Is President Trump an Idiot? Or does he think we are?

A friend sent me a link to the following very interesting take by someone on FinTwit recently.

What would a real plan for pushback against the CCP look like? I agree with many points made by the author of the below "open letter to President Trump," posted on X. We need a serious and cohesive plan, not just a shitload of incoherent, ever-changing, confused bluster served up by those who never even made the most rudimentary efforts to understand the essence of tariff-related issues and the gravity of the challenges ahead.

MY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP
Shay Boloor
April 7, 2025

https://x.com/StockSavvyShay/status/1908506134270665110

The frustrating part is that I was on board for a reset. Truly. I’ve said it publicly. I’ve written about it in this very feed. I understood the need for a detox. For decades, the U.S. economy played the part of the rich guy at the table -- picking up the check for a global order that no longer worked in our favor. We hollowed out our industrial base. We enabled unfair trade imbalances under the illusion of diplomacy. We subsidized demand for cheap imports while outsourcing the hard questions about how our domestic workforce would adapt.

Eventually, that had to stop. It was unsustainable -- financially, politically, and morally. We couldn’t keep pretending that a consumption-led economy held together by zero-interest rates and global fragility was a long-term solution. I wanted a rebalancing. I welcomed the idea of a harder, smarter America-first policy that pushed for fair treatment, reciprocal agreements, and a real industrial strategy rooted in technological superiority, national security, and capital formation. That would’ve been leadership.

But that’s not what this is.

What you’ve rolled out isn’t detox -- it’s whiplash. This isn’t strategic decoupling. It’s scattershot retaliation dressed up as reform. There’s no roadmap. No operational playbook. No clear articulation of where this ends or what the metrics of success even are. It’s not an attempt to responsibly unwind America’s role as the global shock absorber -- it’s a brute-force attempt to disorder the existing system with no viable alternative in place.

You can’t replace a fragile supply chain with chaos and call it resilience. You can’t build American industry by torching the scaffolding that underpins capital flows, labor mobility, and global coordination -- especially when the U.S. itself no longer has the domestic capacity to meet its own industrial needs. You talk about bringing jobs home, but the U.S. doesn’t have the labor force, permitting structure, or wage flexibility to stand up full-scale manufacturing at speed. And now -- after years of deportation policies and underinvestment in vocational training -- you’ve made the labor gap even wider.

Capital isn’t going to rush to fill that void just because you raised tariffs. It’s going to wait. It’s going to sit on the sidelines and preserve optionality. Because right now, no CEO can confidently model a five-year capex plan. No board can greenlight supply chain onshoring when they don’t know whether a tariff rate will double next quarter based on your Twitter account or some arbitrary trade deficit formula.

That’s the issue. This wasn’t rolled out as part of a comprehensive American renewal strategy. It wasn’t coordinated with the Fed. It wasn’t communicated clearly to Treasury. It wasn’t backed by a labor reskilling program or any form of public-private manufacturing incentive beyond empty slogans. It was dropped like a bomb -- seemingly designed more to shock than to build.

And in the absence of credible structure, capital is retreating -- not realigning.

I was ready to endure the pain of a thoughtful, structured reset. Most long-term investors were. We’ve lived through tightening cycles. We understood that globalization, as it stood, had reached a breaking point. But this isn’t a correction of imbalances. This is a rupture without scaffolding.

What you’ve created isn’t reindustrialization. It’s an intentional sabotage of capital planning. No executive is going to build a factory with four-year political horizon risk, a floating tariff regime, and no labor certainty. No investor is going to fund expansion in a market where the basic cost of imports can change weekly based on what country has a current account surplus that week. The system you’ve launched isn’t designed for certainty. It’s designed for control.

And the irony is -- we’re not even punishing bad actors. We’re punishing everyone. Allies. Poor countries. Longstanding partners. Israel gets slapped with 17% tariffs while dismantling their own to support American imports. Vietnam gets hit with 46% because it’s become too productive. Lesotho, one of the poorest countries on Earth, faces a 50% tariff because it doesn’t buy enough U.S. goods -- as if that were a sign of unfairness rather than poverty. It’s incoherent. It’s cruel. And it undermines any claim to moral high ground.

You say this is about protecting American workers. But no worker is helped by policy so erratic that no employer wants to hire. No consumer is helped when import costs rise and domestic capacity doesn’t exist to replace them. No investor is helped when the cost of capital spikes in the face of weaponized uncertainty.

