Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Let me go back to the phones here
and talk with Kirk. He has called in regarding Shawn's
call which occurred in the last hour, where Sean was
raising the issue of tariffs in the USMCA deal that
was done back in twenty twenty and Kirk has been
holding for a very long time.
Speaker 2: Hello Kirk, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, Pete. How you doing.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm good. What's going on?
Speaker 3: Oh? Your whole time was thirty six minutes?
Speaker 1: No big deal, fair, that was your whole time.
Speaker 3: It's your show. But anyway, one of the things that
I listened to with the first gentleman was all these
people that are going to be relieved of government. Do
you remember that Bill Clinton put down three hundred and
seventy seven thousand people.
Speaker 1: Well, he didn't put them down. There was no mass murdering.
I mean, I know it's the Clintons and all, but
there was there was no there was no He didn't
put them down.
Speaker 2: You're right, but he did. He let him go, right,
he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he could have been better. And when he talked
about the crisis line, that's not government. We have people
that go there and use it. That's not government. That
was actually on the outside, on the Sivilian sector side.
And I don't think people know that. The one that
was supposed to be government and it actually came through
the VA was the nine eight eight, and we had
in the first call that I knew of that went
through there, we couldn't find an operator that spoke English.
They put the guy on hold four times. And the
only reason I know about it is because a friend
of mine called and said, who we supposed to call?
I've got a guy and I don't want the cops
out here because they're going to shoot him. When they
hung up from all the chaos, he actually called the
sheriff and he said, I have a veteran in crisis.
This is where we're located. I'm a veteran myself, I
have others here. We have it under control. We just
need to get him to safety. If he didn't have
a veteran with him that knew what was happening, that
would not have happened. And the thing for people to
understand is it doesn't matter if you're putting it the
government or cutting it in the civilian sector. If you
have to be cut it happens. You don't get to
sit there and tell all these things that we're going
to lose, because you're not going to lose anything, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's always an assumption baked into the argument that's
never challenged because it's never articulated, which is that the
jobs are worthy for the government to be doing, like
it is an appropriate thing for government to be doing,
and that it couldn't be done in any other way
except for government, and you just kind of they, just
like Sean did, just kind of just jump past those
assumptions and want to make an argument that like, how
dare you you did this terrible thing by firing them,
and by starting the conversation there, you're now arguing on
their term ters, not on the underlying assumptions that you've
basically just accepted when you argue on their terms.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I don't understand why. Like, have you ever
heard the thing about knowledge is power?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I may have heard that at some point.
Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3: Knowledge is power if the knowledge you have is true
and useful. It's also power if you know how to
use it and get people around you to be educated.
Otherwise it doesn't mean anything. You could sit there and
have all kinds of knowledge, but because you don't share it,
you don't use it, and you don't spread it, you're
kind of more of an idiot than anything.
Speaker 1: So actually I talked a little bit about this concept
of knowledge and this Socratic paradox last week, which is,
you know, nobody really knows anything, but a wise person
knows that they don't know anything, and that makes them
the wisest because they are the only ones that realize that.
And so, yeah, I mean knowledge and things that people know,
and like in the conversation with Mike at the end
of the last hour, and he sees where I see
gaps in knowledge, and and I know that that I
can't fill that gap in because I literally don't know
what is filling the gap. And so I just kind
of leave that open and accept that I don't know that.
And some folks, and I think Mike was doing this
with the Russia, uh and the Ukraine. Issue is that
they plug in these these narratives that they have that
they have in their minds, and to them, it explains,
it explains for them the gap. But it's also a
little too convenient because you're you're you're plugging the gap.
It's something that you already believe to be true and
thus create a blind spot as to what the outcome
might be. And then you're confused when the outcome is
something that you weren't expecting right, because you had you
had an incorrect fundamental assumption. That's why I say, if
you don't understand the thing that you're seeing, reassess your assumptions, right,
re examine those And you know, people who just make
up stuff in order to plug those knowledge gaps are
doing themselves a disservice because you're not getting a clear picture.
