Episode 2798 CWSA 04⧸03⧸25
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
143.6785
Summary
Scott Adams talks about the latest in the Trump administration's trade war with other countries, and why he doesn't believe any of the economic numbers coming out of the White House about the impact of the new trade tariffs. Scott Adams is a regular contributor to the New York Times and host of the podcast Morning Joe.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.
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It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and it's the best time you'll ever have in your life.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine.
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At the end of the day, the thing makes everything better except maybe the tariffs.
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It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
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So, President Trump, in a speech in the Rose Garden, laid out his tariff situation.
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And it's not exactly reciprocal, but there were, like, different amounts for each country.
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Now, if you wondered what the formula was or what the thinking was for why each country
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had a different tariff and it wasn't just matching the tariffs, let me explain the math
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You take the interest rate and you divide it by the gross national product of each country,
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multiplied by the number of imports, divided by the current tariff,
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and then I believe you add two, you carry the three, and then you add some random numbers
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Now, if you've got a better idea of how the president came up with those numbers, I'm all
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ears, but I'm going to put a flag in the mountain.
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I'm going to stick a flag somewhere, which is, I think it's now officially foolish for
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me to believe any numbers coming out of the government.
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I'm not going to believe any of the tariff numbers at all.
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I'm not going to believe any of the economic numbers.
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I'm not going to believe any of the doge claims, although I think everything's working
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So I'm going to go with my normal theme, that Trump might be full of hyperbole.
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He's always negotiating, and things are working in the right direction.
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But if you think the exact numbers are telling you something, maybe yes, maybe no.
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The only thing I know is I can't check them, and the Democrats have a pushback on pretty
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So if you didn't know that the Democrats have a pushback, that you wouldn't know if it sounds
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good or not, you would hear it and go, huh, I know that might be true.
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But then again, it might not be true, because it's the Democrats.
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So, no, I'm not going to trust Trump on any numbers.
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I'm going to trust Trump that he's doing what he believes, and the other smart people around
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He's doing what the smart people in his administration would agree is very good for America in the
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long run, and there might be some pain in the short run.
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So to me, directionally, I think we're fine, and we'll see how it all shakes out.
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But the chart he had, that Trump had, that showed what the tariffs were from the other countries
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and what ours are, was very persuasive, very persuasive, but not necessarily very accurate
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I liked, at least the chart people did a great job.
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So I saw lots of theories about how the numbers were derived and where they came from.
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I don't believe that they're going to stay the same.
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I don't believe that we know accurately what the other countries were charging us, because
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I think they might have included tariffs, plus VAT taxes, plus any kind of duties.
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So it seemed like it was a grab bag of concepts, and we're not going to really understand it.
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But it certainly got everybody's attention, didn't it?
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And we're already seeing a few countries who are making moves to negotiate.
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For example, so I think Vietnam and Canada has made a move, at least part of Canada, not the whole country.
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I think Mexico has responded that they won't try to match it.
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So countries are already responding, which is what we wanted.
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This is something that I was thinking, but if I said it, I would be mocked, because it sounds like it's just too much in the bag for Trump.
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And I'm totally in the bag for Trump, but even I wouldn't have said this.
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Sometimes the best strategy in a negotiation is convincing the other side that you're crazy.
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I've spoken at length about the concept of negotiating from the point of insanity,
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where you act completely irrational about at least one thing that you're asking for.
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And if you can convince the other side that you're irrational,
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then they're going to give up on trying to rationally change your mind.
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And they're just going to say, all right, you know, I'll try to make do with the rest of this contract.
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But that one thing that you rationally want, I guess there's nothing I can do.
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You're just going to have to, I guess I'll just have to live with that.
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Is Trump acting like a madman to convince people that there's no point in negotiating with him?
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I think he doesn't mind, which is different than doing it intentionally.
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and maybe smart people could disagree what the current tariffs are
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and what they should be and, you know, what's the right number.
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because nobody would ever agree that you calculated it correctly.
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There are probably 50 ways you could calculate this stuff.
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So I do agree that trying too hard to get the numbers accurate
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And, you know, he has the attention of the entire world.
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After 25 hours of speaking, did you have a point, Cory?
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Was there something you were asking for, or, you know,
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Whereas Trump goes out, he gives a one-hour speech in the Rose Garden
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and causes every country on Earth to stop what they were doing
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and put their full focus on their tariff situation with the United States.
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Now, that's the difference between acting, in quotes,
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He acted on something that's been a concern for decades,
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that other countries might be taking advantage of us.
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It's a real good way to know what the fake news is.
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is that he just made the entire world pay attention to him
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and take seriously the things we want them to take seriously
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Now, one of the things I teach you is that in persuasion,
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Did Trump get the attention of these other countries?
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Because they're going to want to get rid of the uncertainty.
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So he's going to make them negotiate with themselves,
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That's making somebody negotiate with themselves.
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So if you can make the other countries feel uncertain
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and more uncertain and more worried than you are,
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then they're going to start moving in your direction
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is anybody who's confident that it's a bad idea.
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because confidence should not be any part of this.
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because that's exactly what he said he was going to do.
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