We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA

Even aside from the advisability of the tariffs -- it turns out there might be a reason that tarrifs haven't usually been imposed with like weeks notice, after months of back and forth, with no real advance implementation planning on the government's part and not enough time or reliable info for anyone else to do so either?

It is very strange to me that the government seems to be going for maximum shock and uncertainty on the US economy. Again, apart from the advisability of the actual tarrifs, they could have been implemented in the usual way to allow people to plan for them (and possibly give feedback on them), but they were not.

The government is really just one guy right now, Trump.

According to his own people he doesn't take no for an answer and isn't interested in input from anyone else. He has surrounded himself with opportunists and yes men. His own department heads often will do press conferences and inadvertently contradict Trump, seemingly without realizing it. At one point Trump and his staff couldn't get on the same page about IF they were or were not talking to China about tariffs, they waffled for several days on it.

A few Trump staffers whenever asked about strategy with tariffs or other things just ignore the question an start praising Trump out of the blue. It's a creepy scene.

I've yet to see anyone with an education or domain knowledge explain the existing tariffs strategy / where this should lead with these whipsaw type decisions. There simply is nobody with a clue willing to do that.

At least in Idocracy President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho chose to listen to someone smarter than him. This is very much not the choice of the current President.

Maybe Trump is just doing what's good for America and he's strategy is exactly being unpredictable and chaotic. This is stressful for others and they make political concessions to please him in exchange for a period of stability.

EU for example bulged for exactly this reason and accepted 15% one-way tariff for access to US market. Before the deal the uncertainty about the level of coming tariffs was deemed worse for European companies trading to US than the negotiated tariff itself.

European political leaders including the head of NATO have also practically turned to giving rimjobs to Trump's ass wishing he would not throw tantrums at them in important meetings: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17wejpw79qo

Ultimately this all just strengthens US hegemony and makes other countries weaker, which is the explicitly stated goal he keeps repeating..

Or maybe Trump is a sociopath felon with a penchant for young girls who is acting solely in his own self-interest

Given his history of failed businesses and association with a known pedophile, what seems more likely?

How are the tariffs even in his own self-interest? Insider trading?

They're in his self-interest because he can, and did, turn around and convince people to bribe him for exemptions and reductions. I recognize this sounds crazy when I say it, but you can literally look up the video - Tim Cook gave him a big block of gold on public TV to get iPhones exempted from tariffs on India.

On the magnitude being insinuated, that doesn't even blip. 50 lbs of solid gold is what, $2.5M?

Consider that a mere act of public theatre in which a token is exchanged.

Getting a grip on the magnitude of the Trump family profiteering through all the obfuscation and destruction of record keeping practices is an ongoing challenge in reporting.

* https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/18/the-number

( Summary of the long form article above:

  At the end of Trump’s first term, CREW calculated that Trump made more than $1.6 billion in outside revenue and income during his four years as president. Recently, however, The New Yorker staff writer David D. Kirkpatrick tallied up a new number, encompassing ventures from both Trump’s first and second terms: $3.4 billion. 

~ https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-family-thr... )