You're just I mean, look, I get it. It makes
them feel good, right, It'll make you feel good that
you think you know what's going on and you can
explain everything. But that's not that doesn't make it true.
Speaker 3: And I wish all your listeners understood what you just said.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they do. We have the smartest listeners. Take
you for example, right, all right, Kirk. I appreciate the call, Buddy,
good to hear from you.
Speaker 2: All right, yeah, man, you too, all right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I did not know that the uh that
the crisis Assistance Line was done by private sector, third party,
but and I don't know if they get government money
government funding to do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And this, I mean getting back.
Speaker 1: To sort of the approach that the doge dudes are taking.
And Elon Musk has said this repeatedly that yes, they
are going to you know, move fast and break things,
and they have no power to do anything themselves. They
make recommendations to the department leaders, and the departments be
they you know, agency heads or something or secretaries in
the administration, they make those calls. Are they going to
make mistakes? Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely, they will make mistakes. They
will fire people or close down some shop or operation
that was doing you know, legitimate work. And what they
have said is that we are going to make mistakes
and when we do, we will fix them as quickly
as possible.
Speaker 2: That they will.
Speaker 1: Then they will turn on a diamond. They will say no,
don't do the open them back up, invite them back in.
But this idea that we have to have this perfection, right,
don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. So
if they're doing good things in these different areas, right,
then you're going to you're going to point to the
one error or even the ten errors, when you have
all of these other things that they have done that
are good, and you're going to going to ignore all
of that. This is why you don't get anybody defending, right,
the transgender comics in Colombia or the transgender surgeries in Guatemala.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: That's why you don't hear people come forward and say no,
we have to keep funding these programs. They know what
that looks like, they understand that, and they know it's
a loser of an argument. So they're not going to
make those arguments. So they find the crisis hotline, right,
They find that stuff and they hammer away at that
stuff in an effort to get you to shut up
and stop doing what you're doing. DOJ stop it because
they're trying to protect all the other things that they
don't want to argue about. Imagine if the approach were,
you know what, let's stop funding the thousand things that
you found and let's stop doing that. We join you
in getting rid of that waste and fraud and abuse
and whatever.
Speaker 2: We join you in that.
Speaker 1: But hey, bring this thing back. It would be a
way different atmosphere than we are seeing right now. All right,
if you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
I know you do too, And you've probably heard me
say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because
it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and
it's a website and it combines news from around the
world in one place so you can compare coverage and
verify information. You can check it out at check dot
dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few
months ago and more recently chose to work with them
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and
the right. See for yourself. Check Dot Ground, dot News
slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen
percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to
get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not
only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News
as they make the media landscape more transparent. We were
talking about tariffs, and then in the last hour we
started that the discussion about tariffs and you know whether
or not there's an off ramp to what appears to
be the opening salvos of a trade war. So but again,
like I caution, give it a minute. I don't good
because I can't tell you. I cannot predict for you
how this is going to shake out. And a lot
of people are offering up their predictions on this stuff,
but I don't know if they're any more qualified to
make these kinds of predictions than I am. I'm just
I know enough to know that I don't know what
the future holds on this stuff, and particularly when it
comes to Donald Trump. I have learned to restrain myself
from immediately trying to draw some conclusion about about what
the stories are, what the narratives are, and what the
strategy may be. The Ukraine thing is a perfect example
of it. Right the blow up on Friday, and for
forty eight hours we were told that this is all
over and oh my gosh, he's doing Putin's bidding and
everything else. And now today we get the public statement
from the Ukrainian president that yeah, I'll sign the minerals deal.
I want the war to end, which was something that
he was not saying, Like over the weekend, he was
saying stuff like this war is going to last a very,
very very long time, and he was trying to get
European countries to send troops and everything.
Speaker 2: Else, like.
Speaker 1: But just wait a minute, let's just see how it
plays out. And this is what in the last hour
when I was talking with Mike, you know, is it
possible that there is some sort of a strategy going
on here to negotiate with Putin, who, I would remind
everybody was praised by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, I mean,
Bush had Putin out to the ranch down in Texas.
