r/wallstreetbets • u/s1n0d3utscht3k • 1d ago

News China Imposes 34% Tariffs on All US Imports

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/china-imposes-34-tariffs-on-all-us-imports-as-retaliation

China will impose a 34% tariff on all imports from the US starting April 10, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

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u/Otakeb 23h ago

Y'all joke but that's kind of the message they've been giving about the tariffs. That we somehow have the power to effectively force these other countries to "pay" our tariffs without affecting our importers by having them lower their prices further to offset the tariff since we are such a demanding market power (while it still somehow produces a lot of tax revenue?)

Trump's Treasury Secretary yesterday implied that countries can't retaliate because we have too much market power and would win any trade war so there's no use in trying. It kind of came across as both desperate and regarded at the same time.

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u/Kythorian 22h ago edited 22h ago

Trump's Treasury Secretary yesterday implied that countries can't retaliate because we have too much market power and would win any trade war so there's no use in trying.

That can work if the U.S. was targeting just one or two countries at a time. But the U.S. does indeed need the entire rest of the world collectively more than they need us. The U.S. definitely does not have more market share than the rest of the world combined. Which is what makes starting a trade war with the entire war simultaneous especially stupid…

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u/MadManMax55 22h ago edited 18h ago

Trump got an easy "win" against a South American country (edit: Colombia) right at the beginning of his term. Then he got Canada and Mexico to agree to a few nonsense "concessions", most of which they were already doing or were purely symbolic, the first time he put tariffs on them. I guess that was enough for him to think the US is invincible and can take on the entire world all at once.

It's like if Hitler decided to invade all of Europe and Russia without any of the other Axis powers right after "conquering" Austria. Even one of history's most famous megalomaniacs wasn't that stupid.

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u/Kharon09 22h ago

Bessent is an academic who has never been told he was wrong about anything and he truly believes the US is too big to fail. I believe he is highly regarded.

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u/GrafZeppelin127 22h ago

Well, you know what they say about pride, it goeth before the fall. Arrogance, hubris, pride—these are the sins that blind. They will not see what is coming, no matter what you tell them or try to warn them.

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u/PlayfulSurprise5237 20h ago

Yep, this is what I lowkey tell people all the time. I know they won't understand though so I'm never real direct about it.

But I understand thoroughly that they are doomed to fail, because extreme greed is also blinding. Every video game developer burns down their IP when they get extraordinarily greedy. Most of them are still around and making a lot of money, but they're late into their life, it won't be long now.

You can tell they're just super short sighted. This administration might actually have some very bright people working for them, but it's not enough.

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u/GrafZeppelin127 20h ago

A true hedonist understands that the key to lasting and enduring happiness is prudent moderation, but some people just can’t help themselves. They kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

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u/dashingtomars 15h ago

 Bessent is an academic 

That's insulting to academics.

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u/Young-and-Alcoholic 18h ago

Mentally regarded

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u/WoodpeckerNo9412 21h ago

You mean retarded.

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u/LengthEmpty1333 17h ago

Okay so what is it with this word, can you say it only in specific subs or what? The last few hundred times I tried to use it it said it was deleted by reddit.

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u/theflower10 21h ago

I believe he is highly regarded.

I read that as something else. Freudian slip I guess

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u/bandy_mcwagon 15h ago

Fail is one thing, but “get poor” has happened to the US multiple times. Like 3 big ones since 2000, even. So yeah he’s a total regard

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u/TaylorMadeAccount 22h ago

Trump got an easy "win" against a South American country (I want to say Venezuela)

That was Colombia because of some deportations, not Venezuela.

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u/WashingtonQuarter 18h ago

Colombia.

Columbia is a university that Donald Trump has also extorted.

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u/MaleficentSoftware57 20h ago

well, I guess we can count our blessings for this at least

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u/Gilded-Mongoose 17h ago

that was enough for him to think the US is invincible

I just rewatched Goldeneye the other day, and every time I see "invincible" I think of popsicle guy frozen in his flex pose.

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u/DarkCloudx64 16h ago

But the Axis powers were never that dumb

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u/CigAddict 22h ago

Exactly. Like working together with the EU and other allies to cooperatively tariff China for example would be very effective. But what he’s doing is the strategy of a child.

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u/crowd79 22h ago

Im going all in myself! I want no help!

