But the agreements themselves are completely informal and an overview of what the US expects to see happen in order to maintain the tariff reductions. The interpretation of whether the other country or group of countries is abiding the agreement is entirely at the discretion of Trump.

So there's no such thing as a loop hole. If Trump isn't satisfied with e.g. the EU's progress towards implementing said agreement, he can increase tariffs back to where they were at his discretion, with or without reason given. So there's no such thing as a loop hole in this sort of agreement.

Just curious, how would this help with anything, other than documentation purposes?

I think there's an implicit understanding that having a written deal would be worse for Korea because the deal will bind Korea and restrict its options, while Trump is a crazy guy and can and will do anything he wants, whether he signed something or not. I.e., any written deal with Trump has negative worth.

Such is the state of global trade negotiation these days.

Agreements on paper doesn't mean anything to Trump.

Despite negotiating the USMCA with Canada and Mexico during his first term, Trump still threatened to impose tariffs on both countries.

What is the point of having an agreement like USMCA?

What is the benefit they or their people would get?

$500 billion for Stargate!

How many of Trump's investment deals from the first term panned out?

Like the president deciding exactly where business investment should be made is the definition of a government command economy (remember that "Communism" bogeyman???), which used to be the antithesis of American economic policy (at least in theory), and now we're just all like "OK, cool". It's so sickening.

And even then, a lot of its military dependants are just kidding themselves that the seps will come to their aid if required.

Its ephemeral.

History is replete with these supposed silver bullets. (See: Marinetti.) They rarely pan out that way in the long run.

And if AGI really is that level of civilisation changer, the country it's discovered in matters much less than the people it's loyal to. (If GPT or Grok become self aware and exponentially self improving, they're probably not going to give two shits about America's elected government.)

Oh and the President is advocating that businesses should stop quarterly reporting...

I think this is what Japan did initially. Announce a huge number, 500 bn I think, and then slowly trickle out the news that it will be over 10 or so years.

But that didn't sit well with trump. There was news immediately that Japan must invest the whole amount immediately to escape tariffs.

The leaders of countries have to deal with internal politics. Most People, with a capital P, do not like feeling abused and mugged, and will be angry at their leaders for acting so weak.

It seems that internal politics are winning out, at least in the moment, over the current US admins threats

Moderate podcaster Scott Galloway has recently shown up on my feed and he's had some interesting things to say about this.

His most recent suggestion was that a consumer boycott of all non-essentials could grind the administration to a halt by eroding support from the donor class. (It would also implode the economy, but not without sending a message.)

There is no hope for it to return. The West has credible evidence that the American populace are untrustworthy, uncaring, and frankly, stupid.

The only way for the US to restore credibility is to prosecute. And then survive another 100 years without doing it again.

The remaining influence it has economically and militarily should be considered to be "running on fumes."

US allies are looking for an exit strategy and aren't going to reconsider. Russia won.

I fully anticipate this to be downvoted, I don't care. You are coping if you think America can pull itself out of this.

I’ve been hearing people pray this is a one time aberration for the last 10 years. At this point, the ride seems way more likely to get bumpier than not for the next 10 years.