Trump to put 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea

[In It to Win It]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday placed a 25% tax on goods imported from Japan and South Korea, citing persistent trade imbalances with the two crucial U.S. allies in Asia.

Trump provided notice of the tariffs to begin on Aug. 1 by posting letters on Truth Social that were addressed to the leaders of both countries. The letters warned both countries to not retaliate by increasing their own import taxes, or else the Trump administration would further increase tariffs.

“If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 25% that we charge,” Trump wrote in the letters to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.

The letters were not the final word from Trump on tariffs, so much as another episode in a global economic drama in which the U.S. president has placed himself at the center. His moves have raised fears that economic growth will slow to a muddle, if not make the U.S. and other nations more vulnerable to a recession. But Trump is confident that tariffs are necessary to bring back domestic manufacturing and fund the tax cuts he signed into law last Friday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-put-25-tariffs-japan-164016221.html

[bearsfootball516]

1. Those are huge trade partners.

Bet you anything they call his bluff, then a week before August 1st, he pulls the tariffs like usual.

[Torchlight]

2. Another two weeks watching the great chicken's Three Card Monte routine

as he says one thing, then something else, does a third thing instead, and then cries "victory and victim!" as he does yet another weird little jig in the streets of Paris.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Trump again hammers our allies and rewards our enemies. Need I ask whose side this guy is on?

[riversedge]

4. Trump has been and will only continue to be on the side of his wallet!!