Hindsight is a mothamotha. I think I'm the only poster in this thread that was pointing out Buffet’s move:.Most of us should have followed Buffett’s advice back in late 2024 when he withdrew his capital from the market.
This is where our bands need to be invested instead of the strip club. Let our bands make those stocks dance.
President Trump’s Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It’s Also Based on an Error.
By Kevin Corinth | Stan Veuger
AEIdeas
April 04, 2025
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President Trump on Wednesday announced tariffs on practically every foreign country (and some non-countries), ranging from a 10 percent minimum all the way up to 50 percent. The economic fallout has been dramatic, with the stock market losing nine percent of its value (based on the S&P 500 index at the time of writing) and forecasted probabilities of a recession rising.
President Trump described the tariffs as reciprocal, equal to half of the rate of tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers imposed by other countries. However, they are nothing of the sort. The tariff the United States is placing on other countries is equal to the US trade deficit divided by US imports from a given country, divided by two, or 10 percent, whichever rate is higher. So even if the United States has no trade deficit (or a trade surplus) with a country, they still receive a minimum tariff of 10 percent.
As an example, if the US imports $100 million worth of goods and services while exporting $50 million to a country, then the Trump Administration alleges that country levies a 50 percent tariff on the United States (the difference between $100 million and $50 million, divided by $100 million). The “reciprocal” tariff put into effect by President Trump on Wednesday would be half of that, 25 percent.
The formula for the tariffs, originally credited to the Council of Economic Advisers and published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, does not make economic sense. The trade deficit with a given country is not determined only by tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers, but also by international capital flows, supply chains, comparative advantage, geography, etc.
But even if one were to take the Trump Administration’s tariff formula seriously, it makes an error that inflates the tariffs assumed to be levied by foreign countries four-fold. As a result, the “reciprocal” tariffs imposed by President Trump are highly inflated as well.
Though in effect the formula for the tariff placed on the United States by another country is equal to the trade deficit divided by imports, the formula published by the Office of the US Trade Representative has two additional terms in the denominator that just so happen to cancel out: (1) the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices, ε, and (2) the elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ.
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The idea is that as tariffs rise, the change in the trade deficit will depend on the responsiveness of import demand to tariffs, which depends on how import demand responds to import prices and how import prices respond to tariffs. The Trump Administration assumes an elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices of four, and an elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs of 0.25, the product of which is one and is the reason they cancel out in the Administration’s formula.
However, the elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs should be about one (actually 0.945), not 0.25 as the Trump Administration states. Their mistake is that they base the elasticity on the response of retail prices to tariffs, as opposed to import prices as they should have done. The article they cite by Alberto Cavallo and his coauthors makes this distinction clear. The authors state that “tariffs [are] passed through almost fully to US import prices,” while finding “more mixed evidence regarding retail price increases.” It is inconsistent to multiply the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices by the elasticity of retail prices with respect to tariffs.
Correcting the Trump Administration’s error would reduce the tariffs assumed to be applied by each country to the United States to about a fourth of their stated level, and as a result, cut the tariffs announced by President Trump on Wednesday by the same fraction, subject to the 10 percent tariff floor. As shown in Table 1, the tariff rate would not exceed 14 percent for any country. For all but a few countries, the tariff would be exactly 10 percent, the floor imposed by the Trump Administration.
Now, our view is that the formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law. But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully. Hopefully they will correct their mistake soon: the resulting trade liberalization would provide a much-needed boost to the economy and may yet help us stave off a recession.
Table 1. President Trump’s Tariffs Announced April 2, 2025, actual and with corrected formula
Source: Annex I, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/regulating-imports-with-a-reciprocal-tariff-to-rectify-trade-practices-that-contribute-to-large-and-persistent-annual-united-states-goods-trade-deficits/. Note: Countries with an announced tariff of 10% are not included in the table. Their tariffs would not change.
Country (Announced) Tariff (Corrected) Tariff Lesotho 50% 13.2% Cambodia 49% 13.0% Laos 48% 12.7% Madagascar 47% 12.4% Vietnam 46% 12.2% Myanmar (Burma) 44% 11.6% Sri Lanka 44% 11.6% Falkland Islands 41% 10.8% Syria 41% 10.8% Mauritius 40% 10.6% Iraq 39% 10.3% Guyana 38% 10.1% Bangladesh 37% 10.0% Botswana 37% 10.0% Liechtenstein 37% 10.0% Serbia 37% 10.0% Thailand 36% 10.0% Bosnia and Herzegovina 35% 10.0% China 34% 10.0% North Macedonia 33% 10.0% Angola 32% 10.0% Fiji 32% 10.0% Indonesia 32% 10.0% Taiwan 32% 10.0% Libya 31% 10.0% Moldova 31% 10.0% Switzerland 31% 10.0% Algeria 30% 10.0% Nauru 30% 10.0% South Africa 30% 10.0% Pakistan 29% 10.0% Tunisia 28% 10.0% Kazakhstan 27% 10.0% India 26% 10.0% South Korea 25% 10.0% Brunei 24% 10.0% Japan 24% 10.0% Malaysia 24% 10.0% Vanuatu 22% 10.0% Cote d’Ivoire 21% 10.0% Namibia 21% 10.0% European Union 20% 10.0% Jordan 20% 10.0% Nicaragua 18% 10.0% Zimbabwe 18% 10.0% Israel 17% 10.0% Malawi 17% 10.0% Philippines 17% 10.0% Zambia 17% 10.0% Mozambique 16% 10.0% Norway 15% 10.0% Venezuela 15% 10.0% Nigeria 14% 10.0% Chad 13% 10.0% Equatorial Guinea 13% 10.0% Cameroon 11% 10.0% Democratic Republic of the Congo 11% 10.0%
Im thinking its a squeeze. There were big players in puts, so the reversal is forcing them to get out of their positions. I would be careful because once they finishing buying back, it could drop again.Market might be in a reversal. Some semis are in green
I got this stupid CNBC on and this chick just mentioned something about Europe suggesting zero for zero tariff adjustment deal.Market might be in a reversal. Some semis are in green
Yeah I saw someone on twitter just mention this...I wonder if that's causing a slight reversal..they also just said that Trump allegedly just said that he will consider a 90-day pause for tariffs, except for China
Yeah I saw someone on twitter just mention this...I wonder if that's causing a slight reversal
They are claiming it’s fake news...they also just said that Trump allegedly just said that he will consider a 90-day pause for tariffs, except for China
This indecision is brutal for the market. I hate chaos...they also just said that Trump allegedly just said that he will consider a 90-day pause for tariffs, except for China
So unpredictableThey are claiming it’s fake news.
Def brutal for the markets AND businesses that need to map out their future plans.This indecision is brutal for the market. I hate chaos.