So you know, sometimes as the you know, when you're
trying to negotiate with world leaders that may not be
fantastic people and maybe authoritarians, even if you're trying to
achieve some sort of a great good outcome. Then that
means you have to sit down at a table and
talk to them, and you're because otherwise what just kill
a bunch of their people?
Speaker 2: Like I'm.
Speaker 1: Again, it's one of the more baffling aspects of this thing,
that with the Ukraine deal. But then there's the terrifficsue,
uh and this this.
Speaker 2: You know, trade wars are not good.
Speaker 1: They're not good, and they could be crippling to an economy.
Speaker 2: Was it the uh?
Speaker 1: Was this smooth Hawlly Act in the twenties led to
the Great Depression?
Speaker 2: Not good?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So I'm concerned, but I'm also willing to give it
some time. Let me see what the play here is,
because yes, it's gonna hurt us, no doubt. It's also
going to hurt the other countries that are involved in
the trade war. And that's sometimes why these things turn
into shooting wars, is because countries get so hurt.
Speaker 2: Let me get to some messages.
Speaker 1: This was from good Wahoo, who says, regarding Mike's call
in the last hour, that he doesn't care what may
be the truth about Trump's negotiation strategy. He and other
leftist Democrats simply don't want Trump to have any success
at anything right now. That is part of the problem
here when you listen to quote analysis of what we
just saw in the White House between Zelensky and Trump
and Vance is that people who have ulterior motives will
try to frame the narrative because they benefit. Their incentive
is for Trump to fail. Their incentive is for the
economy to tank. Also, regarding the Doge cuts, Good Wahoo
points out that Obama fired everybody appointed under Bush when
he came in, even people on the National Monuments Commission.
Speaker 2: Then there is this.
Speaker 1: From Bob regarding Mike's call. One would think that as
a lawyer, Mike would understand better how to mediate a negotiation. Yeah,
he does. He Mike understands this. That's why I said,
That's why I specifically use those words mediate to be
the mediator, because I am certain that Mike understands the
role of a mediator. Zelensky put the poop show into
the public domain, Trump and Vance pounded him, which actually
establishes a better framework for Putin to strike a deal. Also,
Zelensky can beat his chest and brag to his you know,
domestic audience, the Ukrainians, that he stood up to Donald Trump,
He's delusional if he thinks victory can be had with
the US. Maybe without the US. There and Mike says,
the CEO of Chipotle said his company will not pass
the tariff increase on the cost of goods on to
the customers, namely avocados. The company will eat the additional
cost in the form of a reduced profit margin. So,
like you said, tariffs are more complex than a simple
cost increase to all consumers. I doubt that Chipotle CEO
did it out of the kindness of his heart. Rather,
he realized that there is a price point at which
people choose not to patronize Chipotle. The same may occur
with other companies. Here's a great idea. How about making
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memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, let me get
back to the uh the tariff discussion. So China retaliated
today against the latest round of US tariffs by hiking
their tariffs covering twenty one billion dollars worth of American
agricultural and food products, moving the world's top two economies
a step closer towards an all out trade war. This
is according to Reuters dot com, who I believe got
usaid money. Beijing also slapped export and investment curbs on
twenty five US firms on grounds of national security, but
unlike when it retaliated against Trump's first tariffs back on
February fourth, this time avoided punishing any household names. So
these are companies that you would not have heard of
trying to exist. So, in other words, what does that send?
What does that tell me? That that tells me that
it sounds like this is more about a propaganda right.
This is like when when America charged a bunch of
guys you've never heard of in Russia for you know,
creating farms on Facebook, and you're like.
Speaker 2: Wait, who are these people? What did they do?
Speaker 1: And then they're like, if they ever come into America,
We're going to arrest them. So okay, Beijing, well here,
a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told a press conference in Beijing,
trying to exert extreme pressure on China is a miscalculation
and a mistake, and that China had never succumbed to
bullying or coercion.
Speaker 2: I mean, except with the communism at all.
Speaker 1: But other than that, the latest retaliatory measures come as
the extra duty of ten percent US President Donald Trump
threatened for the world's second largest economy took effect today.
