Trump's "trade war"

President Trump has spent the past 24 hours tweeting manically about trade, repeating the absurd falsehood that China is paying us billions in tariffs. We keep hearing that this shows Trump “doesn’t understand” how tariffs work.

But this is better seen as a straight-up, deliberate lie — a lie upon which Trump is staking his reelection.

  WaPo

That 24 hours was yesterday. He's been at it this morning as well.
















Such a large amount of bullshit in such a small period of time.

If this does continue, Trump’s lie about China paying us billions in tariffs will become ever more imperative for him.

[...]

[I]t’s becoming central to the political strategy he’ll employ if we see protracted trade hostilities.

Trump’s trade war has put him in a jam. Revamping trade with China was a central campaign promise. But if Trump agrees to a deal that does not win real concessions, that will reveal his agenda of “toughness” as hollow — particularly if those concessions do not appear worth the pain that the tariff wars have already imposed on farmers, in the very region that’s crucial to his reelectionSo the New York Times reports that Trump is now hoping to flip the political calculus: No deal, followed by still more tariffs, will allow Trump to proclaim he’s still being tough on China. Incredibly, the Times reports that Trump apparently believes this will be a political winner even if increased tariffs impose still more economic pain..

His deal making skills are showing.

The new, convoluted story he’s telling is basically that the money we “take” from China in tariffs will be given to farmers in exchange for their products, which we will then export to other countries that need them.

It’s unclear how this would work. But Trump is set to approve another round of financial aid to farmers hit by his trade war. Basically, the claim will be that continued tariffs are a good thing: Trump is in effect taking money from China and giving it to his voters.

I'm not sure they're seeing it that way

The GOP is starting to give up on thwarting President Donald Trump’s trade agenda

[...]

As the stock market tanked on Monday following the escalating conflict with China, Republicans lamented the state of affairs. But after trying, unsuccessfully, to get the president to remove his year-old tariffs on U.S. allies, there’s little appetite for opening a new front with Trump when it comes to China.

[...]

Senate Republicans acknowledge that the president’s latest tariff increase on Chinese imports are harming farm state economies, their own constituents and some of Trump’s most reliable voters. But there’s no plan to stop, or even threaten, the president’s tariff regime — just the latest example of Trump imposing his protectionist will on a party that once celebrated free trade.

[...]

So the GOP on Monday stuck to the same message: The tariffs are bad, but at least this time, Trump is taking on China — and not on Canada or Mexico.

“They can feel it. The farm community up ‘til now has really supported the president without flinching. But eventually you flinch,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the No. 4 GOP leader whose state is a major soybean producer. Yet he concluded: “If you’re going to have a trade fight, the trade fight to have would be the China fight.”

  Politico

Why?

Farmers are “disappointed but, you know, recognizing that China is the one that is forcing this,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

[...]

Trump showed little regard for the GOP’s worries on Monday as he advised Americans to avoid buying products made in China to avoid the tariffs then later bragged that the tariffs are taking in billions of dollars — ignoring that consumers pay those fees, not China.

“I love the position we’re in,” he said. “It’s working out really well.”

For whom?

Republicans would disagree but apparently have no will to challenge the president over the matter.

[...]

"The retaliatory tariffs will have a significant consequence to Kansans,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). He said the Senate can only do so much besides make their case to the White House: “Really this authority rests in the president.”

[...]

Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley has vowed to block the president’s new North American trade deal as long as steel and aluminum tariffs remain on Mexico and Canada, but Trump has ignored his ultimatum. On Monday, Grassley admitted that Congress has ceded too much power to the White House on trade, but the Iowa Republican declined to say whether his committee would do anything about it.

Let's take a guess.

He offered the gentlest of guidance to Trump, urging him to work with allies on the China fight, and ordered China “to get real.”

Both ridiculous wastes of breath.

A number of Republicans are up for reelection and sweating potential primary challenges if they cross Trump.

Instead, Republicans seem to be relying on Trump’s conservative base in agricultural states to deliver the president a message.

The Patriot Farmers that are going to do so well because of Trump's trade war?

South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said, “It’s up to the producers.”

“They can’t produce soybeans and actually make a profit today. Five years in a row, farmers’ prices are down 50 percent since 2013. This is a very serious thing, and these are the president’s people. They want him to be successful. But there’s a limit to how long they can hang in there,” Rounds said.

[...]

Still, many Republicans are once again worried about economic headwinds, and the stock market is looking shaky. Rural America, where Trump is popular, could be headed for ruin.

Rural America voted for it.

But after complaining about Trump’s trade policies for more than two years, the only thing new in the GOP is a sense of resignation and a sense that confrontational stances toward Trump in the past have not paid off.

Maybe they ought to look at their Senate leader.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell squelched an effort last Congress to give lawmakers the power to block Trump’s national security-based tariffs, and two of the most fervent backers of that effort, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, have retired.

Enjoy!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



It's a game!

Also:  senior aides told one reporter that Trump actually does belief China pays the tariffs.