Outskirts of Shrewd'm / Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
No. of Recommendations: 16
Trump Has No China Trade Strategy
Washington and Beijing stage a tactical retreat that shows China’s leverage. President Trump on Wednesday hailed the result of the latest trade talks with China as a great victory, but the best we can say is that it’s a truce that tilts in China’s direction.
Details are few, but the countries appear to be resetting their trade relationship to where it was a few months ago before a tit-for-tat escalation. Mr. Trump had agreed to reduce tariffs on China to 30% (55% including those he imposed during his first term) from 145% while China dropped its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10% from 125%.
But Beijing continued to leverage its stranglehold on rare-earth minerals … While they don’t use the acronym in the editorial, the smell of TACOs seems to permeate the air.
Developing an alternative supply will take years and require cooperation with allies because the U.S. can’t produce and process all the rare earths it needs. Japan has pitched a rare-earths alliance as part of tariff negotiations, and the Administration would be wise to expand such a partnership with other allies.
This gets to the larger problem with Mr. Trump’s tariff strategy—that is, he doesn’t have one. His latest walk-back shows he can’t bully China as he tried to do in his first term. China has leverage of its own.
A smarter trade strategy would be to work with allies as a united front to counter China’s predatory trade practices. Instead, Mr. Trump has used tariffs as an economic scatter-gun against friends as well as foes. This increases China’s leverage, and, like this week’s trade truce, that’s nothing to cheer about. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-trade-talks-dona...For the record, this is not an opinion piece by some writer they found, it is today’s lead editorial from the Journal’s Editorial Board.
No. of Recommendations: 9
"his gets to the larger problem with Mr. Trump’s tariff strategy—that is, he doesn’t have one. His latest walk-back shows he can’t bully China as he tried to do in his first term."
The book Lucky Loser details Trump's business career. Reneging on contracts ( and declaring
bankruptcy ) was his main business "strategy". Trump tried all kinds of cockamamie schemes, and
he would walk away from any debt without hesitation, leaving the lenders holding the bag.
The book Commander In Cheat detailed Trump's ceaseless cheating on the golf course, but the author
also talked about a time he visited Mara Lago. He noticed a long line of people waiting to have an individual word with Trump. These were worker-class folks, and it turned out that they were meeting with Trump to try and get him to pay something, anything, on the money he owed them for the work they had performed for him. They walked out with pennies on the dollar, relative to the agreed upon rate.
So yeah, as simple minded as it sounds, Trump really does think he can just bully foreign Countries into bending over to anything he wants. I mean, it's worked for him all of his life,lol.
And then there is the matter of Trump does not honor contracts that he signs. That includes trade pacts that he initiates ( see USMCA ). Why would any Country put any faith in any agreement
with Trump ??
No. of Recommendations: 19
And then there is the matter of Trump does not honor contracts that he signs. That includes trade pacts that he initiates ( see USMCA ). Why would any Country put any faith in any agreement with Trump ??
It is perhaps a larger problem than that.
Why would any country put any faith in a country that will from time to time have a leader that breaks existing agreements?
i.e., it's not a problem that fully goes away nor the next time a level-headed leadership is in place. Anything that has happened once has been proven to be possible, and sensible people plan based on the range of the possible.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 4
"i.e., it's not a problem that fully goes away nor the next time a level-headed leadership is in place. Anything that has happened once has been proven to be possible, and sensible people plan based on the range of the possible"
I live in USA, so I'm stuck with this, but I cannot dispute your point. I don't trust us ( USA), and really can't see why anyone from a different nation would. Vance is Trump jr, so even if the lardo from maralago meets his demise, nothing changes. And the only way for a change in direction is for Americans to feel some real hardship, and be able to determine what is causing it, because it is a certainty that Fox News and their ilk will be hitting the brainwashing hard, ie it's still all Biden's fault.
Some scary things are happening, hopefully Americans will wake up.
No. of Recommendations: 0
it's not a problem that fully goes away nor the next time a level-headed leadership is in place. Anything that has happened once has been proven to be possible, and sensible people plan based on the range of the possible.
Virtually anything is possible in a world emergent within exponentially expanding potential. (Or is emergence more properly referred to as 'infinite'?)
Perhaps a more practicable admonition would be: "Sensible people plan based on what's probable." Absolutes can impede effective decision-making.
Tom
No. of Recommendations: 0
To the Journal's credit, they have been all over Trump from March on about this stupidity. This is just the latest, but important, criticism of the idiocy. What's the opposite of "Mush from the Wimp"? "Sound and Fury from the Blowhard"?
With hope, but not faith, that a few of the billionaire sycophants around him figure out an actual strategy for him - the 101 outlined for him right in that piece - that he can co-opt and take credit for.
FC
