Marcin Stróżyna

Nauczyciel. Poza pracą: człowiek. Aczkolwiek nie zawsze.

[Wielkopolski Futbol @WlkpFutbol]

Ale żeby ochroniarz wjeżdżał z buta zawodnikowi to ja jeszcze nie widziałem XDD

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@l_czerwinski @Janek1345 @ariel_szyd Bo Polonii na to nie stać

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@Lolek_to @bravookil Wielki Elektor

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@andy48071 @Piegziu @ArcyksiazeFerd Nie bo, brak presji robi swoje

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@ScheilDr Roman Empire

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@Subamarus @Ramiyahu_ @yadvashem Kielce nie były kontekstem dla zbrodni kilka lat wcześniejszej „whatabauthism” zwykły

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@Jan_Pawlicki @marekwlkp3 No i z Prusami przez moment

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@Miecznik1988 @Maciej_Korowaj @DanielBockowski „Kłuszyn”!

[Andrzej Śledź @SledziuStream]

Żeby urodzić się Polakiem i bronić w dyskusji rosji jako państwa, odwoływać się do historii to trzeba być śmieciem.

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@ATRightMovies

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@oldyzach TIE Fighter

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

You're a goldfish.

No offense. You, me, the whole lot of us — our mental hard drives are always at capacity from constantly spending too much time on this website consuming news.

We struggle to remember the full picture, even for stories that started just a few weeks ago. But actually remembering recent events can be illuminating (imagine that).

On the tariffs, I literally don't think you can overstate how messy it has been. It occurred to me -- would making a timeline help? I think it would help. Come with me down memory lane (to three whole months ago):

On Inauguration Day, January 20, Trump announced he would levy 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico to take effect on February 1. A few days later, Trump threatened tariffs on Colombia — whose president briefly said he would respond in kind before backing down, which drew cheers from the people confident Trump could force good deals from our trading partners.

Trump, perhaps feeling emboldened, cited emergency presidential powers and then signed the 25% executive order on February 1, adding a 10% tariff on China. All three countries retaliated with tariffs of their own, and the trade war was on. But then… off. Two days later, Trump put a 30-day pause on his tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

Four days after that, on February 7, Trump for the first time promised “reciprocal” tariffs on every country — an expression that would soon be fully in the public’s lexicon — but did not provide details of the plan.

On February 10 Trump announced a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports, resurrecting a policy from his first term. Over the next couple weeks, Trump continued to threaten reciprocal tariffs and promised that his tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada would go into effect on March 4 (except those on steel and aluminum, which would go into effect March 12).

Then March 4 came, and the promised tariffs went into effect. Canada responded with a 25% tariff on an estimated $155 billion of American imports, and the next day the carveouts began. Trump — after a phone call with heads of major U.S. automakers — announced a one-month exemption on car imports compliant with the United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement.

On March 6, Trump paused most of the tariffs placed on Canada and Mexico until “Liberation Day” on April 2, denied he was reacting to the market sell-off, and promised (again) to impose 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum on March 12. Then, Canada and China retaliated again. China imposed tariffs targeting U.S. farm products, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced tariffs on electricity imported to the province from Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. Trump called Canada’s actions an “abusive threat” and then issued a threat of his own: He would double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. Both sides puffed their chests out, yelled a lot, then blinked and backed down. The next day, the European Union slapped billions of dollars worth of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, but said they would not enact them until April 1, hoping to give the U.S. a chance to change course.

Trump responded on March 13 by threatening a 200% charge on all alcoholic products — like wine and Champagne — from the European Union (now I’m getting upset). He then threatened tariffs on Venezuelan oil on March 24, and then a blanket 25% tax on all cars and car parts shipped into the U.S. (including from American brands that assemble their vehicles overseas) on March 26.

Then, we had about a week of rumors, innuendo, and signaling about what Trump was going to do — if he’d really follow through on his “Liberation Day” promise.

Finally, Liberation Day arrived. Freedom. Economic promise. On April 2, Trump put a 10% tariff on all the remaining nations importing goods into the U.S. that had not yet been tariffed, and — using the emergency powers he’d leaned on throughout his series of pronunciations — he unveiled additional “reciprocal tariffs” that varied by nation. It was pure chaos. Some of Trump’s biggest boosters started criticizing him for the first time. Elon Musk went to war with Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor. Members of Congress introduced bills to try to stop him. The markets tanked, bond yields fell, questions started flying about how the administration even calculated the reciprocal tariffs, and the administration offered mixed (and often mutually exclusive) explanations for its actions.

Over the following week, some countries (like Vietnam and Bangladesh) asked for pauses. China escalated, slapping more retaliatory tariffs on us. On April 9, Liberation Day tariffs started to go into effect. The real Liberation Day was finally here. The European Union and China implemented more tariffs. The market went absolutely haywire (again). In a surprising and perhaps frightening turn, bond yields did not drop but instead continued to rise — the opposite of what the White House said it wanted and expected to happen. The entire global economy was knocked off its axis by the weight of the U.S. tariffs. And then… Trump backed down.

