{"id":15459,"date":"2025-07-31T18:06:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T01:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15459"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T01:04:25","slug":"the-art-of-the-corrupt-phony-unlawful-pretend-trade-deal-bradcast-7312025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15459","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Corrupt, Phony, Unlawful, Pretend Trade Deal: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 7\/31\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_TrumpEUTradeDeal-CheatSheet_073125.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">As discussed on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, there are a few things you should know about all of these supposed <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> &#8220;trade deals&#8221; you have been hearing about in recent days, in advance of his <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/114942005076829557\">iron-clad<\/a> August 1 deadline (until he changes it again &#8212; oops, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/07\/31\/business\/trump-mexico-tariff\">too late<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/ca.finance.yahoo.com\/news\/trump-announces-90-day-negotiating-151537615.html\">too late again<\/a>)  for implementing new tariffs on imports into the U.S. from the rest of the world. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among those things&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any Trump &#8220;trade deal&#8221; that includes tariffs on another country is actually a sales TAX on <i>your<\/i> purchase of the tariffed goods from that country. The foreign nation does not pay the tariffs on those goods. <i>You<\/i> do.<\/li>\n<li>These &#8220;deals&#8221; aren&#8217;t actually trade agreements. They are frameworks, of a sort, for <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/trump-european-union-trade-agreement-tariffs#\">potential trade agreements<\/a>, at best. Trade agreements take years to sort out. At least if they are real ones, which the ones being announced by Trump may not even be. (That is true even when a foreign head of state is by his side when the &#8220;deal&#8221; is announced.)<\/li>\n<li>The frameworks announced as &#8220;deals&#8221; by Trump and the White House to date, may or may not include things that the foreign nation has actually agreed to during negotiations. Trump just makes shit up. (Last weekend&#8217;s supposed &#8220;trade deal&#8221; with the <b>European Union<\/b> &#8212; including laughable claims of promises for $750 billion in energy purchases and $600 billion in unspecified &#8220;investments&#8221; &#8212; provides <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/my-europe\/2025\/07\/29\/eu-and-us-spin-conflicting-versions-of-trade-deal\">just one great example<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li>All of these corrupt &#8220;deals&#8221;, or lack thereof, that include new sales taxes on goods from other nations, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/americas\/trumps-brazil-trade-squeeze-gives-tariff-challengers-fresh-legal-ammunition-2025-07-30\/\">may ultimately be found unlawful<\/a> if only because Trump may not have the statutory authority as President to unilaterally issue tariffs of this sort. (Though you&#8217;ll be paying them anyway, as the courts work that out.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is more. Lots more. Tune in for it. <\/p>\n<p>Also today&#8230;as <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15449\">discussed last week<\/a> with gerrymandering expert and author Dave Daley, <b>Texas<\/b> Republicans are now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/07\/30\/politics\/texas-redistricting-republicans?cid=ios_app\">officially moving ahead<\/a> with their sleazy undemocratic scheme to create a new U.S. House map for the state in the middle of the decade. The newly proposed map in the GOP-controlled state legislature would wipe out Democratic districts on their already-gerrymandered map in hopes of stealing as many as five new seats for Republicans in next year&#8217;s midterm elections. Dems plan legal challenges in Texas, and continue to ponder whether or not they should do the same sleazy, anti-democratic thing to Republican-held districts in states that Dems control.  (I argue, regrettably, that they should. Immediately.)<\/p>\n<p>Finally&#8230;Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15458\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> as the corrupted Trump <b>EPA<\/b> makes a landmark move to kill its own legal authority to regulate planet heating greenhouse gasses while the unspeakable financial cost of ongoing climate change destruction continues to soar&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-TrumpTradeWarsExplained-GerrymanderTX_0731225.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As discussed on today&#8217;s BradCast, there are a few things you should know about all of these supposed Donald Trump &#8220;trade deals&#8221; you have been hearing about in recent days, in advance of his iron-clad August 1 deadline (until he changes it again &#8212; oops, too late, and too late again) for implementing new tariffs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,675,1249,543,299,479,390,2053,451,841,548,1110,613,477,1779,300,959,47,1124,991],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-brazil","category-climate-change","category-democrats","category-donald-trump","category-economy","category-election-2026","category-epa","category-eu","category-extreme-weather","category-gerrymandering","category-irs","category-kpfk","category-lee-zeldin","category-republicans","category-south-korea","category-texas","category-trade","category-vietnam","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15459"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}