U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday his tariff policy was aimed at promoting the domestic manufacturing of tanks and technology products, not sneakers and T-shirts.

Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey, Trump said he agreed with comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on April 29 that the U.S. does not necessarily need a “booming textile industry” - comments that drew criticism from the National Council of Textile Organizations.

“We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts. We want to make military equipment. We want to make big things. We want to make, do the AI thing,” Trump said.

“I’m not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest. I’m not looking to make socks. We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things, and tanks and ships,” Trump said.

  • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Who you gonna sell tanks and ships to when no one trusts you to shut it off if you’ve filled your diaper?

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      No one. They’re not planning to sell them, they’re planning to use them.

      Nazi Germany made a lot of tanks too, and they weren’t exactly looking to be the world’s arms dealer.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Trump and his accomplices never wanted to improve the economy.

          Enriching themselves and stroking their fragile egos while taking away the rights and often lives of groups of people they don’t like is all they ever wanted.

          Unchecked corruption, cruelty, and subjugation, that’s what it’s all about.

  • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    So why are there tariffs on clothes? Why have you shown the US to be an unreliable military partner and spurred other countries to invest in their own domestic (or semi-domestic in case of EU partnerships) arms industry?

  • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Then why the fuck did he put tariffs on the t-shirts? What a fucking dumbass. How is this country so full of stupid that this man was elected twice?!?

    • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I couldn’t possibly tell you where it started, or every factor, but in the 90s there was a BIG push, in the msm, to have “both sides” opinions on everything. This was pushed by everyone, but championed by Fox. This is when I started to see people with brain dead takes, being taken as seriously, on msm, as people who have been working/studying the topic for decades. I always associated the start of this bullshit with this movement. This is where I first really started to see the “my ignorant opinion is as legitimate as your professional expertise” garbage being mainstreamed.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    So if you put crazy tariffs on clothing and don’t want to have clothing made in the US, do you expect people to run around naked on the long run?

  • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I love confident people explaining how a supply chain works in an advanced economy, especially when they have no clue how any of this stuff is made.

    • crozilla@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I remember seeing a lot of new tanks sitting unused and unwanted in some flyover state. The governor kept people making tanks because it would’ve killed jobs in his state.

  • wiLD0@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Does the US import military hardware? I thought it was one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world.

    I do know it doesn’t produce as much steel as other countries these days.

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Western MIC is a collaborative effort, though the US has enough sway to either demand that American companies get the licenses to make foreign weapons, or for foreign companies to open factories (if not whole subsidiary companies) in the US. More for strategic reasons than economic ones.

      The main gun on the Abrams tank is a German Rheinmetall design. The AT4 rocket we use is Swedish. We buy a lot of H&K (Germany) and FN (Belgium) small arms, in fact the latter is the main supplier of the M4 these days.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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    1 month ago

    “Bro we need just one more Abrams I promise” -> Not something US generals say as far I know.

  • Flemmy@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    If Baby Trump wants to make more big military things and ships why not invest in natural disaster response equipment the whole fire department and make modular frames that can be multipurposed… We really need more climate protection.