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James Surowiecki Profile picture
@JamesSurowiecki
Apr 2 • 4 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.
Even given that it's Trump, I cannot believe they said "We'll just divide the trade deficit by imports and tell people that's the tariff rate." And then they decided to set our tariffs by just cutting that totally made-up rate in half! This is so dumb and deceptive.
How in God's name did Scott Bessent agree to sign off on this?
This tweet is correct, but it's actually worse than I thought: in calculating the tariff rate, Trump's people only used the trade deficit in goods. So even though we run a trade surplus in services with the world, those exports don't count as far as Trump is concerned.

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More from @JamesSurowiecki

James Surowiecki Profile picture
Apr 1
Trump's lawyers are arguing that because they've dumped this guy in a Salvadoran prison, he can't file a habeas corpus petition, because he's no longer in American custody. They're arguing that once you get to sent to El Salvador, no court can order the govt to bring you back. Image
The administration's lawyers are inadvertently explaining why it's illegal for the govt to deport people to El Salvador without a hearing: if the govt can't be forced to bring someone back if they've been sent erroneously, you have to make sure people aren't sent erroneously.
Trump's lawyers are straight out of Catch-22: in one case, they're saying judges can't interfere with the deportation flights because the proper remedy is a habeas petition, but they're also arguing that once someone's been deported, they can't file a habeas petition. Horrible.
Read 5 tweets
James Surowiecki Profile picture
Feb 18
This is absurd, corrosive nonsense. There are not tens of millions of dead people getting Social Security checks, and the only reason Leavitt is out here making these hysterical claims is because Elon Musk misunderstood a table of numbers.(1/n) Image
Social Security checks go to five groups of people: retired workers, their dependents, survivors of retired workers who have died, disabled workers, and their dependents. We know how many people in each of these groups get checks.
The biggest group, obviously, is retired workers - this is what we think of as classic Social Security. In Dec. 2024, 51.8 million American workers aged 62+ got SS retirement benefits. That's out of a population of more than 60 million Americans who are 62+.
Read 8 tweets
James Surowiecki Profile picture
Nov 7, 2024
The fundamental lesson I hope Dem politicians take from this election is that they should not adopt positions unless they can defend them, honestly, in a one-on-one conversation with the median American voter, who is a white, non-college 50-yr-old living in a small-city suburb.
I don't mean that Dems have to adopt the same positions as that median voter. I mean they have to be able to make the case for their positions to that voter in a coherent, honest fashion, rather than trying to obscure the position or pretending they really don't hold it.
And when asked about your positions, your answer can't be "I'm just following the law." Immigration, criminal justice, trade policy, health care, trans issues, abortion: don't adopt a position unless you can make a convincing case for it to the median voter.
Read 4 tweets
James Surowiecki Profile picture
Oct 16, 2024
It's tough to interview Trump: he lies so relentlessly, and with such abandon, that you either have to spend half the interview fact-checking him and pushing back on his lies, or else just let him lie to your audience.
cnn.com/2024/10/16/pol…
With most politicians, you figure they'll fudge a few facts, gild the lily to make themselves look better, dodge a tough question or two. That's manageable as an interviewer. But Trump will lie about anything and everything, which is hard to deal with.
Trump, for instance, told Micklethwait that Apple had opened a manufacturing plant in Texas because Trump told him that's what he had to do to get a tariff exception. It's a lie: the Texas plant opened in 2013. And it's such a brazen lie that it's hard to believe.
Read 4 tweets
James Surowiecki Profile picture
Sep 30, 2024
Dinesh D'Souza bucking to get sued for defamation again. His tweet is a lie. The people in the ad in question are not actors, and are in fact Republicans and former Trump voters who are supporting Harris. Story here:
savvymainline.com/2024/09/29/far…
The lies in D'Souza's tweet - which he's left up, even though he's been informed that it's false - came from a collection of lies in a tweet by Bad Hombre, who constructed a totally false conspiracy theory based on a mis-identification of the people in the ad. It got 59K likes. Image
Chadwick and Lange are not "trained actors." Chadwick never worked for the Arden Theatre. They are not the people Bad Hombre identified as having donated money to Democrats. And they are Republicans who are supporting Harris this time around.
Read 4 tweets
James Surowiecki Profile picture
Sep 16, 2024
What Vance says here is v. important - he thinks all Americans should not be in the same insurance risk pool. That would mean that older Americans who aren't yet 65 and Americans with pre-existing conditions would have to pay much more for health insurance than they now do.
There were two core principles at the heart of Obamacare: guaranteed issue (everyone should be able to buy insurance) and community rating (adjusted for age, everyone should pay the same price for insurance). Both of those principles are very popular with Americans.
Vance, though, is saying he and Trump want to do away with community rating. That would mean that insurers would charge people with pre-existing conditions and chronic illnesses much more. So if you're sick, or have been sick in the past, your premiums will rise sharply.
Read 6 tweets

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