Subject: Re: One Possible Tariff Endgame
Trump asks other countries to stick tariffs on China.

I mean, he could ask. I mean, it sounds nice, in theory and if you don't actually think about the specifics.

But it's unlikely that any of China's material trading partners would do it. Who would, especially after we just engaged in such hostile trade actions against them. You're not going to get the EU or Japan to agree to provoke China at our behest. All the ASEAN countries have a binding trade agreement with China - and unlike the U.S., they are likely to abide by their existing trade treaties rather than tear them up when inconvenient.

So who would do it? Running down the list, ASEAN wouldn't, not the EU, not Japan, not South Korea. Taiwan's the only possible contender - they're not in ASEAN and might be susceptible to pressure. But that would be a hugely complicated thing. Then we get into Russia and Australia (no to both - they didn't get hit with major tariffs). Brazil isn't going to do that - they're salivating at taking our soybean markets away from us. I can't see India being willing to get into it with China at our request, either....China's as big a trading partner for them as we are. Then we're down to the UK (no major tariffs) and Canada (hell to the no).

That's all the big ones and the medium ones - everyone else is small fry. No doubt we can force countries that are tiny (like poor Lesotho) to put some tariffs on China, but that's not much of anything.