this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
168 points (98.3% liked)

News

27238 readers
5538 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40630983

Yeah, fuck this guy.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 27 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (3 children)

Why do most people here seem to agree that Trump's tarrifs are stupid and brash, yet Australia's leadership deeming retaliatory tarrifs would be the same is 'gutless and weak'?

This is just smart leadership on Australia's part. We are a trade surplus partner with USA - meaning we import more from the US than we export, and importantly the targets of the tarriffs are only a small fraction of our exports to the US.

So, to create knee-jerk retaliatory tarrifs on the US for the sake of assisting a very small sliver of our exports would be truly shooting ourselves in the foot.

Have a look at our iron ore export leading markets and look for the USA to see how much we need them: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1149300/australia-leading-iron-ore-export-destinations/ 1000042876

Now add up ALL iron, steel aluminium, and 'ores' from this list of all Aus -> US exports: https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports/united-states

Sum total: ~$550mil of our $14.7billion exports to the US in 2024 were aluminium or steel or their ores. So a 25% tarrif on 3.7% of our exports? To a country we have a trade surplus with?

Its not worth us tariffing them, would hurt us far more than we gain, and our top economists agree - saying "retaliatory tarrifs would be an act of self-sabotage" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/treasury-came-armed-with-a-warning-politicians-dragged-them-mud/104995418

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

And I don't wanna talk to an economist, y'all motherfuckers lyin' and gettin' me pissed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Because if Trump gets his way with tariffs he will move emboldened onto whatever his next stupid strategy is probably something like trying to dismantle Nato or whatever. However if all the world retaliates together to this bully then he will know what will happen next time he starts doing stupid shit. classic school yard bully situation in some sense. If the bullied is left alone and others don't react in unison then the bully will continue to bully.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

However if all the world retaliates together to this bully then he will know what will happen next time he starts doing stupid shit. classic school yard bully situation in some sense.

You’re assuming Trump is capable of learning the types of lessons that schoolyard bullies learn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

I'm Australia's regard, what the bully is doing is hurting himself more that his victim.

If the bully punches himself in the face I'm not gonna punch myself in the face to prevent him being emboldened.

As an aside, I don't know why people think that a market capitalism solution is what will stop Trump. The whole world won't just stop buying US-made products in unison and the NASDAQ drops precipitously and Trump announces "oh dear, i will stop doing a fascism and be a good boy from now on". This is a fantasy that does not map to the real world.

Look at how tarrifs have affected Putin or Kim Jong Il: barely at all. Yes, their people suffer, but the leaders make new trade deals with different counties so their personal wealth in largely unaffected. Meanwhile they have big propaganda wins as it feeds right into their party narrative that the 'rest of the world is against us', 'the elites are conspiring at the WTO'. And those countries have been heavily targeted by tariff schemes for decades, how long you guys want Trump? Historically the only way authoritarian regimes are brought down is via internal conflict or war.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago

Are they looking at any nontariff measures?