Now the administration has to actually figure out what it is they want. Do they want to raise revenue? Do they want to near-eliminate trade deficits with countries like Vietnam? Do they want to contain China?

They want to:
1. Reinvigorate the manufacturing base of the United States, especially with regards to in-shoring critical needs.
2. Begin the de-coupling process of Western economies from China in particular, but also lessening the general dependency on the Pacific Rim.
3. Pivot the strategic focus in a "who's the biggest threat the United States faces" away from Europe and towards China

Those are his objectives.


You're going to start really reading soon about how dire shipbuilding is in this country, for example. If you pay attention to thing like the NGAD program you'll hear about how it's going to be built to fly long distances from remote bases and over the ocean -the Pacific Ocean.

They did an announcement about coal today. They're going to pursue an all-of-the-above approach with energy and open up resource extraction here.

It doesn't do to de-couple from China only to introduce another dependency elsewhere.