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u/CecilFieldersChoice2 21h ago

It'll be deserved if the rest of the world figures out a way to have better trade with each other. China alone has 3 times as many people as us. Add India to that and we're a speck. Trump wants to be king of his little American castle.

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u/desturel 21h ago

Which is what makes starting a trade war with the entire war simultaneous especially stupid…

See, it's not the entire world that he started a trade war with. Notice Russia isn't on the list. So we got them on our side at least. Easy win.

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u/farmerMac 22h ago

thats the trump trademark. take the regarded way to do it, double down, go bankrupt

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u/kenneth_dart 21h ago

Actually, even if US targeted one or two countries, it still doesn't work. Look at the sanctions on Russia. They have figured out ways around the dollar-based system and are surviving, albeit not very well but they are. However, I bet what they've learned thus far is that their need for the dollar isn't as strong as it was before. So now China and Europe will learn the same thing along with all of the other nations.

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u/Thewall3333 16h ago

No one wins a trade war. That's the problem with calling it a "war" with people like Donny who aren't able to understand nuance and metaphor. He hears war, realizes he can start one with his favorite shiny toy -- business! money! -- so he does, assuming he can win because he runs the biggest one.

It is not a zero sum game though. It just makes the pie smaller for everyone, because the forces of the exalted free market -- which does work pretty well if left to its nature -- are distorted to the detriment of all.

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u/Kythorian 16h ago edited 15h ago

A large economy can sometimes force trade concessions to benefit them with a trade war against a smaller economy. Ideally the tariffs are dropped at that point, and the benefit of the trade concessions can potentially outweigh the short term negatives of relatively brief tariffs. To use your analogy the pie is made smaller only briefly before it returns to the previous size, but now with the bigger pie slice getting a little bit of extra pie from the smaller pie slice. That’s what is generally considered a successful trade war. If the tariffs stay up long term, you are right that no one will benefit. But even that much is impossible when even an economy as large as the U.S. tries to start a trade war with everyone else at the same time.

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u/Thewall3333 16h ago

Exactly. He and Vance and others keep using the analogy of this being a surgery that requires some short-term pain and healing -- but surgery implies a precise, careful, targeted operation; this is a decision to cut everywhere to address a general pain that may or may not require any intervention in the first place.

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u/highlander145 22h ago

I am afraid, they have left the stupid shop

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u/sth128 20h ago

The world should just switch to Canadian dollar as the default currency and dump USD.

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u/Blaster2PP 19h ago

I'm sorry but that's stupid.

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u/mikaeelmo 18h ago

Correct. EU govs are already (as of yesterday) giving money away or favorable loans to producers to help them look for alternative markets to the US.

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u/RockmanMike 17h ago

Penguin country enters the chat.

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u/PurposeUsed7066 14h ago

I’m pretty sure a lot of Americans would be okay actually boycotting American products despite the steep cost. Those able to at-least. They’ve done a good job making sure a lot of people are to broke for that decision though.

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u/listentomenow 23h ago

I mean with that kind of stupidity can't Trump just do nothing, go golfing everyday, tell his supporters he won and did everything he said he would? I mean what are they gonna do? Question him?

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u/Yehoshua_ANA_EHYEH 22h ago

The people that bought him want techno-feudalism and he will continue working for them. He has never cared about the true believers.

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u/RobertRosenfeld 21h ago

Baby, you know technofeudalism is already here

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u/Yehoshua_ANA_EHYEH 20h ago

Oligarchy is here but company towns are coming.

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u/AssignedHaterAtBirth 17h ago

Seems much more slow and dumb than I expected -- Shadowrun?? More like Shadywalk. 😔

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u/GandalfTheUnwise 21h ago

Techno-Feudalism sounds like 90s German rave band. Love it

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u/tritisan 17h ago

Das Villains?

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u/zedemer 22h ago

It's fine. MTG's boyfriend will question/tell him how great his policy is.

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u/trevize1138 18h ago

Just like with covid. He could have won in 2020 if he just did nothing and let the experts do their thing.

But, no. Inject bleach!

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u/DaDibbel 23h ago

It's the rest of the world against the U.S. - who will win/blink first?

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u/MostlyRightSometimes 22h ago

I'm blinking like a mofo. Does that count for anything?

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u/pinkyepsilon 22h ago

No but definitely invest in some eyedrops.

