And the exemptions are temporary. They keep people guessing on if and when because we all know that uncertainty is just what American businesses need to thrive.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How Apple CEO Tim Cook Convinced Trump to Exempt Apple From Tariffs
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
By suspending enforcement of an anti-bribery law the President has both violated his oath of office and given approval to corruption. He has done the same with the TikTok ban, which law gave him no authority to suspend enforcement twice.
It's some really rich stuff to have anyone say the US was getting taken advantage of.
Yes ... the richest country in the world, that everyone wants to come to, with all the biggest and best companies and universities.
If the US has been getting screwed, everyone sure has been doing a bad job of it!
It's a lot like those that say white men in the US have been disadvantaged. I'm a white man and I assure anyone if they aren't doing well it could be for many reason but NOT because they are white men.
Money in politics. Yep, corruption in another coat of paint.
The U.S. you’re describing doesn’t exist anymore. It ceased to exist when the SCOTUS gave Trump blanket immunity to do whatever the hell he wants. It ceased to exist when the Republicans refused to impeach him and now refuse to reel him in. It ceased to exist when Trump began bullying and threatening longstanding allies. It ceased to exist when Trump and his regime began defying court orders. It ceased to exist when they began dismantling Americans’ institutions and safety nets. It ceased to exist when people can be snatched off the street and dispatched to foreign prisons without notice or due process. It ceased to exist when the President publicly admitting he wants to deport American citizens to foreign prisons.
It ceased to exist when millions of people were conned into electing a multiple failed businessman and Fascist criminal thinking he’d make eggs cheaper.
Trump is making the U.S. into a “banana republic.”
For the sake of time I’ll paraphrase but can certainly give you more direct numbers and evidence.
- IP theft-China has stolen American technology for years through hacking, forced tech transfers, and corporate espionage. It’s cost the U.S. hundreds of billions.
- Unfair trade-They flood our market with cheap, state-subsidized products, manipulate their currency and block U.S. goods with high tariffs all while enjoying easy access to ours.
- WTO loopholes-Since joining the WTO China has taken advantage of trade benefits without following the rules. They still claim “developing nation” status to get perks, despite being the world’s second-largest economy.
no doubt that there is no master plan by this administration— they are thrashing and flailing and the non-billionaire citizens around the world are the ones suffering - not just Americans. just pointing out that the exemptions were not Apple-specific — I think even Samsung (a South Korean company) will benefit from the same exemptions. i use the word “benefit” lightly here.
An intelligent person as President or Secretary of Commerce (say Tim Cook) would have put contingencies in place to domestically produce goods and stockpile foreign raw materials BEFORE starting a trade war. Sure, the USA needs to balance trade with China. Sure, it is not right that historically, US goods are tariffed at higher rates by other countries than the US has tariffed imports from those countries. But you cannot snap your fingers and threaten tariffs as if China did not have cards they can play as well to make things difficult for the USA.
I fear the university part changed already.
Just in my neck of the woods Johns Hopkins research laid off 2000 researchers after Trump/musk cuts. I'm in 6 different studies at JH at the moment. I have no idea how many will remain intact, if any. I do know many of those brilliant people are gone now.
These researchers are leaving. They are returning to their home countries out of fear and/or frustration, pursuing research outside the USA, or being recruited by other research universities abroad. Nobody will blink twice at their resume showing they left Johns Hopkins early given what is happening.
I have personally interacted with 20+ people from a dozen plus countries just in my limited time in studies at JH. These gifted research fellows are being snatched up by other countries.
The brain drain is a real thing. American medicine and science is already decimated. All because of a racist orange game show host, a man with "dyed hair plugs and laminated face," and a guy with a brain worm who looks like Hoggle from Jim Henson's Labyrinth.
He doesn't really want examples. It's just a way to waste your time.
Yes, so Trump's hurting American universities, corporations, consumers and investors. But the rest in America should be doing great.
It's so sad ...
Somehow we stopped teaching enough of the right topics and ended up with a selfish, uneducated, easily corruptible and gullible population that allowed this to occur.
