the bread (goods).
It's all just more of the same.
- The "bread" in "bread and circus" means subsidizing the basic needs ie bread so that everyone can afford to live. They're not even doing that.
- I should've said I have zero faith in the wealthy to actually do anything useful. I just figure if things get too bad and their investments start losing significant value, some of them might speak up out of pure self-interest. Snapping up properties dirt cheap is only worthwhile if someone can afford to live there.

Do you know why it is cheaper to make vehicles in Canada, a country as modern as the USA? It's because of the universal healthcare. As long as every aspect of our lives is financialized, we will never be competitive in regards to manufacturing. Unless of course we legalize child factory labor 🙃

Florida: hold my beer.

Tears. Of laughter. All the way to the bank.

America economy was broken, it needed to be rebuilt, it was doing very, very poorly, it was the _{*checks notes*} strongest economy in history.... so it clearly needed to be destroyed...

Umm kind of lost the plot on this one.

Let's be honest tho, the American economy was going towards more and more speculation and exploitative based company making the gdp way higher then it ever deserved to be due to shareholders. In terms of actual economic strength you may be 2nd falling to third place soon

Liberation Day, Patriot Act, Freedom Act....FFS any time you hear anything that sounds even remotely patriotic you know it's the worst fucking thing imaginable

Holy shit, man. Another day, another gut-punch.