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u/imunfair Autism: 31 22h ago

I would imagine Trump will, he keeps flip flopping like crazy on all these "hard" decisions. Ukraine restrictions lasted like two days, Tariffs have been repeatedly changed and postponed.

That's the only reason I'm not trading this crash, because I have no confidence he's actually going to stick with it and I don't want to sell everything just for him to change his mind and we get a 20% rally in a week from the price that I sold at. Unpredictability makes it really hard to trade in any rational way.

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u/HardlyAnyGravitas 21h ago

I know everybody here is regarded, but doesn't it make more sense to sell now and potentially miss the 'rally' (so what?), rather than hold and risk a catastrophic fall?

FOMO is a dangerous thing...

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u/imunfair Autism: 31 20h ago

Maybe if you're a day trader, I tend to set targets when I buy into a stock that I think are reasonable based on the company, not just the momentum of the short term market. And I find when I try to flip in and out of a stock to increase my number of shares I often get burned by unexpected rallies, so it's easier just to wait out the volatility.

A market crash just adds extra waiting time, so normally I'd exit and rebuy at a lower price, but as I explained the volatility in this situation is very unpredictable so it's a coin flip on whether I lose out by doing that.

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u/Traul1983 23h ago

Mexico Will Pay for the Wall 2.0.

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u/Kai_Lidan 22h ago

You know all those morons running around the internet saying "murica could totally own all of the world at the same time in a war"? This is what happens when you make one the head of your country.

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u/Otakeb 21h ago

The thing is, though, we probably COULD actually dominate the whole world in a ground war. That's basically what our military doctrine is designed around. There wouldn't be much left even discounting nukes after, but I'd still bet America would come out "on top" of the pile of rubble.

But a trade war? Lol. Lmao even.

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u/1emptyfile 19h ago

You seriously think America could force the whole world to unconditionally surrender if you were fighting a war against some 8 billion people? In 2025?

This is the kind of collective delusion that is peaking with Trump's second term, I would think. Then again, the Brits don't seem to have learned much from Brexit, so maybe this is only the beginning.

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u/Kai_Lidan 15h ago

Man, they really need to step up education and tone down patriotism in your country.

You don't even win war games.

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u/PositionBeneficial12 21h ago

America couldn’t even beat a bunch of farmers and peasants in Afghanistan. How the heck do you think it could conquer the entire world so easily?

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u/Otakeb 20h ago

Afghanistan was an attempt in nation building which almost never works.

Also there wasn't really any government to "conquer." In Afghanistan; it was mostly tribal, and little support to conquer the country. Could America have carpet bombed the entire country into nothing? Yep. Did we want to? Absolutely not.

In traditional warfare against organized enemies with no drop in support from the population at home or enlisted standing army, the US has the logistical power and technological might to fight the entire world at once and not lose. Period.

The only close competitor would be China, and until recently, they really only had the ability militarily to project power within their region of influence, and have never really been modern battle tested. We'll see if that changes as the United States destroys our soft power and opens up avenues for more Chinese military bases beyond their borders.

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u/Hinaz 21h ago

The funny thing is that in a vacuum the US can win most trade wars, with China being the only true competitor. But when you decide to take on the rest of the planet in a trade war? Yeah good luck

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u/machyume 21h ago

Has the treasury secretary considered that it might be possible for nearly all of them to retaliate at the same time?

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u/WhatDoesOneKnow 22h ago

Trump's Treasury Secretary yesterday implied that countries can't retaliate because we have too much market power

oh, this is about to change, radically

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u/jakeduckfield 22h ago

Well, we got them to pay for the wall, right? Right...?

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u/tomle4593 22h ago

“You can’t dump me, I’m dumping you” moment but geopolitically

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u/Sayakai 21h ago

I can't help but feel reminded of Brexit.

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u/mark3grp 17h ago

Yes it was like a toy version of this.

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u/Irish_Goodbye4 20h ago

they’re so dumb they think a trade deficit is a tariff. Their idiotic formula was trade deficit divided by US imports. that is NOT a tariff rate !!

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u/Legitimate_Ad_2899 20h ago

Does anyone remember his promise to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it?

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u/Skittler_On_The_Roof 20h ago

The US's buying power really is completely irreplaceable, and many countries depend on it.  They're correct there, if playing 1D checkers.  

