Frédéric Cho

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

This has probably been the least successful first hundred days of a presidency @realDonaldTrump on the economy in the last century. We have seen the stock market go down, the dollar go down, forecasts of unemployment go up, forecasts of inflation go up, forecasts on the odds of a recession go up. We've seen consumer confidence collapse. We've seen businesses take back all their previous earnings projections. So, this has been a disastrous hundred days for the US economy.

[Emmanuel Macron @EmmanuelMacron]

Here in France, research is a priority, innovation is a culture, and science is a boundless horizon. Researchers from around the world, choose France, choose Europe! See you on May 5.

→ https://t.co/a8qXY6issB

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is quite crazy.

According to former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman (one of the rare senior US officials that I admire), the Trump administration couldn't even explain to the Japanese negotiating team what they were looking to achieve with the tariffs.

Here's what Freeman said: "The Japanese have just been in Washington. Their experience apparently was they went to talk to the American leadership on this matter, and the American leadership said 'what are you offering?' And the Japanese said 'well, what is it that you want?' And the Americans could not explain what they wanted."

Freeman also noted, correctly, that "the United States [broke] virtually every agreement it has agreed to in recent decades including the replacement for NAFTA with proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico that was negotiated by Mr. Trump in his first term."

Which doesn't exactly encourage countries to make a deal with Trump: what's the point?

Which is why Freeman believes that China won't go for negotiations and has instead decided to "wait [America] out".

As he puts it: "What is [China's] incentive to negotiate with the US when the US has no stated objectives that make sense and no record of compliance with its own agreements? I think the Chinese have decided they will wait us out and see how Americans like Walmart and Amazon denuded of products."

Fundamentally and somewhat paradoxically, that's the thing Trump the self-anointed "dealmaker" obviously doesn't get: at the end of the day dealmaking is built on credibility and consistency, and America has now neither.

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

Richard Nixon and other presidents have tried to cover up their wrongful acts or abuses of power.  @realDonaldTrump is the first President to glory in them because he wants to intimidate. If he is not stopped the norms of American democracy will be threatened.

[Carl Bildt @carlbildt]

Another vote in 🇺🇳 General Assembly where 🇺🇸 demonstrates its new affinity with a bunch of rouge states. I’m sorry with all the competent 🇺🇸 diplomats having to execute and defend these new policies.

[Shawn Donnan @sdonnan]

This feels like a sign of a remarkable breakdown in communications between the US and China. Trump's spokeswoman reads out statement aimed at China urging them to call with an offer...

https://t.co/pyFrUjtifi

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

Told @FareedZakaria on @CNN: There is a winner in what's being pursued by the @realDonaldTrump Adminstration. I'm sorry to say but the person who has a really artful deal here is Xi Jinping and China, who is seeing scope for his influence, scope for new markets, scope to displace the United States of a kind they could not have imagined as a result of the policies that we are pursuing.

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

I told @FareedZakaria @CNN this morning: When you start giving an exemption here and an exemption there on tariffs, it's introducing all kinds of corruption into the system. It's introducing what economists call rent seeking, where it's hugely advantageous for people to be friends of the first family and hugely advantageous for people to hire a lobbyists. So, the big boom that's being created with tariffs is in a crony capitalism.

[Ariah Ben Yehudah🇮🇱🇬🇧🇺🇦🇺🇸 @AriahBen2024]

Best tariff meme yet

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

Bullies back down. It is tragic to see the United States following banana republic policy approaches and market patterns.

[PaulleyTicks @PaulleyTicks]

Fixed it.

#Tariffs

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

This is a moment of testing for @realDonaldTrump's advisors. The intellectually honest ones know that this reflects the President’s 40-year fixation, not any kind of a proven economic theory. This is the economic equivalent of what creationism is to biology or what ending vaccines is to medicine. The question is whether his advisors are going to have the courage to tell him and the courage to step away from being part of these policies, if he's not willing to readjust. @ThisWeekABC

[James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki]

Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.

[Evan A. Feigenbaum @EvanFeigenbaum]

The U.S. is pretty much done strategically in Southeast Asia. The region is filled with pragmatists, who can and do navigate all kinds of crazy stuff from outside powers. But that depends greatly on those players being either principled or strategic—and Washington is now neither.

[Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers]

Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much. Markets continue to move after my previous tweet. The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now is closer to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.

[Ken Opalo @kopalo]

What competition? There is no competition.

Which African countries trade more with the U.S. vs China? via @carnegieafrica

[Private Eye Magazine @PrivateEyeNews]

Adolescence. Will these dangerous teenage boys all end up in cells?

The new Private Eye is out now

[Mike Forsythe 傅才德 @PekingMike]

Stop what you are doing and read this. As a former shipboard USN communications officer, scared to death of making a tiny mistake in storing and disposing of far less sensitive material, the carelessness here is shocking.

https://t.co/eotUKwnG1Z

[Mark Hammond @MarkHam80780803]

“Dear Peter Hegseth. Could you please send me some intelligence?”

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

This aged well