Rook
You have a citation for the Democrats wanting to place tariffs on 80+ countries in the 1990’s?
Yes, you can springboard off that Nancy Pelosi speech above and review the debates / questions from that. The clip someone else pasted above is a short clip of a much longer session where Democrats were concerned that cheaper labour markets would steal jobs away from Americans… ! Different party back then, ironically with some of the same people. There were at least 2 senate hearings on the topic and 1 House committee meeting (most likely more).
Note they were calling for “reciprocal tariffs” on countries with a trade deficit - was that 80+ countries? Could have been, maybe it was more. Maybe back then it was less. Same theme though.
You keep reaching back to the 90’s but they didn’t impose tariffs on 80+ countries, did they?
No, actually I’m not, I just referenced Bernie Sanders in the later 2000s who was calling for tariffs on all countries that were undermining US labour, nevermind “80+ countries”.
But it seems you’re missing the point and I’m not sure if that’s intentional or you’re just stuck on the 90s, but the point was many folks in here are critical of Trump’s tariffs because Trump™ but have nothing to say about the Democrats proposing the exact same thing in the past, most likely because they didn’t know that the Democrats were on Team Trump back when they cared about American jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me simply pointing out the hypocrisy of those commenting but rather to encourage dialogue because, again, I’m not in support or against tariffs, I’m simply commenting on the conversation.
So let me ask you something…
The Democrats wanted reciprocal tariffs to compensate for a trade deficit in the 90s and the 2000s to compensate for a loss of jobs to China, Mexico, etc., which was significantly less harmful to America at the time but they recognized the potential threat (and they were right). Would you have agreed to their idea back then?
If the Republicans had proposed the exact same thing back then, would you have supported it or been against it?
Furthermore, if the Democrats today had proposed exactly what they had proposed in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, would you be against it?
Do you think any amount of tariffs is for the US? Or are you against all tariffs?
The funny thing is, none of this has a long term effect on the stock market, it’s all just temporary based on the emotional reaction people have to certain events. Whether tariffs stick around or leave, the overwhelming majority of business’ will work around it.