Trump’s Tariff Blunder Backfires Bigtime
Donald Trump rolled the dice and came up snakes-eyes. He thought he could bully China, but China called his bluff. Now he must report his failure to the American people by trying to make the biggest trade blunder in the nation’s history, look like a ‘stunning triumph of the will’. Good luck with that.
Fortunately, we have a reliable metric for determining whether Trump succeeded or failed. If China makes concessions to preserve trade with the US, then we can say that Trump ‘won’. But if Trump is forced to remove his tariffs before China agrees to resume trade, then Trump ‘lost’. So, it’s really just a matter of who blinks first.
We figure that Trump will ‘blink first’ based on the fact, that Trump ‘has no cards to play.’ China has him over a barrel and they know it. Many analysts knew this from the very beginning, but their views were drowned out by the army of anti-China scribes and pundits who think the mighty USA can crush China whenever it wants. Now they’re going to see that the world doesn’t work that way. Now they’re going to see that a poorly governed country that is $36 trillion in debt and sliding towards irreversible insolvency, doesn’t get to make the rules. This is from a piece at CNN (on Sunday):
Top US officials involved in high-level trade negotiations with China emerged from two days of talks touting “substantial progress” and appearing to confirm that a deal between the two countries had been reached, which could have massive implications for the global economy.
“I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a brief statement Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, where the talks were held, calling the negotiations “productive.”
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated that an agreement had been reached Sunday, after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping 145% tariffs on most Chinese goods last month.
“The president declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs, and we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to resolve work toward resolving that national emergency,” Greer said.
He added, “It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought.” CNN
“GREAT PROGRESS”, he says. That either means that China has accepted Trump’s unilateral tariffs or they have made important concessions. So, which is it?
We’ll know on Monday.
All we know so far, is that both sides agreed to establish a US-China trade consultation mechanism.
What does that mean?
It means the US and China agreed to a particular framework for ongoing dialogue between the two countries on issues related to trade, tariffs, export controls, and access to markets. In other words, they agreed to pick up the phone when officials from the other country call.
Don’t they do that anyway?
Yes, they do, which means the terminology was created to divert attention from the fact that China has offered no concessions and is refusing to budge until the tariffs are lifted. All of this is very bad for Trump who wants to convince his base that “tough talk” and bullyboy tactics can force rivals to bend to Uncle Sam’s will. But that clearly has not happened. This is from an article at the Global Times on Sunday:
Global attention is focused on Geneva, Switzerland, where China, US high-level economic and trade meeting has been held over the weekend….
In response to questions about the US abuse of tariffs, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu on Sunday stated at a media briefing… that the US uses tariffs as a weapon to exert maximum pressure and seek self-interest, embodying typical unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying. This approach sacrifices the legitimate interests of countries worldwide to serve US hegemonic interests. China firmly opposes the US imposition of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” and has taken forceful legal measures to resolutely counter them, CCTV News reported on Sunday.
China will firmly safeguard its development interests, uphold international fairness and justice, and maintain the international trade order. We are willing to strengthen communication and coordination with Latin American countries to jointly uphold multila
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