Posts Tagged ‘tariffs’

Trump to Bail Out iPhone Users if Tariffs Boost Prices

(2018-07-25) — On the heels of a $12 billion bailout for farmers who have lost an estimated $13 billion due to international retaliation against U.S. tariffs, the White House said it’s ready to help iPhone users as well.

Farmers complain that President Donald Trump’s tariffs have triggered a trade war, drying up foreign markets for American soybeans, pork, sugar, orange juice, cherries, and more. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in September will begin paying farmers who have lost foreign customers. The Ag department will also buy even more surplus food to distribute to the poor.

But the White House knows that consumers have also been affected by the trade war, and Trump stands ready to rescue them as well.

If tariffs drive up iPhone prices, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to directly subsidize consumers who buy Apple’s popular smartphones, even if market prices reach $2,000-$3,000 per phone or more.

Trump has allegedly told confidants that he’ll “make iPhones so cheap, I alone will be able to afford a flip phone.”

“The president doesn’t believe the government should pick winners and losers in the economy,” said an unnamed source, who knows when the president thinks. “We only pick winners. We punish losers. These great American tariffs and subsidies will give the American people so much winning it will make them sick.”

To his free-market Republican critics in Congress, Trump has privately said, “If ‘free trade’ is good, how can you call giving farmers and iPhone users free money ‘bad’. Both free. Both good.”

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Trump Demands China Send U.S. Money, Not iPhones

President Trump in this file photo expresses disgust that he's stuck with a smartphone when he could have a fistful of dollars instead.

President Trump expresses disgust that he’s stuck with a smartphone instead of a fistful of dollars.

(2018-07-06) — As the trade war escalated between the United States and China following enactment of U.S. tariffs on some Chinese-made imports, President Donald Trump today mulled a full ban on imports of iPhones and other smartphones, insisting instead that China “send us real money.”

“We have a $375 billion trade deficit with China,” Trump said. “That means that we send them genuine dollars, and all we get in return is stuff — like iPhones. From now on, when we send them dollars, we want them to send us the same number of real dollars in return. That’s the only way to truly, truly balance the trade deficit.”

As economists have long known, paper money, and its electronic equivalent, hold intrinsic value. Objects like iPhones, steel pipe, or running shoes, are mere symbols of value that facilitate the exchange of tangible dollars. The president campaigned on boosting U.S. holdings of intrinsically-valuable currency, while also increasing how long U.S. consumers must work to afford ephemeral products, which are backed by nothing more than faith in their utility.

“To get more, and better-paying, jobs in the USA,” Trump told a rally in Detroit last night, “we need to drive up the cost of what Americans buy, so that they can get second jobs, and demand higher wages. Isn’t that why you elected me? More jobs. Higher wages.”

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