That makes for a cumulative tariff of twenty percent in
response to what the White House considers Chinese inaction over
drug flows. Right, this is all about fentanyl, So, I mean,
this is what the Trump administration keeps saying. Now, people
can choose not to believe that, but this is what
Trump keeps saying. This is about It's about fentanyl. Stop
flooding our country with this poison China, and China is
responsible for doing so. Right, If they're not sending the
finished product, they're sending the materials to make it, and
they're routing them through Mexico but also through Canada to
a much lesser extent. China has accused the White House,
and that's why both of those countries are also involved.
Trump is trying to address the fentinyl opioid crisis. Right Again,
you can argue that, you know, drug wars never work.
You could say this isn't the right approach or whatever,
but that's what his stated mission here is that's what
these tariffs are about. According to the administration, China has
accused the White House of blackmail over its tariffs, saying
that it has some of the world's toughest anti drug
policies well for its own society, right, I mean, yoh yeah,
don't get me wrong. Like you, if you're dealing with
drugs to Chinese people in China, like they'll murder you.
The government will come in and just like line you
up in the street and gun you down, like to
be sure. But that doesn't address them exporting the poison
to their geopolitical adversary.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Also important to keep in mind, commis lie, right, So
communists lie, and so when they say these things, you
should always remember that there's a good probability that they
are lying about it. Analysts say Beijing still hopes to
negotiate a truce on the tariffs, deliberately setting their tariffs
so as to leave its negotiators room to hash out
a deal, but each escalation reduces the chance of doing so. See,
this is one of the other things Donald Trump, he
calls himself this, and everybody around him says it. He's
a deal maker. He makes deals China has caught onto this.
I don't know why the Democrats haven't realized this, but
I said it with the Ukraine deal also, it's like
give them space. And we heard from Marco Rubio yesterday.
I played audio and he's like, we need the space
to do this. And this constant attack as Trump is
trying to secure a piece in Ukraine, like why won't
you just let him try this approach? Let him try it.
If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and then you
could just run hogwild with all your attacks on him.
But right now, like wait and see, give it a minute,
maybe it works. China's government is signaling that they do
not want to escalate. Said Evan Pei, an agriculture analyst
at Trivium China. Quote, it's fair to say we're in
the early days of trade war two point zero, saying
that there is still time to avoid a protracted trade
war if Trump and the Chinese president Winnie the Pooh
are able to strike a deal. Okay, wait, he did
not say that. I don't want to get the guy
killed by China. It's Jijinping, and Jijiping hates any kind
of comparison.
Speaker 2: That people make of him. To Winnie the Pooh, even
though he does look like Winnie the Pooh.
Speaker 1: China said it would investigate US producers of a type
of optical fiber for circumventing anti dumping measures, and they
suspended the import licenses of three US exporters, and they
halted China bound shipments of US lumber, which is weird
because I thought we got all of our number for Canada.
Speaker 2: It's very odd.
Speaker 1: The twenty percent tariff will hit several major US consumer
electronic imports from China that had previously escaped untouched, from
smartphones and laptops to video game consoles, smart watches, speakers,
and Bluetooth devices. Now something else to keep in mind here.
Trump's hand is strengthened in this fight because of the
recent announcements of investments like one hundred billion from TSMC,
five hundred billion from Apple, twenty seven billion from zep Bound,
one hundred billion from SoftBank, twenty billion from Damac or Damac,
five hundred billion from Stargates, six hundred billion from Saudi Arabia. Right, so,
if you have all of this new investment that was
announced domestic manufacturing coming in, then his hand is strengthened
because he can say, well, look, we're importing manufacturing now,
and we're going to be doing all this stuff. We're
going to be, you know, energy and dependent. We're going
to export energy and we're gonna you know, reinvigorate our
industrial base and all of this, so we don't really
need all of those imports anymore. Again, you can you
can believe that or not, but that's their argument. You know,
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dot com. Let's go to the phones and chat with Snake.
Hello Snake, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 4: How are you, Andy, good, Pete? How you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm good, I'm doing all right.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm just trying to make sure I got these
numbers right. So I looked up and it said we,
like China imports about five hundred million dollars worth of stuff.