What they're missing or ignoring is the political kudos politicians will get for sticking it to the US and enduring the pain.  To compound matters, countries now have extra vested interest to make Trump (and the US by extension) fail.  If there's 3X% tariffs on both sides between our major trading partners for the next 3 years, the Republican party and constituents are finally going to turn on him.

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u/virginia_hamilton 20h ago

Fuck when they tell him to shove it and the US economy crashes, that's when we invade someone, isn't it?

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u/Fuckthegopers 18h ago

Only fucking idiots believe that.

So, like, half of America.

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u/Jokerzrival 17h ago

And anything we can't just "force" to bend to our will we don't need. I've seen plenty of people stating that "phones, foreign cars, foreign food" are all wants not needs and we'll just to do without those things until the countries supplying those either can't survive any longer without the US economy or the businesses finally produce those things here.

They legitimately believe that anything necessary will just be made right here in the US

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u/Interesting_Pen_167 17h ago

Highly regarded, one might say.

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u/SuspiciousMaximum265 22h ago

* desperate and retarded

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u/SwePolygyny 22h ago

The US is a big market, but still only 12% of the world import market.

Which is smaller than Canada is to the US (which was described as a drop in the bucket).

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u/Soupeeee 22h ago

The things is, these tariffs are especially high. When combined with all of the other shit that Trump and his friends have started, manufacturers won't bother trying to work with US companies. They'd sooner just tell us to fuck off.

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u/benskinic 22h ago

from a pure gdp standpoint the us needs China much worse than China needs the us.

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u/rinkydinkis 20h ago

Mexico paid for a wall

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u/intelhb 20h ago

The only enforcement power left at this point is military action)

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u/totite93 20h ago

Yes it will work for small countries like Laos, Vietnam etc. You can't expect to bully China 😅

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u/Otakeb 20h ago edited 19h ago

You could bully China if that was the only country the US was bullying and we got an ally or two to join in......but we are bullying our allies as well.

We are so cooked

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u/totite93 20h ago

Well fair, if the US can rally everyone to bully China then yes. Now looks like China can rally everyone to retaliate the US 😅

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u/aiboaibo1 20h ago

Market power is not a fixed quantity. If let's say Mercedes stops making money in the US and regulations get too burdensome they simply stop selling.

All T is worried about is retaliation by trading partners.

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u/Reality-Umbulical 19h ago

That dude has sold his soul for some very young saplings for his vacation home in the desert

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u/Useful_Support_4137 19h ago

If they singled out one nation, sure. Even then the nation could pivot to other markets. But to target virtually every single nation is regarded.

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u/AutoModerator 19h ago

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u/Over-Independent4414 14h ago

Trump could have done some of that if he rallied all our allies and went hard on China. Instead, he cocked back and launched a punch right as his own nuts by attacking...Canada, of all places (and subsequently the entire world, including the Vatican).

This is the kind of regards that are really only possible when an old man with an ossified brain decides "fuck it, I like tariffs and I get off on the excitement"

We're cooked for a while. But...the midterms will loom closer and closer and the congress will be sorely tempted to take away the trade authority they gave Trump. He just bumped ratses up higher than what triggered the Great Depression.

This shit is kinda scary. I know Trump is highly regarded but this is like gathering all the regards up in a regarded army that routinely shoots itself and marches into woodchippers.

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u/Apollo4236 14h ago

Desperate and regarded is the name of my coming mixtape.

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u/Fun_Hold4859 21h ago

Just say retarded if you wanna use the fucking word, stop this self censoring bullshit, you sound like a goddamn child.

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u/Otakeb 21h ago

You apparently haven't been here long enough to know why that started. The site admins threatened to take the sub down because of the the rampant use of the work retard, dumbass. That's why everyone says regarded here most of the time, then it became a meme.

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u/RobotDinosaur1986 21h ago

The whole situation is so weird. Countries are mad we are putting tarrifs on their goods, but tarrifs are bad for our consumers not theirs. So they put tariffs on our goods to be bad for their consumers.

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u/Coloradocraze 19h ago

DT, explaining his plans for tariffs is not unlike a 13 yr old girl thinking she can do whatever she wants, with no consequences, by convincing her parents that this is what THEY want and any negative opinions they have about anything, is only because they're ignorant and don't understand.