I think nothing. The guys are more idiots than i thought. They simply put an equation that balances their exports and imports from other countries. Many say that they simply asked AI for that. Idiots are unpredictable.
Nope they are not. Also it is very funny that they consider EU a country, while every country inside EU has different amount of exports and imports with the USA.
I just heard the reasons for these tariffs is probably based directly on the ratio between trade deficit compared to total trade. A tiny island where almost nobody lives and that never trades with the US got into the highest tariff category because some American bought $3 million worth of sea food in 2024.
User tomi000@lemmy.world gave me the best explanation when I asked what the rationale is for Trump's tariffs:
His logic is: I walk into a store and buy a hat for 10$ and sell them a shoe for 7$. This means the store ripped me off by 3$. To counter this, I will add a tarriff of (3/10)/2 = 15% to all business I do with this store so they dont dare sell me anything in the future.
Okay but you're missing the point: I want to believe that this is all a highly planned and funded Russian op because the alternative is that half the country elected someone so incredibly dumb WITHOUT a conspiracy.
Oh, there's definitely a conspiracy. Not a big-C Conspiracy, but several smaller ones.
One obvious one is Putin who wants to weaken NATO and therefore the EU and the US, and has been sponsoring extremist parties and spreading fake news and pro-Russian talking points across social media.
Another one is the Republicans have been demonizing Democrats for 4 decades, since Newt Gingrich decided they shouldn't be compromising with Dems anymore, but demonizing them, turning US politics toxic.
Conservative media and especially Rupert Murdoch have supported both of the previous ones and pushed them sometimes even more extreme. Not sure if Murdoch is actually pro-Putin, but several of his outlets have done a lot of heavy lifting for Putin. And of course undermining democracy and supporting oligarchy.
The Tech Bros want even more deregulation. They believe in their digital utopia, at least for themselves, and they want free reign to do whatever they want and shape the world in their image.
And the Evangelicals have basically been lead astray by all of these but especially the Republicans, who lead them by the nose ever since the 1960s when the Evangelicals were upset about desegregation. Grifters have turned it into a for-profit religion that bears no resemblance to Christianity anymore, but makes for a perfect vehicle for all sorts of weird politics, including all of the above.
I too would want to belive that Putin is highly planned and funded American(or Chineese) op because the alternative is that half the country elected someone so incredibly senile WITHOUT a conspiracy.
That is true. They used a basic equation of how much less they export to a country. And some said that this is the answer that gives the AI if you ask it.
The current thinking is that these tariffs were drawn up by ChatGPT, and it's used a list of top-level domains (like .io and .hm) instead of countries.
Several of the entries on the list are not independent countries (French Guiana, for example, has a different rate to the EU despite being part of France and the EU) and one doesn’t even have a human population (Heard & McDonald Islands, an Australian territory near Antarctica)
Notice how the UK got less? He wants them to follow him like a scottish terrier, and if Farage worms his way into power, I know for a fact they’re going down the same route.
I saw that it is a simple equation of how much less USA exports to a country. So poor countries that import less from USA due to currency difference and export more they got screwed much more. Russia due to sanctions maybe has no trade currently that's why she is no on the list.
It's the trade deficit masquerading as a tarrif - Moldova sells more than it buys from America because American stuff is expensive and Moldova can't afford to buy American goods so it gets hit with "reciprocal" tariffs on it's exports.
I read somewhere that the theory is countries that don't purchase ad much from the us as the us buys from said country got more tarrifs because in trumps mind they're losing money.
Reporters could recreate the entire list exactly by asking ChatGPT/Grok/Claude/Gemini what would be an easy way to tariff other nations.
The tariff % is simply the US trade deficit with that country divided by imports from it.
It seems like they have, generally speaking, made up the numbers by dividing the total value of imports vs exports with that country. So if the USA imports $200,000,000 of stuff from Switzerland and exports $100,000,000, they're saying that that means Switzerland has 50% effective tariffs against America (no, this does not make any goddamn sense, but it appears to be what they're doing), and then "reciprocating" with half of that number, so 25% tariffs on Switzerland. 10% is the floor which they're applying no matter what... except for on Russia, apparently
The UK presumably imports more American stuff, proportionate to exports, than the EU does
Russia is sanctioned (for now at least). For UK and other countries, probably they played some games on closed doors, during the white house visiting. We will see, i don't gonna be surprised if UK buys military equipment from USA (or more that they were planning of).