I get that things feel off the rails sometimes, but let’s not pretend the U.S. just vanished. We’ve survived civil wars, impeachments, recessions you name it. If one guy and a bunch of bad takes could wipe out the whole country, we wouldn’t have made it past 1865. Yeah it’s messy. It always has been. But people are still voting, protesting, arguing, and building businesses, not exactly the signs of a country that’s “ceased to exist.” Leaders come and go. The people? Still here, still showing up, still pushing forward. It’ll all be ok pal.
We've not survived something like this anytime recently at all.
It's very much an unknown what happens in a fully connected, industrialized and globalized world with a large variety of first world alternatives for folks with options to depart to (permanently).
A lot of empires and countries "used to be" xyz .. Nothing is stopping America from being next on that list.
America even "existing at all" is not some gravitational inevitability.
People are freaked out for very good reasons.
The bedrock of "rule of law" that the entire place is built upon is being ignored, discarded and dismantled.
My dog is blissfully unaware, so I've got that going for me.
I appreciate the optimism!
We can survive this but the sad thing is it will take a long time to recover. Long time to restaff. Long time to rebuild alliances and trust. And none of that rebuilding is close to starting -- it's still declining. We have to bottom out first, have people recognize that then somehow make a change for the better. I'm concerned just how bad we must get before some wake up finally.
Same thing could have been said of COVID. Totally unprecedented, entire city’s shut down, Guess what, we pressed on and moved forward. The same will happen here.
So many wild differences there it's not worth comparing.
You’re assuming this is just a ripple and banking on a successful pushback to get things back on track. Their game plan has already been made clear. They want to rewrite the rules so that you can’t go back to the way things were before. Trump claimed the 2020 election was stolen, but stealing elections is exactly what they’re going to go for from here onward—thats what authoritarian regimes do.
They have already destroyed the trust the U.S. had with other nations. It will take years to decades to win that trust back if ever. Other countries will re-align and freeze the U.S. out—it’s already happening.
There is a whole lot of hurt coming America’s way. Right now you’re only seeing the early storm clouds. The deluge is coming.
Well I’ll tell you what. You continue to have high anxiety, stress and pessimism during these challenging times, and some of us will push forward and press on. At the end of the day I try and avoid negative people.
COVID was bad but no worse than the recession of 2008 and other things over the years. This is different. Yes, we can survive it but you have to realize it's fundamentally different. Trump is taking an axe to every part of government. NOAA no longer has a research arm -- NOAA! who just wants to make sure weather issues don't surprise us then harm us. We are gutting public and private research in medicine of all things. We are removing most all people that make sure others in government aren't corrupt. And I've only gotten started. We can survive but this IS fundamentally different.
With COVID I would have said "we WILL survive this". With Trump I say "we CAN survive this"
With COVID it helped that pretty much no one rooted FOR COVID.
Last edited:
In some ways I understand the views of @H.E. Pennypacker
We are all progressing at different speeds along the acceptance spectrum about the reality of what's going on here.
It's also not in most of our natures to want to believe the fundamentals we've known our entire LIVES are being disrupted (if they truly are).
It's like being given a grim piece of medical news.
It sets in differently for each of us.
We are all progressing at different speeds along the acceptance spectrum about the reality of what's going on here.
It's also not in most of our natures to want to believe the fundamentals we've known our entire LIVES are being disrupted (if they truly are).
It's like being given a grim piece of medical news.
It sets in differently for each of us.
I’m not denying the storm clouds are real. There’s plenty to be worried about authoritarian behavior, distrust in elections, global credibility on shaky ground. But calling it over before it’s over is exactly what helps it collapse. Yeah, they’ve shown their game plan. But people are watching. Institutions, flawed as they are, haven’t folded yet. And when lines get crossed, history shows Americans left, right, and center eventually push back. Might not be clean, might not be pretty, but it happens. And global trust? Sure, it’s been damaged. But countries act in their own interests, and if the U.S. regains its footing, they’ll be back. They always are. No one freezes out a global superpower forever.
There’s real danger ahead, no doubt. But writing the eulogy before the fight’s even finished? That’s how you lose without even trying.