So… Trump is a ignorant jackass and politically incompetent… what else is new?
garsh, I’d believe it all if he had his MAGA hats made in the south, or Ivanka had her stuff made their to revive their textile industry - republican bait and switch
Both developments offered fresh evidence of how Trump has made trade policy the connective tissue that ties together different elements of his “America First” foreign policy and syncs up them with his political strategy for the 2020 presidential election.
Worst fucking AP paragraph ever. today. Connective tissue? Are you kidding? That’s some lobotomized writing there. McClatchy anyone? Please?
The one thing that I can clearly see from the state I am from, is that trumps trade war has only made Russia more money. Soybeans, Russian has now increased their production 8%. Oil, what the fuck was that about anyway, has raised significantly with a major bump just before summer on a glut. Who benefits from that? Russia again. While the article is a very good one, what has been left out is who benefits from the trump foreign policy, it sure is not America.
Well, again, key elements of the story are missing. Specifically, they are that Trump is an ignorant and antagonistic buffoon, that he’s stupid and crazy, and what he’s doing is nuts. These are not value judgments. These are facts. If you don’t include them you fail to describe the situation accurately and you mislead the public. But AP is the most hidebound of any news organization and there’s no accommodation in their practices for a president who’s a crazy idiot. They just don’t have the tools to convey that. They’re like Amish journalists, they have their way and they won’t deviate from it, and the passing centuries cannot make them think otherwise.
“Trade, the sinews of the international body, are strong and healthy when supported by equitable practices agreed upon by treaty. These can turn to gristle when the workers must gnaw the bones of the slain unions tossed from their overlord’s tables.”
or
“dealings and wheelings among the monetary elite can fan the embers of an echo chamber for the big pitch to global dominance by a few. The middle class will strike out on the football field since it isn’t leveled by the steamshovels of political action technogarble.”
“The president of the united states has been accused of portraying a person with mental health issues that are one standard deviation from the norm. The perception that there is also a deficiency of cognitive function has been leveled at past presidents by their detractors. Many presidents in the past have had charges of corruption laid against them.”
Okay, AP. So what trade wars have we won so far? How are his blue collar supporters faring since his election? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Your style mistress is smiling.
A flaming bag of shit by any other name…
would that she would vouchsafe me the facelift I have been fervently praying for
The work that previous Administrations and Congress implemented is dismissed as “stupid” by drama queenie I-1. This from a dude who had to keep a lawyer on retainer for when he f’ed up f’ing.
Yeah “…and syncs up them with his political strategy…” is a dumpster fire of a phrase too.
Nonetheless, the writer is correct that Trump sees mixing trade policy and foreign policy as good 2020 re-election politics for him…and for the most part Trump is probably right about that – as long as he doesn’t get us into an all-out trade war that crashes the economy.
As long as the economy keeps chugging along overall, his bull-in-the-china-shop style on trade probably isn’t hurting him politically, and may well be helping him with the kind of voters who supported him in 2016 precisely because they wanted someone who wasn’t afraid to “shake things up.”
Assumes a level of coherent thought I have not witnessed.
I fervently hope Trump is defeated in 2020, and I think there’s a very strong chance that he will be, but unless something changes drastically I doubt his defeat will be due to his use of tariffs, his rhetorical attacks on our trading partners, the NAFTA brinksmanship, etc. Because, at least so far, none of that has wrecked the economy. So while the Trumpian Trade Tirades may be causing some nausea and disorientation among GOP free traders who are suffering from severe trade policy whiplash, it’s mostly political upside for Trump as he poses as Working Class Hero by “shaking things up” on trade.
In this context we need to remember that by pulling out of the TPP and denouncing NAFTA and similar trade deals as bad for American workers and insisting on renegotiating them, Trump has embraced / co-opted key aspects of the “fair trade” agenda that organized labor has been pushing for many years – and we need to remember that for all those years these concerns were not really being addressed by either party, which left room for this issue to be embraced and exploited by an unconventional candidate (and yeah, I’m as surprised as everyone else that it turned out to be Donald Fucking Trump).
My point is, when Trump says “these Free Trade deals have hurt American workers and it’s time we did something about that” he’s picking up a narrative that’s been widespread for many years – in no small part because it’s a narrative that’s been actively promoted by organized labor for decades.
And it’s a narrative that’s been actively promoted by organized labor because it’s a narrative that contains some significant kernels of truth. Namely that “free” trade between countries like the US and trading partners with much lower wages, less pollution control, etc., isn’t a level playing field, it’s a tilted playing field . The fundamental failure of both parties to come to grips with this problem is part of why we ended up with Trump.
Now Trump’s erratic blundering-about may end up setting off the kind of full scale trade war that crashes the economy – or at least causes it to slump noticeably. In which case his trade antics might become a net negative for him, electorally. But our trade partners have a very strong incentive to try not to let things escalate into an all-out trade war (they don’t want their economies to crash either). So as long as the chaos remains below a certain level, it’s quite conceivable that it remains more like a series of high-profile trade skirmishes, rather than an all-out trade war. And in that scenario, Trump probably does benefit electorally by fulfilling his promises to dump the TPP, revamp NAFTA, demand “better deals” from various trading partners, etc.
Yeah I think with Trump it’s more akin to a shark smelling blood in the water. He instinctually sensed a weakness and an opportunity on the issue of trade, and moved in.
I took it as …
donnie has thrown everything into the same basket …
because he does complications so well —
I think it’s more like —
When someone wants something of me …
and they hold me at gunpoint to get it …
Such a great way to make friends —
Sure he does because he’s a fucking idiot who has no idea what trade is really about - it’s in large part about avoiding wars.