Trump handed his head to Democrats by not understanding tariffs



JD Vance said it was Iran that beat Republicans. If Trump, however, had never made his tariff mistakes Iran may not have mattered as much. After China responded to Trump's tariffs by stopping grain purchases and price increases, prices went up. Then he bombed Iran and oil price increases were added to the increases from the tariffs. One of the mistakes without the other might have allowed him and Republicans to survive. With both, it was no chance. 

The link which highlights the harm to Republicans of Trump's tariffs was on a Christian site. It's as if Christians might be waking up to the incompetence of Trump.

Since our system gives the President most of the authority over trade it presented the opportunity Trump values most. That is to dominate each three-day news cycle. By threatening tariffs or saying he might raise tariffs news outlets followed the story. Trump used this news media trick on a new country every week or two. He cycled through China, Mexico, Canada and European countries. Now that the issue is not covered as intensely Trump is moving on. If he had just left the issue alone he and Republicans would be better off today. 

For decades I have followed Presidents' mastery of trade. I have read insider information wherever I could find it on how much or how little Presidents seemed to have understood it. Until Trump, Presidents have come to understand it reasonably well. Trump will go to his grave without a hint of understanding trade. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talarico Looks Like an Obama II

Image
We all have our ideas about what is good or smart politics. I'm no different. Those who read this blog have to hear mine. My thinking is millions of voters will go to the polls in the next two elections for the specific purpose of voting against Trump. Most of these voters, however, will not admit that is why or how they are voting. They will have convinced themselves they are voting for some reason more idealistic and loftier. An example of what they might say to themselves is, "I'm voting for a better country." The job of Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists and whomever is to give those voters something that ends the sentence, "I'm voting for someone other than a Republican because..."  The sentence will not end in "...I hate Trump." It will be something else. That is what Texas Govitorial Candidate Talarico is doing so well.   Talarico is telling Texans their state is too big and too important to yield to the narrow views of the far right. T...
Read more

Will We Ever Know How Accurate Current Bibles Are

Image
When I discuss the many times the Bible was copied and recopied by scribes over a couple of thousand years, the reply is often, "I have a book by this (or that) expert who says the Bible is 99% accurate to its original writers." The 99% claim appears in various places defending the Bible. There is one thing we know absolutely: There is no surviving original copy of the Bible. Even the oldest surviving material is a generation or two after the time some of the Bible was written. This means no one can claim he has, or ever will, compare the current Bible to the original Bible and find the two are 99% the same. We cannot claim either that it is not 99% accurate. For the sake of discussion, however, assume the current Bible is 99% accurate. That would mean the one word out of every 100 was inaccurate. It could still mean an important misreading of the original text. An example is the passage referring to punishment for a man who kills a fetus. In the oldest know materia...
Read more

Time to Forget the Christian Nation Thing

Image
While women are forbidden from being priests/preachers in some branches of Christianity thank goodness they are not forbidden from writing and lecturing about Christianity. A great article about the "Christian nation" notion shows us the U.S. is not a Christian nation and hopefully never will be. It is written by a woman with nerve and was published on a very Christian site, Christian Post.  Among the pilgrims were a few that wanted to establish a utopian Christian society. Some of their brethren stayed behind in Europe hoping the push aside worldly forces there and bring sinners to God. Today, whether it is the anti abortion, anti gay/trans, anti immigration or the put prayer back in schools branch there are those who want a version of what some pilgrims wanted, a utopian Christian society. The pilgrims were disappointed. Today's Christian utopians will be also. Here is why. The children of pilgrims did not believe the same things as their parents. Parents were roundly d...
Read more