Tariffs and Meta AI App
Media Hit, 2/28/25
Today’s media hit (NewsMax) is ready to go and it should be a doozy. First up on the discussion list are Trump’s tariff plans. Once again, these things are a-changing.
On to the talking points:
Trump Tariffs, Part Whatever
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8yy3wpn6eo
Trump wants to hit China with another 10% tariff
He’s also announced that, in his estimation, Canada and Mexico have not done enough in the past month and so those tariffs (25%!) are going to be imposed starting March 4.
When it comes to Chinese tariffs, these just aren’t likely to work. China has a very diversified set of of exporting and importing partners that they could easily pivot to if need be.
Note that none of this is an excuse for what China does nor am I saying that we shouldn’t try to get them to change their tune. We should!
But tariffs have not been and are unlikely to be an effective means of getting them to do this.
When it comes to Canada and Mexico… I was just giving a talk to a bunch of people who work in the Canadian policy space.
Here’s what they’re all saying: we’re tired of dealing with Trump and we’re going to find other nations to partner with when it comes to trade.
It’s not really clear to me how driving away customers is a successful business strategy, but then again, I’m not Donald Trump.
Meta AI Launching an App
Apparently, Meta intends to launch a standalone version of their AI as an app later this year.
Look, this is certainly an interesting move.
X recently launched Grok as a standalone app, too, and I’ve been playing with it.
What really matters for a successful AI platform is the data that it has been trained on.
ChatGPT is trained on the internet mostly, Grok is trained on posts on X, and Meta’s will be trained on Facebook posts presumably going back decades at this point.
Each will offer a unique perspective and I for one cannot wait to see what they come up with.
But what this really speaks to is:
Competition is good! If we are to win the AI race, we need X, Meta, Google, and OpenAI competing with one another to make the best software.
Different companies have access to different data… and this is also good!
It allows for users to find an AI platform that works for their specific needs in that specific moment.
I myself use multiple AI platforms almost daily. Each one offers a slightly different twist and allows me to accomplish a given task with greater ease.
So What Happened?
I was joined by Brandon Arnold from The National Taxpayer’s Union. I’ve been on with him before and, in the waiting room of the Zoom meeting (where I couldn’t see faces), I immediately recognized his voice and knew who it was. Brandon is a wonderfully intelligent man and I enjoy going on this show with him, even if we don’t actually interact much since all we do is bounce back and forth between questions.
I got asked about the tariff question and how they’re impacting markets. Short version: the constant back and forth of threatening, rescinding, delaying, and re-threatening is not a good thing for markets. There’s this concept called “regime uncertainty” that has been used to explain things like energy transition policies and why the Great Depression lasted for so long. Today, Trump is quite literally creating regime uncertainty and, if there’s one thing that businesses do not like, it’s uncertainty. To be sure, some uncertainty will always remain. But when there is uncertainty literally caused by a world leader… that’s no good.
On the MetaAI app, I was able to hit most of my talking points, which was great.
But it was clear that one of the hosts did not agree with what I said with respect to tariffs. This is fine and, at this point, I’m used to it. But what I really have a hard time with is when the host says something that’s patently false at the end of a segment as a means of undermining my argument (and others, but I’m focusing on mine here) and then says, “but we’ll leave it there.” This is just cowardice, plain and simple.
In this case, I made the point that Trump should take a page out of the Art of the Deal and use handshake agreements, not fists, on the international stage. At the end, the host circled back to my first remarks, apropos of nothing, and said, “well, Trump did use tariffs to get Canada and Mexico to do [whatever'] so maybe he is using The Art of the Deal, but we’ll leave it there.”
This is infuriating and I’ve already written about why this is a bad argument here and here, I have another article on this coming out on Tuesday (confirmed) and likely another one coming out next week as well. I can explain why this is a bad argument in 15 seconds, easily, and if you give me 30 seconds, I can explain why it’s even worse beyond the initial argument. Alas, it was not to be because we “[left] it there.”
Such is life.