With the news that GM will be laying off 14,000 employees, Trump went to Twitter to attack GM's decision.
"Very disappointed with General Motors and their CEO, Mary Barra, for closing plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. Nothing being closed in Mexico & China. The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKs we get! We are now looking at cutting all GM subsidies, including... for electric cars. General Motors made a big China bet years ago when they built plants there (and in Mexico) - don't think that bet is going to pay off. I am here to protect America's Workers," tweeted Trump.
First of all, Trump likely unknowingly omitted that Obama saved GM, which in turn, means American jobs too.
Second of all, Trump admitted, likely unknowingly again, omitted that his trade wars were to blame for the lay offs.
Trump says that GM "made a big China bet," and that bet obviously isn't going to do well when the President of the United States slaps tariffs on Chinese steel.
As reported by the Associated Press, the recent layoff of workers is part of a larger plan, "as GM prepares for the next economic downturn, shifting trade agreements under the Trump administration, and potential tariffs on imported automobiles."
"The tariffs Trump has imposed on imported steel have reportedly cost GM $1 billion, just one example of major financial losses in multiple industries caused by Trump's poorly thought out fiscal and trade policies," as noted by Shareblue Media.
The reason Trump has "poorly though out fiscal and trade policies," can be attributed to the fact that he doesn't fully understand how tariffs work, and get tariffs confused with interest rates.
Vox notes:
At one point during his latest interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump mixes up tariffs (a kind of sales tax imposed on imported goods) with interest rates, which are the extra money you owe when you take out a loan. Bob Davis, the journalist conducting the interview, corrects the president. It’s the kind of verbal slip that could happen to anyone. Except that Trump, after acknowledging the error, flips back around and makes it again later in the interview.
As pointed out by Vox, Trump got tariffs and interests confused more than once during the Wall Street Journal interview.
On top of getting the two confused, Trump showed that he does not understand that a tariff also means a tax on U.S. consumers.
Vox on Trump's confusion about tariffs:
Raising taxes on Chinese-made goods is, obviously, a way to hurt China that, potentially, could cause China to want to make concessions to the United States in order to get us to change course. But one of the oddities of Trump’s thinking on this is he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that a large tax increase on Chinese-made goods is also just a big regressive tax hike on Americans.
The more goods Trump places tariffs on, the less "winning" America will being doing in the trade war Trump has created, "But he doesn’t care because he’s a “tariff person,” and he has a made-up story about the steel industry to justify that."
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