This is not a plan to make America stronger. It’s a gamble that markets and allies will blink first. It’s brinkmanship with no floor.

And the most maddening part? There was a path. A real one. A version of this policy that could’ve worked -- not in headlines or soundbites, but in practice. A path that applied pressure with purpose, that aligned economic force with long-term national interest, that sent a clear message to adversaries and partners alike without destabilizing global commerce or blindsiding capital allocators.

You could’ve gone after China -- hard -- and had the backing of nearly every serious investor and strategist on the Street. Not just because of trade deficits or currency suppression, but because China has been actively undermining our economy and our people. I would’ve supported a four-year plan to end all dependence on Chinese manufacturing unless they stopped stealing American IP (DeepSeek). No more games. Make it explicit: if they don’t comply, we’ll back Taiwanese independence and bring the entire global semiconductor economy with us. No ambiguity. No half-threats. As I see it, China is at war with us -- and our policy should reflect that.

With the EU, you could’ve played it clean. Match auto tariffs percent-for-percent. That’s fair. And then leave the rest alone -- especially goods and services. We run a huge surplus on services with the EU. It props up some of our biggest competitive advantages -- enterprise software, consulting, cloud, defense tech, streaming, media IP. Tariffing the EU outside of autos would be like shooting your own foot for balance. We’re not in a trade war with Europe. We're in a competition for global enterprise dominance -- and right now, the U.S. is winning.

That’s what real strength would’ve looked like. That’s what an America-first trade doctrine could’ve achieved. You’d be rebuilding the system from the inside out -- not just throwing bricks through the windows and calling it a redesign.

Investors would’ve backed it. CEOs would’ve planned around it. Global partners would’ve respected it -- even if they didn’t like it. And capital would’ve flowed toward American resilience instead of retreating from American unpredictability.

But instead of that, you went with chaos. And now, confidence is shattered. Not because the numbers are bad -- but because no one knows what the numbers mean anymore.

That’s the cost of burning down the rules without building new ones.

So no, this is not the detox we needed. It’s not strategic decoupling. It’s not a path to renewal. It’s a slow, loud dismantling of the very foundation that has allowed American capital, innovation, and enterprise to dominate for decades. And it didn’t have to be this way.

But now we’re here. And the market is reacting accordingly -- not to the fundamentals, but to the sense that the future may no longer be modelable. That’s not a trade. That’s an exit.

I don’t want this post to be hyper-political. This isn’t about red or blue. It’s not about the 2024 election cycle. It’s not about ideology. It’s about strategy. It’s about execution.

It’s about understanding that when you're the United States -- when you sit at the helm of the global economic engine -- every policy you roll out reverberates through capital markets, supply chains, boardrooms, and governments. Words become signals. Signals become pricing. Pricing becomes pain -- or progress.

And I hope -- for the sake of the markets, for the sake of businesses trying to plan, and for the future we’re all investing into -- that it’s not too late to recalibrate.

Because we don’t need more noise.

We need a plan.
Ducbutter's Avatar
On the nose. A great critique without a lot of ideological garbage (as noted by the author). Thanks.
Yssup Rider's Avatar
Agree. So where's the plan? All we have is noise.
  • Tiny
  • 04-16-2025, 07:53 PM
A friend sent me a link to the following very interesting take by someone on FinTwit recently.

What would a real plan for pushback against the CCP look like? I agree with many points made by the author of the below "open letter to President Trump," posted on X. We need a serious and cohesive plan, not just a shitload of incoherent, ever-changing, confused bluster served up by those who never even made the most rudimentary efforts to understand the essence of tariff-related issues and the gravity of the challenges ahead.

MY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP
Shay Boloor
April 7, 2025

https://x.com/StockSavvyShay/status/1908506134270665110

The frustrating part is that I was on board for a reset. Truly. I’ve said it publicly. I’ve written about it in this very feed. I understood the need for a detox. For decades, the U.S. economy played the part of the rich guy at the table -- picking up the check for a global order that no longer worked in our favor. We hollowed out our industrial base. We enabled unfair trade imbalances under the illusion of diplomacy. We subsidized demand for cheap imports while outsourcing the hard questions about how our domestic workforce would adapt.

