Bulletins and News Discussion from April 14th to April 20th, 2025 - The Lamentations of a Levy-Loving Leader

Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.

It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.

Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.

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800 comments

@plinky@hexbear.net what's the latest #beanwatch with the ongoing tariffs
- i've checked last week, both been stable, no exciting #beanwatch updates, cocoa still at 8k (slight decrease), coffee at 360 (very high but stable). soybeans stable as well and cheap
  (soybeans are sus cause they will be directly touched by tradewar, but nothing for now. i would suspect they should get dumpstered inside usa tbh, if china reduces buying and usaid floor falls under them)
  *i rather suspect until summer everything would stay as is, harvest season in southern hemisphere is priced in (tm), the fuckery would start again due to unexpected weather events from now till july and/or tradewar
  
  got it, invest in soy futures (idk how to do this but it sounds like a good idea)
  
  pls don't, i don't want a post in badposting "i took financial advice from hexbear and now have to deliver 5000 bushels of soybeans to chicago"
  
  comm request: c/mainstreetbets where we convince each other to invest in beans
  "I swear bro my bean is going to the moon next harvest, the weather in Myanmar has been ass the past couple weeks"
  "if you actually read Marx you'd know he would have bought lentils"
  
  linen, nothing beats good old linen
  
  truthfully, commodity market newswires, even free ones, are usually very frank about stuff like strikes/spills/climate issues/blockades/labor laws/government changes/inflation/whatever, it's like direct hit of capitalist production compared to ft pondering the orbs (which might be important, but might not be), and pure propaganda of all the other ones. unfinished industrial goods/services are obfuscated in b2b stuff, unfortunately, so only appear on big tables of imports/exports

800 comments