They should state they're not going to play the games of kleptocrats, and keep the tariffs going until "next month" or Trump takes them off the table entirely... along with a detailed, open plan to reapply and maintain them longer if he does it again.
Make the plan deterministic and dependent on Americas actions, then stick to the plan (e.g. each flip flop will result in a permanent tariff of x % that Canada will never remove as long as this admin remains). Give businesses predictability and reliability.
Hey, seriously, if any other countries wanna say “hey we’re gonna collectively trade war the ever loving fuck out of you so long as Trump is in power”, I would heartily encourage you to do so. He’ll scream about it being extortion, but you can just turn around and say “yeah. It is. Because you were extorting us, and turnabout is fair play.”
It’ll be economically catastrophic for US, but honestly, I do think it needs to happen. The vast majority of our citizenry need to have the delusion of “American exceptionalism” shattered.
It's not what Musk meant, but he's not wrong that Americans need to suffer a little bit to learn.
I worry that too many of them simply aren't going to learn and are just gonna do what they did during COVID and go to their death beds blaming it on everything but COVID... they'll go to their deathbeds blaming it on everything but Trump, their God Emperor.
Even better reason to make Americans suffer and become weaker. Weaken their world influence and weaken the good will they were able to abuse to monopolize their military industrial complex and sell their goods.
This generation will suffer greatly but in the long run the move towards less dependency on the US is for the better. The US needs to lose their ability to hold the world hostage in the future.
This is how you deal with misbehaving children. Define a boundary (don't do X), establish consequences (If you do X, I will do Y), and then follow through consistently, exactly as you described.
Ideally you don't have to treat world leaders like they're children, but these are the times we find ourselves in.
This is Donald Trump here. The vivid imagination of the collective, creative left ascribes many nefarious motivations to him and his gang, but the truth is probably that they're shorting the drop and buying the floor.
What is more likely, that there is an evil genius grand scheme in motion, or that this is a grift by a lifelong grifter?
Fearless predictions: if the tariffs come at all, they'll be rolled back as soon as Americans start to get mad about them.
He will finish his four -year term and then release a book ghost written by JD Vance.