I have no problem with President Trump’s holding the European Union’s feet to the proverbial fire. They’re a bunch of socialist assholes who’ve robbed from the United States, economically, militarily and intellectually, for decades.
Therefore, I have no problem with the country’s chief executive deciding to raise tariffs on the EU to 50 percent. They deserve it. They can keep their Porsches, Mercedeses, VWs, Saabs (do they still make those?), whatevers, and see what other country or countries will pony up for their socialist causes.
Now, socking a 25 percent tariff on imported Apple products is also deserved, I believe. The company, like many others in the U.S., has long exploited overseas labor to build products to sell in the U.S. at prices below their true cost.
In other words, the company that Jobs and Wozniak built has been making billions off the backs of virtual slave laabor. And this I say as an iPhone user who hopes to upgrade from my 14 Pro someday, or maybe not — and also as a big MAGA supporter.
The problem with all this, of course, rests in the consequences for the U.S. economy and its workers. As a retiree, I live on Social Security (natch) and on my IRA, built from decades of working.
Now, I am not one who accumulated a millioni bucks or more in retirement savings on my meager earnings, nowhere near, so when Trump undertakes these justified but tricky world economic moves, who pays? I do. I am now watching my portfolio sink again.
Some background: During the Biden years of high inflation, I simply socked my IRA dollars into a money market fund and made enough on government bond interest to feed me and my pets, with virtiaully nothing left over. But as inflation receded, so did interest rates and I was forced back into stock funds, which are now on a roller-coaster ride.
Today is one of those days when that ride appears headed perilously downhill. Now, though I may salute the president’s good intentions, does he know he’s staking my very livelihood on his economic bravery?
I hope his trade gambit works, and works soon, or I will be paying the price, along with millions of others who voted for him.
Fuck the EU and its arrogant asshole leaders, but do I have to starve in the gotcha process?
Trump better remember there are elections in a little over a year, with the House of Representatives at stake, along with millions like me, consumers, workers and retirees.