Subject: Re: I must need to drink more Kool-aid
Where does it say that we have to only negotiate with the EU a as a bloc? Why would we do that?

Because that's how trade policy with the EU works. It's not just a club or friendly group of countries - it's an actual common market, which has formally integrated a lot of their economic and finance and trade functions into the EU. Were you not aware? Meloni - and Italy - can't cut their own deals with the U.S.

https://policy.trade.ec.europa...

And...so what? I could give a rip about the Administration's survival.

Perhaps, but if the Administration doesn't survive, then their tariff and trade policy doesn't survive. China, the EU, Mexico and Canada don't have to outlast the United States' survival as a country - they just have to outlast Trump's ability to pursue this particular trade strategy. So if the domestic pressure on the Administration to make the shortages and price increases go away gets untenable for the Administration to resist any more, then those other countries will have "won" the trade war.

So they're going to certainly wait and see if Trump can hold his position once the tariff impact starts leading to bare shelves, higher prices, and lots of layoffs. That, combined with the limits on strategically important exports (like the rare earth metals) will impose a lot of pain on the U.S. very soon. And if that doesn't work, they'll just wait until we get into the X-mas season and all the stuff that's normally part of Black Friday (like toys and electronics and such) are now super expensive or not available.

Xi keeps his throne because those 20M or more factory workers are churning out stuff. What happens when they're not?

Nothing in the short run, meaning in a year or two. About 15% of Chinese exports go to the United States, so there would certainly be some pain and layoff for those workers. But the Chinese government can solve that problem with money. I mean, they'll mitigate some of that by trying to redirect the exports to other countries (who might be happy to get some low-cost stuff for their own consumers) - but what can't be mitigated can be cured with money. Give the laid off workers a generous stipend to carry them through the downturn. It's easy for them to that because this is all the result of the U.S.'s actions. We're the ones who decided to completely upend the global trade environment in an instant, not Xi. This will be a "rally 'round the flag" moment for China, and the government will be well-positioned to exploit that.

If anything, this might make Xi more secure on his throne. Trump's going to have a hard time blaming Biden for shortages and higher prices and a decline in the stock market - but Xi is going to have a really easy time blaming Trump for his country's economic woes, even the ones that were pre-existing, now that Trump has taken these steps.