Donald Trump had a plan. It was not a good plan, or even a plausible one. But it was, at least, a coherent plan: By imposing large trade barriers on the entire world, he would create an incentive for American business to manufacture and grow all the goods the country previously imported.

Whatever chance this plan had to succeed is already over.

The key to making it work was to convince businesses that the new arrangement is durable. Nobody is going to invest in building new factories in the United States to create goods that until last week could be imported more cheaply unless they’re certain that the tariffs making the domestic version more competitive will stay in place. (They’re probably not going to do it anyway, in part because they don’t know who will be president in four years, but the point is that confidence in durable tariffs is a necessary condition.)

But not everybody got the idea. Eric Trump tweeted, “I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose.”

Eric’s father apparently didn’t get the memo either. Asked by reporters whether he planned to negotiate the tariff rates, the president said, “The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”

Someone seems to have then told Trump that this stance would paralyze business investment, because he reversed course immediately, writing on Truth Social, “TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”

However, there is a principle at work here called “No backsies.” Once you’ve said you might negotiate the tariffs, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25925641

A former senior Soviet KGB spy chief has claimed that Donald Trump was recruited as a spy by Russian intelligence as early as 38 years ago by his department, and given the codename ‘Krasnov’.

In an extraordinary post on Facebook on 20 February, Alnur Mussayev – who used to run the successor to the Soviet-era KGB in Kazakhstan – claimed that he was personally aware of Trump’s recruitment by the agency in 1987.

The recruitment, he said, was undertaken by his own KGB department. One of the key roles of that department was to acquire intelligence through business leaders in Western countries.

Via ToothyBJ

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23909193

Via Mr. Lovenstein

A 26-year-old man identified as Luigi Mangione arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania has been identified as the person of interest in the Dec. 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to the New York Times. Mangione was arrested with what police have described as a “manifesto,” according to the Times, as well as a firearm described as a ghost gun, a weapon assembled from parts either purchased individually or sometimes 3D printed.

Mangione was arrested, roughly 400 miles west of New York City, on firearms charges but has not been charged with the death of Thompson, according to the Times. He was reportedly carrying “multiple” fake IDs.

Via Mr. Lovenstein