On April 9, in an abrupt, surprising reversal, the president announced a 90-day pause on all the bespoke “reciprocal” tariffs, bringing them down to the global baseline 10% level that would remain in effect. By this point, I’d lost count of how many times tariffs had been turned on and off or paused or restarted — but it was a lot. Trump said people were getting “yippy.” His fans heralded “The Art of The Deal” (though no deals had been struck).

A week later, The Wall Street Journal would report that Trump made his decision after his Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary got him alone without pro-tariff trade advisor Peter Navarro in the room. That reporting seems detailed and believable to me, but you can be the judge. Anyway: China was not included in the pause. Instead, they got hit harder. The White House announced a 125% tariff on China, which it clarified was on top of an existing 20% tariff, resulting in a 145% effective tariff on all Chinese imports (how high can we go? Anyone’s guess).

Then, on April 11, one day after clarifying we have 145% tariffs on China, we… created a massive list of tariffs exemptions for Chinese imports, including products like smartphones, computers, and semiconductors. The White House denied this was a list of exceptions, despite having literally announced the order in a memorandum titled “Clarification of Exceptions.” Meanwhile, in response to Trump backing down, the European Union suspended all of its countermeasures on U.S. goods until July.

The White House, on April 13, then said the exceptions on China are temporary and new tariffs on computer chips are coming — so I figured the trade war was back on.

That gets us to last week, which was… quiet. Too quiet. The trade war stopped warring. I had a vision of trade advisors from all across the globe in some scene straight out of an old Western after a massive gunfight, looking around a bullet-ridden saloon with broken glasses and bodies strewn across floor, nudging various arms and legs with their boots to see who’s still alive and quietly listening for a creak in the floorboard or another shot to ring out. But instead, we just got the (now typical) market volatility paired with bond yields continuing to rise and threats to the U.S. dollar.

On Monday, April 21, some big-time executives from major retailers like Walmart, Target, and Home Depot — apparently worried about the tariffs — decided to bend the president’s ear. The executives insisted that prices were about to spike as the tariffs began to have a deep impact on our supply chain. That apparently did the trick. The next day, at a closed-door investor summit that was not immediately reported to the public, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told investors that the China tariffs will ease very soon. The markets, defying expectations, then rallied on Tuesday morning, which — you know — might reasonably raise more questions about insider trading. Finally, Tuesday afternoon (now April 22), Trump and his economic policy team began signaling trade talks with China were imminent (potentially explaining the previously inexplicable market rally).

And, scene!

For now. Until, well, yesterday, when (not kidding) Secretary Bessent said a deal with China could be years away, sending the market back into a sell-off.

What can one make of all this, when laid out end-to-end? I’m not really sure. It seems… not great? Disorganized. Spurious. Without a plan. Personally, I do not see The Art of the Deal, and neither do manufacturers or farmers or most ordinary Americans whom this was supposed to help (Trump is now experiencing his worst polling on the economy ever). Peter Navarro, who a few weeks ago insisted the administration could use the 90-day pause to make a trade deal a day, has not announced a single trade deal. Even Art Laffer, one of the economists who has most staunchly backed Trump, seems worried.

I’ve stated this theory before, but it bears repeating: Trump is almost always most compelled by the last argument he hears. If true, that theory would explain a lot about U.S. policy. So, maybe that’s it — Trump loves tariffs, his team has mixed feelings on how to use them, and our ever-changing economic policies are the manifestations of all that infighting.

My optimism — my desire to “wait six months to a year and see how this all turns out” — it’s waning. After compiling all of the above, I’m more convinced than ever that we’re not in a good place. I’m less hopeful than ever that things will work out fine and dandy, and I don’t think things are going to plan — if there even is one.

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@dbs_10_10

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@ProfesorPingwin @Igor69028028 Taka to ciekawostka, która gdyby nie Suche Kruty to by miała swojego cesarza

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@SledziuStream

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@mikenelson586

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

Elon, please calm down. Sikorski was fighting Russian occupiers in Afghanistan when you were playing video games. Calling him small man is not appropriate.

BTW, nobody can win US presidential election without Polish community in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Just relax.

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@RoberSobocinski @Tash_Witk @KosiniakKamysz @donaldtusk @Ukraine @A_Zapalowski Bo dopóki Putin krwawi się pod Charkowem, nie będzie próbował forsować Bugu. A ta Białoruś swoją drogą to taki wasal po cichu niepokorny jednak swoją drogą.

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

@Tash_Witk @MAGchaosu777 Historia kraju nad Wisłą z ostatnich 300 lat też mu umknęła

[Marcin Stróżyna @tulkaion]

Idee nie płoną

[Natalka @NatalkaKyiv]

Just a reminder: only very naive people believe that it is possible to be friends with evil dictators.

Antiwar protest in New York (July 7, 1941).

Posters:
"Hitler has not attacked us, why attack Hitler?"
"Why Not Peace with Hitler?"
"Europe for Europeans. America for Americans"
"Arm Britain and Prolong the War"
"Stay out of South America, of Europe, of War"
"Lend-Lease Lose-Lives"