President says at first cabinet meeting that levies would be applied ‘generally’ and that more details would come soon
Summary
Donald Trump has announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the bloc was “formed to screw the United States.”
While details are pending, he suggested the levies would target cars and other imports. The EU, a major U.S. trading partner, has vowed immediate retaliation, with potential tariffs impacting $29.3 billion in exports.
French President Emmanuel Macron had attempted to dissuade Trump, urging focus on China instead.
Critics, including economists and conservative media, warn the tariffs could harm the U.S. economy.
The last time, it really looked like he panicked when the Dow (predictably, to everyone else) fell. If he blinks every time, yeah, it's never going to actually happen, although I can't see him deciding that actually he's wrong about tariffs being awesome.
He was also talking about some kind of additional tariff on April 2nd. On the auto industry (that will be shut down if he follows through anyway), IIRC. That being said, as CBC noted elsewhere he himself is bad at keeping his threats straight.
After I sent this, I saw a clip about it. It looks like he did suggest it was all on April 2 in some interview. If he had it wrong, was deliberately being confusing or what is unclear, but it hardly matters.
We'll see what happens then, basically. Either way, we should be getting the hell away from American dependence.
The Columbia flows through Eastern Washington, it's on the other side of a mountain range from Seattle. That's like threatening to cause an avalanche at Banff to hurt Vancouver.
In either case it's the environment that would bear the brunt of the conflict. If you want to hurt Seattle you could just raise our electric bill.
Ah, my bad. So many mountain ranges makes it hard to keep track of what flows where. I'm a little unclear on the bits I've been through many times, even.
Well, IIRC the rest of Washington is a militia-ridden red state, so maybe that's even better. (Or am I thinking of Oregon?)