Alfonsodeseo
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Alfonsodeseo
@alfonsodeseo.bsky.social
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explaintrade.com
I wrote about the limits of this strategy last year:

www.explaintrade.com/resources/tr...
My Hostages Live At Your House A key advantage for the United States is that it can create leverage and negotiating capital at any time by just introducing new tariffs on its consumers for buying foreign products. The downside to that strategy is that everyone knows that. If a country pays the US “ransom” and the US removes the tariffs it imposed last month, there’s nothing to stop them simply threatening to raise them again next week and demanding something new. Moreover, the usual mechanisms you would rely on to provide assurances in such a circumstances (legally binding international treaties and/or the personal word of a national leader) are only of limited use when disdain for such things radiates from the US President's every pore. This might matter a smidgen less if the US were negotiating traditional trade agreements subject to Congressional approval, but for a range of reasons they don’t want to do that. Thus, there is nothing anyone can do to stop the US putting tariffs up again and again, and nothing the US can sign or say is sufficient assurance they won’t do so in the future. That makes trading partners reluctant to make big commitments, even in the face of US power. Deals with the Devil A devastatingly handsome and disarmingly humble trade geek recently wrote a book about how often trade policy tends to be politics first, economics a distant seventh. You should buy two copies for each of your pets. One aspect of trade policy becoming political is that the popularity of a country and its national leader abroad can give those they are negotiating with more or less political space to do deals with them. Any trade deal requires making concessions that are going to piss some people in your country off. If I lower a tariff, the companies who enjoyed tariff protection are going to complain loudly about it. The less the average voter in your country trusts or likes a foreign leader, the less patience they have for tolerating your making politically painful concessions to them in order to get a deal across the line. The Trump administration’s rather bellicose America-first rhetoric and general posture is actively limiting the political space other leaders have to make deals. The most obvious example of this is of course Canada, where proximity to Trump cost the opposition leader a double digit lead in the polls and propelled Mark Carney into power on the back of an ‘elbows up’ message. As a general rule, you want to avoid making fighting you a political slam dunk for foreign politicians - and unfortunately for Trump’s trade policy goals, in many places it is.
January 17, 2026 at 5:22 PM
alfonsodeseo.bsky.social
He's retired
January 14, 2026 at 9:26 PM
alfonsodeseo.bsky.social
My gran. To every visitor. Regardless of age. She was not a big drinker. I suspect however she watched a lot of TV.
January 14, 2026 at 12:14 AM