Eventually, that had to stop. It was unsustainable -- financially, politically, and morally. We couldn’t keep pretending that a consumption-led economy held together by zero-interest rates and global fragility was a long-term solution. I wanted a rebalancing. I welcomed the idea of a harder, smarter America-first policy that pushed for fair treatment, reciprocal agreements, and a real industrial strategy rooted in technological superiority, national security, and capital formation. That would’ve been leadership.

But that’s not what this is.

What you’ve rolled out isn’t detox -- it’s whiplash. This isn’t strategic decoupling. It’s scattershot retaliation dressed up as reform. There’s no roadmap. No operational playbook. No clear articulation of where this ends or what the metrics of success even are. It’s not an attempt to responsibly unwind America’s role as the global shock absorber -- it’s a brute-force attempt to disorder the existing system with no viable alternative in place.

You can’t replace a fragile supply chain with chaos and call it resilience. You can’t build American industry by torching the scaffolding that underpins capital flows, labor mobility, and global coordination -- especially when the U.S. itself no longer has the domestic capacity to meet its own industrial needs. You talk about bringing jobs home, but the U.S. doesn’t have the labor force, permitting structure, or wage flexibility to stand up full-scale manufacturing at speed. And now -- after years of deportation policies and underinvestment in vocational training -- you’ve made the labor gap even wider.

Capital isn’t going to rush to fill that void just because you raised tariffs. It’s going to wait. It’s going to sit on the sidelines and preserve optionality. Because right now, no CEO can confidently model a five-year capex plan. No board can greenlight supply chain onshoring when they don’t know whether a tariff rate will double next quarter based on your Twitter account or some arbitrary trade deficit formula.

That’s the issue. This wasn’t rolled out as part of a comprehensive American renewal strategy. It wasn’t coordinated with the Fed. It wasn’t communicated clearly to Treasury. It wasn’t backed by a labor reskilling program or any form of public-private manufacturing incentive beyond empty slogans. It was dropped like a bomb -- seemingly designed more to shock than to build.

And in the absence of credible structure, capital is retreating -- not realigning.

I was ready to endure the pain of a thoughtful, structured reset. Most long-term investors were. We’ve lived through tightening cycles. We understood that globalization, as it stood, had reached a breaking point. But this isn’t a correction of imbalances. This is a rupture without scaffolding.

What you’ve created isn’t reindustrialization. It’s an intentional sabotage of capital planning. No executive is going to build a factory with four-year political horizon risk, a floating tariff regime, and no labor certainty. No investor is going to fund expansion in a market where the basic cost of imports can change weekly based on what country has a current account surplus that week. The system you’ve launched isn’t designed for certainty. It’s designed for control.

And the irony is -- we’re not even punishing bad actors. We’re punishing everyone. Allies. Poor countries. Longstanding partners. Israel gets slapped with 17% tariffs while dismantling their own to support American imports. Vietnam gets hit with 46% because it’s become too productive. Lesotho, one of the poorest countries on Earth, faces a 50% tariff because it doesn’t buy enough U.S. goods -- as if that were a sign of unfairness rather than poverty. It’s incoherent. It’s cruel. And it undermines any claim to moral high ground.

You say this is about protecting American workers. But no worker is helped by policy so erratic that no employer wants to hire. No consumer is helped when import costs rise and domestic capacity doesn’t exist to replace them. No investor is helped when the cost of capital spikes in the face of weaponized uncertainty.

This is not a plan to make America stronger. It’s a gamble that markets and allies will blink first. It’s brinkmanship with no floor.

And the most maddening part? There was a path. A real one. A version of this policy that could’ve worked -- not in headlines or soundbites, but in practice. A path that applied pressure with purpose, that aligned economic force with long-term national interest, that sent a clear message to adversaries and partners alike without destabilizing global commerce or blindsiding capital allocators.

You could’ve gone after China -- hard -- and had the backing of nearly every serious investor and strategist on the Street. Not just because of trade deficits or currency suppression, but because China has been actively undermining our economy and our people. I would’ve supported a four-year plan to end all dependence on Chinese manufacturing unless they stopped stealing American IP (DeepSeek). No more games. Make it explicit: if they don’t comply, we’ll back Taiwanese independence and bring the entire global semiconductor economy with us. No ambiguity. No half-threats. As I see it, China is at war with us -- and our policy should reflect that.

