Start Hedging (Trade War)

[Kane]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/bus ... 3556b54d1d

The Trump administration leveled new tariffs on Chinese goods worth up to $50 billion in total. This is on top of the aluminum/steel tariffs and the subsequent retaliation by China on $3 billion worth of US goods. We export approx $140 billion worth of goods to China every year so this...could be pretty bad. Depends on what China does in reaction - they have communicated that they will respond in kind in a rapid fashion. So don't be surprised if a new round is released tonight that nearly cuts US exports to China by close to a third.

This is probably the dumbest thing Trump could do to his standing several months before the primary...but he's also always been consistent on this issue. Trump has always thought of protectionism - his interviews from the 80's and 90's show the same thing. So it's not surprising on those grounds but wow...nobody can control him right now.

I think a more prudent move would've been to cooperate with our European peers - formalize a free trade agreement with them, formalize the TPP, and then work within those groups to create a huge consumerist bloc that acts as a stalwart against Chinese abuses re intellectual properties and dumping. What say you all?

[Saz]

lol you really don't get it do you. The Europeans are welcome to slap their own tariffs on Chinese products, that's how you act stalwart against Chinese abuses.

[Kane]

[Saz]

[Kane]

[Saz]

[ToddStarnes]

I agree with 70% of that. But the (possibly) forthcoming North Korea-U.S. summit is a big win for Kim Jong-un, not Trump. Kim and his pops have obviously wanted a seat at the big boy table for a very long time.

Apparently Trump didn't know this and thought he had to jump on the offer of a meeting quickly before Kim changed his mind (which is why his administration was so caught off guard).

[Spider]

I agree with the underlying ideas, but I think it's completely wrongheaded and naive to presume that trump has any conception of any of it. It's pretty well established that he isn't thinking about any of this at all. He impulsively flails around, and pivots back and forth wildly depending on who he's talking to or who he talked to last. Saz...you are giving him waaay to much credit. There's no plan, there's no strategy. The macroeconomic situation with Europe, the WTO, NATO, etc etc? You really think trump of all people has a clue at all about any of that? All of this is simply whatever he thinks is populist enough that he can score votes with it later. That's all. There truly is a completely disconnected ignoramus calling shots. I'm not just saying this to disparage trump. He truly doesn't give a f**k about any of this, at least not beyond whatever light he can cast himself in for the corn-fed wide loads that vote for him. It's all just 2020.

[ToddStarnes]

[Kane]