I don't understand how they can say its hostile to list tariffs when plenty of merchants will advertise "made in America" as a selling point. It's the same thing!
More to the point, if high tariffs are GOOD, we should be embracing them and the WH should be working to promote 'pride in tariffs!' messaging. Show how much you love your country and leader by how much in tariffs you pay! It'll be great, because you won't have to pay $3k income tax, just... an extra $5k in cost of living every year. Forever. Even when you stop working.
You'd think these big companies would want to stand up against this nonsense. Microsoft fired their law firm who sucked up to Trump's threats.
Why doesn't Wal-Mart or whoever make a loud pronouncement that they'll fund primary campaigns against any congressperson who supports these tariffs? These companies got Citizens United passed so they can spend unlimited amounts of political money, so why don't they use this power when their business is threatened like this?
Well, there's ~1,461 days in a presidential term and only just over a hundred have gone by so far. I think companies are concerned about focused and crippling reprisal.
To push him out of office would require impeachment, and that's basically an impossibility, even if there's a significant shift blue. At best there'd be some checks on his power, but he's ultimately still going to be POTUS with all the rights and (denied) responsibilities therein.
Because those companies rightly recognize that this administration is following no rules? Like, they were jumping on board for the fascism explicitly, businesses love fascism because it always kills labor rights. All you have to do is stay out of the ire of the dictator and you can do very well.
Like always, the morons who carry water for the fascists think they can "control" them, or radically underestimate the damage a moron with no accountability can do.
Amazon tried to barely show consumers the tariff hurt them, and Trump called Bezos directly, and that plan went away instantly.
Companies are rightly afraid of an administration that demonstrably has nobody stopping them from doing outright criminal and illegal things, and has a rabid fanbase ready to plan bombings of whoever is the target. They know the courts can't protect them. They know the law means nothing right now. They know an entire board can be murdered and the culprits pardoned if Trump feels like it.
Trump's entire shtick is that people who go against him in the Republican party already get primaried. He doesn't even need to ask his supporters, because loyalty is an expected and intrinsic part of the MAGA movement.
This is also assuming that future elections are free and fair, or at least follow previous US rules.
Because anyone making public moves against this will be punished further by the regime.
That's how autocracies work, my friend, you can't rules lawyer your way out of one, because the rules can always be changed to fuck you over some more.
If you're small enough I guess you might get a way with it, if you're big enough you'll be threatened into compliance.
Either way the US customers and the rest of the world lose, everyone is a little poorer because of these tariffs.