Update On Trump's Tariff Gambit

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Update On Trump's Tariff Gambit

  • It was back at the beginning of February that President Trump launched what I have called his “tariff gambit” — sequential edicts of flat-rate, economy-wide tariffs imposed against various of our trading partner countries.

  • The process began with February 1 announcements of blanket 10% tariffs on all goods from China, and 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada. Since then, in a blizzard of activity, there have been multiple rounds of announcements on this subject: new countries added to the tariff edicts, increases or decreases in the blanket rates applicable to various countries or products, granting of exceptions and exemptions, postponements of announced effective dates, and more. It’s more than just about anybody can keep track of. Here is an April 10 chronology from PBS compiling all the various tariff actions issued by the administration up to that time. The sheer speed of the announcements, and lack of direction toward any discernible purpose, are astonishing.

  • In a post about a month ago on April 8, I expressed extreme skepticism about this gambit.

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New Manhattan Contrarian Comment Policy

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Starting tomorrow May 8, 2025, daughter Jane and I will begin moderating our comment section.

Since I started this blog in 2012, I have refrained from intervening in the comments in any way. Over time, I have been very happy to host what gradually became a robust and engaged commenter community. With the exception of a Squarespace program that for some unknown reason randomly segregates around 1% of the comments, comments here have been posted as soon as the commenter clicks “Post.”

Most recently, the situation with the comments has deteriorated noticeably.  There have been increasing numbers of spam comments, promising easy money and soliciting readers to click links that I strongly suspect are malicious. Despite many attempts, we have not been able to filter these spam comments automatically. We have also seen an uptick in insults, antagonism, racism, and antisemitism. This is occurring to a degree that I feel has become detrimental to the experience of the blog. My hope has always been to foster intellectual discussion and debate, and to make the Manhattan Contrarian a place where people are comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas without fear they will be attacked.

I do not have the intention of censoring any large number of comments. The biggest issue is that once we begin moderating the comments, comments will be filtered before they appear. This  could mean there will be substantial delays before comments are posted.  We do not have any revenue here, or any paid staff. We are going to make an effort to review and post the comments at least every few hours, but there might be times that it takes even longer than that.

We know that many commenters come here for the active discussion. We are aware of other websites that have moderated their comments for a short period of time, and then stopped the moderation after things have calmed down.  We will see where we are in 30 days.

For those who wish to comment here, please be aware of the following:

Your comment will not pass moderation if:

  • It includes insults;

  • It directly antagonizes other commenters;

  • It includes racist or antisemitic statements;

  • It is spam.

We encourage comments that:

  • further discussion on the subject of the blog;

  • challenge other commenters in good faith;

  • critique or challenge the MC in a constructive manner.

We hope these guidelines will improve your experience as a reader and commenter, and that you will continue to join the conversation and debates the blog inspires. Of course, we are open to hearing your feedback.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Corruption In Politics: The Case Of Trump And Cryptocurrency

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  • In the New York Times from this past Thursday (May 1), the lead story was a scathing exposé of alleged corruption of our current President. The headline and sub-headline (print version) were “Trump Shapes the Policy On Crypto, and Cashes In. Hushed Deals and Foreign Investors Propel President’s Digital Money Start-Up.” The sub-headline in the online version was even more scathing: “World Liberty Financial has eviscerated the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in ways without precedent in modern American history.” The story fills the entire upper right-hand quadrant of the front page, plus another full page and a half in the interior of the paper.

  • So according to the Times, this is not just some ordinary, every day, run-of-the-mill political corruption. Rather, it is corruption that has “eviscerated” boundaries between business and government, and is “without precedented in modern American history.”

  • Is there any substance to these charges?

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Special For Manhattan Contrarian Readers

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Special For Manhattan Contrarian Readers

Commenters here often ask how I can be so crazy as to live in Manhattan. I’m not saying they don’t have a point, but living in Manhattan can also have its advantages. One of those is access to some fantastic cultural offerings.

I have mentioned in the side bar from time to time that I sing in a choir, and I have periodically posted announcement of concerts. A few readers have even come to concerts and introduced themselves. But I recognize that not that many readers are in a position to make it to the concerts in person.

Well, here’s something different. Today and tomorrow we have two concerts of a famous work by Giuseppe Verdi, the Requiem Mass. And for the first time of my various concerts, the performance of this one tomorrow (May 2) is going to be livestreamed.

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Have The Intermittent Energy Blackouts Begun?

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  • Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands. Is this related to the increasing penetration of intermittent generation from wind and solar facilities?

  • For years, many in the climate skeptic community have warned that expansion of intermittent renewable electricity generation on the grid will, sooner or later, lead to frequent blackouts.

  • The reason for the warning is easy to understand: The grid has some rather exacting operational requirements that the intermittent renewable generation technologies cannot fulfill. Primary among these requirements are, first, minute-by-minute matching of electricity supply with electricity demand and, second, grid-wide synchronization of the frequency of the alternating current. When wind and solar generate provided relatively small portions of the electricity consumed, other generation sources, particularly thermal (fossil fuel) and hydro, would fulfill these requirements.

  • But as wind and solar come to dominate generation, the problems become much more difficult to solve.

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Updates On The Collapse Of The Climate Scam

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  • On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded.

  • The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges. I hope and expect that Zeldin and his team are up to the job of carrying out a rescission that will stick. I offered my suggestions for how to do a rescission that will stand up to challenge in this post from January 26.

  • Separately, Nelson has made a thing out of compiling a growing list of “Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing.”

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