Not sure in which channel to actually post this - so doing it without a channel.

The Trump administration slapped 10 percent tariffs on Heard Island and McDonalds Islands, which are uninhabited[...]. One of the highest tariff rates, 50 percent, was imposed on the African nation of Lesotho, whose average citizen earns less than $5 a day.[...] Lesotho’s citizens are too poor to afford most U.S. exports, while the U.S. imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest-possible tariff rate for one of the world’s poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the U.S. to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.

@mudge

Not sure in which channel to actually post this - so doing it without a channel.

The Trump administration slapped 10 percent tariffs on Heard Island and McDonalds Islands, which are uninhabited[...]. One of the highest tariff rates, 50 percent, was imposed on the African nation of Lesotho, whose average citizen earns less than $5 a day.[...] Lesotho’s citizens are too poor to afford most U.S. exports, while the U.S. imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest-possible tariff rate for one of the world’s poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the U.S. to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.

@mudge 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/tariffs-trump-outcomes-incompatible/682286/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

I think they made a simple excel sheet showing trade deficits, and then with an if-then command calculating tariff. They did not take a closer look on any country specifics. Actually, such dumbasses can easy be fought, you only need to dare.