With the EU, you could’ve played it clean. Match auto tariffs percent-for-percent. That’s fair. And then leave the rest alone -- especially goods and services. We run a huge surplus on services with the EU. It props up some of our biggest competitive advantages -- enterprise software, consulting, cloud, defense tech, streaming, media IP. Tariffing the EU outside of autos would be like shooting your own foot for balance. We’re not in a trade war with Europe. We're in a competition for global enterprise dominance -- and right now, the U.S. is winning.

That’s what real strength would’ve looked like. That’s what an America-first trade doctrine could’ve achieved. You’d be rebuilding the system from the inside out -- not just throwing bricks through the windows and calling it a redesign.

Investors would’ve backed it. CEOs would’ve planned around it. Global partners would’ve respected it -- even if they didn’t like it. And capital would’ve flowed toward American resilience instead of retreating from American unpredictability.

But instead of that, you went with chaos. And now, confidence is shattered. Not because the numbers are bad -- but because no one knows what the numbers mean anymore.

That’s the cost of burning down the rules without building new ones.

So no, this is not the detox we needed. It’s not strategic decoupling. It’s not a path to renewal. It’s a slow, loud dismantling of the very foundation that has allowed American capital, innovation, and enterprise to dominate for decades. And it didn’t have to be this way.

But now we’re here. And the market is reacting accordingly -- not to the fundamentals, but to the sense that the future may no longer be modelable. That’s not a trade. That’s an exit.

I don’t want this post to be hyper-political. This isn’t about red or blue. It’s not about the 2024 election cycle. It’s not about ideology. It’s about strategy. It’s about execution.

It’s about understanding that when you're the United States -- when you sit at the helm of the global economic engine -- every policy you roll out reverberates through capital markets, supply chains, boardrooms, and governments. Words become signals. Signals become pricing. Pricing becomes pain -- or progress.

And I hope -- for the sake of the markets, for the sake of businesses trying to plan, and for the future we’re all investing into -- that it’s not too late to recalibrate.

Because we don’t need more noise.

We need a plan. Originally Posted by Texas Contrarian
I'm more of a free trader and less of a China hawk than Mr. Boloor. But yeah, if you're going to embark on an import substitution policy, or cut off trade with a country that's supplying you with essential products, or upend supply chains, or try to end globalism as we know it, you should at least do it with a little planning.

I've called bull shit on more than one TDS sufferer who blamed Trump for COVID. This is different. If the trade wars lead to a global recession and, in the worst case, the end of American economic exceptionalism, it will be squarely on Trump's shoulders.
  • pxmcc
  • 04-16-2025, 08:18 PM
exactly on point. good article sir.

as to Covid, i don't blame Trump. i blame him for his lack of preparation and his lying to us..

his present government is utterly unprepared for another emergency. that's what happens when you put clowns in leadership positions.
The_Waco_Kid's Avatar
exactly on point. good article sir.

as to Covid, i don't blame Trump. i blame him for his lack of preparation and his lying to us..

his present government is utterly unprepared for another emergency. Originally Posted by pxmcc

how exactly could Trump prepare for a outbreak that China hid for several months allowing people to travel and thus creating a pandemic? almost sounds like they did that on purpose.



what lies? the ones advising him were Fauci who knew all along where and how the pandemic started.so who's lies were they? Trump's or Fauci's


most nations are sending representatives to discuss trade. Trump is winning by bringing them to the table. any agreements more fair to the US is a win for America.
... And re-negotiating the tariffs was Trump's plan all-along.

It's really not a hard concept to understand, mates.
And how long did it take? ... Two weeks??

#### Salty
Yssup Rider's Avatar
... And re-negotiating the tariffs was Trump's plan all-along.

It's really not a hard concept to understand, mates.
And how long did it take? ... Two weeks??

#### Salty Originally Posted by Salty Again
In my opinion --

Puh-leeze!

The tariffs were and still are a personal jerktoy for Trump. He's playing games. On again. Off again. Up again. Down again.

Great that we probably kicked some ass with Rwanda and the Maldives in the trade war. USA! USA!

But how needless has this exercise in self-pleasure been for you and me (not to mention the rest of the world?)

Had he not started shit, this wouldn't be shit.

But it is. Brilliant!