So if you say that all that stuff, they can
make it. I'm just making up a number five percent cheaper.
So if it's five percent cheaper, then you can make
it in America. Then that's twenty five billion dollars right, Yeah,
but extra for that stuff, Yeah, go ahead, it's.
Speaker 1: Probably way more than five percent cheaper. I mean, when
you're employing slave labor, for example, you know you can
make that really cheap.
Speaker 4: Well, we can make it ten then about I mean,
I don't know how good they are. I mean maybe, right,
you know, I'm not in favor of trade wars, but
it's just you know, and then everything they do isn't
cheaper than us. We do some things better than they do,
but I'm taking the whole extent of it. And so
as if you said ten percent, now you've got me
doing math in my head. But then it's fifty billion dollars,
which is actually an easier number to remember. And then
if you divide fifty billion by thirty five, three hundred
and fifty million people, you get like one hundred and
forty dollars.
Speaker 2: Right right now.
Speaker 1: But then you would have to run that also through
Canada and Mexico and whatever their numbers are. And so
the number I saw was that the direct impact is
like nine hundred and thirty dollars per taxpayer per year.
Things will be more expensive, Like yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that sounds like a leftist exact me.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 1: No, that was no, I mean that, I mean those
were the those were the numbers, and I had them
and then I closed it out. But it's uh, those
were economists that were doing the projections. So yeah, again,
and like I've seen competing projections from like the Federal
Reserve in Atlanta has one set of numbers that they're
looking at and they're like, oh my gosh, this is awful.
And then the the Federal Reserve, I think up in
New York they were like, now the chance of a
recession is like less than a percent so or two
percent something like that. So yeah, the economists they disagree.
And this is just the first day of it. So
we don't know how it shakes out. And again we
don't know, you know, what other markets like. For example,
if we are now no longer to export something to China,
we may very well find another market in South America someplace,
or in Africa someplace, and so we could end up
exporting it there and there would there there would be
minimal disruption to that industry. So we don't know how
it all shakes out just yet.
Speaker 4: No, and you never do. I mean, you know, even
forensically it's almost impossible. Again, I'm not in favor of
trade wars, right, but you'd think to hear MSNBC tell
it that, you know, the whole country is just going
to melt down over this, and that's just not really.
Speaker 1: True, right, And you know, recognize what the incentives are
for that particular network, but also people on the left
and also people on the right who make a living
and have made their careers in in you know, predicting
this kind of stuff or being you know, free, free
traders and all of that. They have They have an
incentive to project the worst case and project the catastrophe right.
And whether it's for clicks or engagements online or viewers
or something, or to justify their own life's work, whatever
it may be. And I'm not saying that their predictions
are wrong. Their predictions they some of them could turn
out to be true. I don't know, but there are
incentives there for them to be making some of the
predictions they're making, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know they got to sell newspapers. I just
I don't, you know, I just don't trust what the
newspapers say for that reason. But and then the only
other thing I'd add, and I know you got to go,
but just China's one thing in Canada and Mexico we
need to get along with. I don't know what it takes,
but it shouldn't take this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the thing, is like, it's not about
the particular tariffs and the trade policies. This is about
securing the border and reducing the flow of fentanyl into America.
Speaker 2: That's what the administration is.
Speaker 1: Saying, and so it's like to me, it's kind of
telling that they don't seem to be interested in stepping
up in those areas to try to, you know, meaningful
crack down on this stuff in order to avoid the tariffs.
So that because that's there, instead responding with with tariffs
on our stuff. But the root of it was sentinel
and illegal immigration, so why not help on those fronts
and then the tariff thing goes away.
Speaker 4: On the Lago integration immigration thing. I agree, but from
one small l libertarian to another. And I know you well,
you know, when we've got a problem with drugs, we
blame it on somebody else and that's.
Speaker 1: All right, Well you can dump that and that'll be
the end of the program because you can't say that
word on the radio.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
support and the support of the businesses that advertise on
the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too
and tell them you heard it here. You can also
become a patron at my Patreon page or go to
dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.
Speaker 3: M hm