He's a total idiot who thinks we're all fools. And to an extent, he's right.
  • pxmcc
  • 04-17-2025, 01:13 AM
how exactly could Trump prepare for a outbreak that China hid for several months allowing people to travel and thus creating a pandemic? almost sounds like they did that on purpose.

sir, if you get notice that there is a tsunami from Asia headed toward Cali, you begin emergency preparations immediately. he lied to us, as his advisers told him how serious Covid would be, but he claimed it would be minor and over in a couple of weeks. he knew better, but he still lied to us.



what lies? the ones advising him were Fauci who knew all along where and how the pandemic started.so who's lies were they? Trump's or Fauci's
Trump's. Fauci gave us the best info he had at the time he provided it.

most nations are sending representatives to discuss trade. Trump is winning by bringing them to the table. any agreements more fair to the US is a win for America.[/QUOTE]

Trump's lack of planning is making his efforts pointless. he is antagonizing allies and driving them into the arms of China. it's weakening the dollar while strengthening the yuan. his many fly by the seat of his pants changes show that he has no idea what he's doing. he could have consulted with pro tariff economists and gamed out scenarios with super computers and arrived at a workable plan. he should have consulted with entrepeneurs to see what they would need to reshore manufacturing in terms of labor-which would certainly include some illegal immigrants with blue collar skills looking to trade hard factory work for citizenship-capital, and tax incentives.

he did none of that. that's why his trade war will fail, at America's expense. he lacks the organizational skills needed to pull off an operation of this magnitude and complexity. Obama showed us how it's done with Obamacare; Trump is giving us a grandmaster class in how to screw shit up when you have no idea what you're doing. Trump could have united the world against China; instead, he managed to unite the whole world, including our best allies, against us. that takes some real doing..
Lucas McCain's Avatar
Agree. So where's the plan? All we have is noise. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
That's the problem. Idiot Trump has no plan other than every country he tries to bully kissing the ring. That's not going to happen. In addition, he intentionally surrounded himself with nothing but "yes men" who will not tell his stupid ass that it will not happen. Therefore, he just makes stupid ass contingency plans on a whim which is why the economy is in such disarray.

Instead of what seems like his daily press conferences that freak out the market, I wish his geriatric fat ass would actually use that time to come up with plans with multiple worse case scenarios that don't kill people's IRA's. And more importantly, negatively impact the many Americans who live paycheck to paycheck who were stupid enough to vote for him while foolishly believing he actually gave a shit about their broke asses.

... And re-negotiating the tariffs was Trump's plan all-along.

It's really not a hard concept to understand, mates.
And how long did it take? ... Two weeks??

#### Salty Originally Posted by Salty Again
Please share with the class a credible source to support your claim of actual progress other than maybe Japan. I won't bother holding my breath on that request.
VitaMan's Avatar
Trump now admonishing FED chairman Powell to lower interest rates, and wants him fired.


It is now plain to see that Trump is a complete idiot. Thankfully he does not have executive branch
power to fire him.
  • pxmcc
  • 04-17-2025, 01:51 PM
that won't stop him from trying. he'll do it, then see if he gets away with it. the markets will freak worse than now.

this is the same clown trying to undo the 14th Amendment with an executive order.
Trump now admonishing FED chairman Powell to lower interest rates, and wants him fired.


It is now plain to see that Trump is a complete idiot. Thankfully he does not have executive branch
power to fire him. Originally Posted by VitaMan
winn dixie's Avatar
Trumpf is an idiot who thinks muricans are idiots to.
But most muricans see him as an idiot!


Please share with the class a credible source to support your claim of actual progress other than maybe Japan. I won't bother holding my breath on that request. Originally Posted by Lucas McCain
... The FACT that Italy's pretty-bird PM is meeting with
President Trump to discuss the tariffs and trade deals.
Not just for The US and Italy - but for The EU as well.

... THAT is how we know that progress is being made...

... WINNING! ... ...

##### Salty
Yssup Rider's Avatar
... The FACT that Italy's pretty-bird PM is meeting with
President Trump to discuss the tariffs and trade deals.
Not just for The US and Italy - but for The EU as well.

... THAT is how we know that progress is being made...

... WINNING! ... ...

##### Salty Originally Posted by Salty Again
Horse manure, Salty.

Please indulge us with a credible source to support your claim of actual progress

Trump isn't winning. He done bent everybody over just for the fun of it. In fact, every time Trump farts in public, you claim WINNING!

Please let the class know why you think that.