President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[frank ryan]

Are there other ways? What do you suggest that hasn't already been tried?

Perhaps impassioned speeches.

I’ll assume you guys are A-OK with his current strategy. I think he could refine the tariffs he deploys, or he could not engage in a trade war period.

In general he could stop getting into trade wars as a default. How do you feel about his using tariffs on other countries?

[beefytee]

Are there other ways? What do you suggest that hasn't already been tried?

As was mentioned, joining the TPP and making other Asian markets more enticing than China to US importers would have been the most effective tool in making the Chinese play nice.

[falafel]

I’ll assume you guys are A-OK with his current strategy. I think he could refine the tariffs he deploys, or he could not engage in a trade war period.

In general he could stop getting into trade wars as a default. How do you feel about his using tariffs on other countries?

Bad assumption. I am not A-Ok with it, I just don't know what the alternatives are. Thanks for the response.

[creekster]

I’ll assume you guys are A-OK with his current strategy. I think he could refine the tariffs he deploys, or he could not engage in a trade war period.

In general he could stop getting into trade wars as a default. How do you feel about his using tariffs on other countries?

Refine the tariffs? What does that mean? Some tariffs are ok, just not these particular ones at this level?

As a general matter I think tariffs are a bad idea and I think they should only be used in the most extreme circumstances. I do not think that imposing tariffs on steel or aluminum products (I assume this is what you were talking about? Or are their others?) was a good idea. I also think the TPP was likely a good idea, but I doubt it would make the chinese moderate their behavior as much as these tariffs are doing. (And I realize the change in behavior might be a bad thing).

China is a special case. They tend to be very obstinate, they are extraordinarily self-interested in serving only Chinese interests and they will take a very long view. They have made a number of promises WRT open markets and imports that they have not kept. They have failed to adhere to international norms WRT intellectual property which has cost many companies billions and put chinese companies at a competitive advantage. They are a problem. While I do not like tariffs and I am not happy about the huge drop in the market, I am going to try to keep an open mind, here, to see what happens. Trump can be like a blind squirrel. Maybe his policy towards China is like the proverbial nut that he just happened to find. In any event, I do think the Chinese will be treading very carefully for the reasons I mentioned above.

[creekster]

As was mentioned, joining the TPP and making other Asian markets more enticing than China to US importers would have been the most effective tool in making the Chinese play nice.

Maybe one potentially effective tool, but I am not sure it would have moved the needle that far. These tariffs are a huge risk and are more likely to blow up in our face that they are to solve something. But having committed to them, it is worth seeing if they can extract something from them.

[LVAllen]

As was mentioned, joining the TPP and making other Asian markets more enticing than China to US importers would have been the most effective tool in making the Chinese play nice.

Joining the TPP would give the US a significant input into trade rules for those markets. Instead, we pulled out, leaving what country as the major player in that market practically dictating to the other countries? Oh right. China.

[BlueK]

Joining the TPP would give the US a significant input into trade rules for those markets. Instead, we pulled out, leaving what country as the major player in that market practically dictating to the other countries? Oh right. China.

International trade deals are automatically bad is the thing that Trump and people like Bernie Sanders can wholeheartedly agree on!

[wapiti]

Maybe one potentially effective tool, but I am not sure it would have moved the needle that far. These tariffs are a huge risk and are more likely to blow up in our face that they are to solve something. But having committed to them, it is worth seeing if they can extract something from them.

It would move the needle but very, very slowly.

[creekster]

Joining the TPP would give the US a significant input into trade rules for those markets. Instead, we pulled out, leaving what country as the major player in that market practically dictating to the other countries? Oh right. China.

Sure, and China has always been so responsive and compliant with gentle input from discussion.

And you are suggesting that other nations in the TPP (or whatever its successor is called) will now do whatever China wants without listening to the USA? It is true, of course, that as the American Century winds down the US will be less able to dictate terms to anyone about anything, but any nation on the pacific rim unwilling to consult with the USA on trade would either be crazy or China. This is particularly true when you have an unpredictable policy maker in the White House and half of the SE Asian nations are looking to the US Navy to keep the Chinese honest in the South China Sea.

I don't mean that the TPP was worthless, but I agree that it would at best be advantageous only over a long period making only small incremental changes. It would be better if we were part of it but we did not lose all influence (and likely not even much influence) by withdrawing the signature.

[BlueK]

An interesting commentary on the trade war.

"So is there any way America can combat China's currency machinations without a tariff war and the ensuing market panic? It turns out, there may be.

Right now, as we all know, Trump is relying on tariffs to carry out his trade war. The primary strategy here is to browbeat China into accepting various reforms. But thus far, China hasn't been overly inclined to cooperate, and Trump's tariff threats keep escalating: He's already imposed 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese exports to the U.S. And last week, he threatened a 10 percent tariff on another $300 billion worth, which would basically make every last dollar of Chinese exports subject to U.S. duties.

The drop in China's currency is a problem for this strategy because it largely neutralizes the pain of Trump's tariffs. The whole idea behind the tariffs is to raise the cost of Chinese exports in the domestic American market, so that Americans buy less of them. But a fall in the value of China's currency lowers the cost of those exports for Americans, thus offsetting the tariffs' effect. Indeed, the People's Bank of China explicitly said the new, lower value target was retaliation for the "unilateralism and trade protectionism measures and the imposition of increased tariffs on China." Trump promptly took to Twitter to rage about "currency manipulation."

The thing is, the Trump administration hasn't come up with any responses other than to impose even more tariffs on Chinese exports to punish drops in the renminbi. Beyond simply repeating the same strategy and hoping for a different outcome, this perpetual upward ratchet of tariffs is precisely what freaks out the markets. Tariffs disrupt specific industries with specific supply chains, invite retaliatory tariffs that do the same, and generally cause a great deal of headaches for investors.

Beyond all that, Trump's tariffs have also failed to rebalance the flow of trade between the U.S. and China — ostensibly the larger goal of the president's economic confrontation with our neighbor to the east. Our trade deficit with China has actually increased since Trump's trade war commenced.
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He goes on to point out some things the fed can do to balance back the value of the yuan vs. the dollar, such as buy up Chinese assets. That would affect the trade balance, but I'm not sure if that's really what Trump is after or not. He talks like it is sometimes, but he also talks sometimes like tariffs are end in themselves and not just a means to something. I think as he ratchets this up that he's taking a lot more risk with the economy than the thinks he is. We'll see what happens. China is unlikely to change what they do, IMO.

https://theweek.com/articles/856994/...nt-win-tariffs

[falafel]

This could go in any number of threads, but because it involves a MAGA hat, I'm putting it here.


http://www.abajournal.com/voice/arti...egal-classroom

Having had Jeffrey Omari as a professor, I have known his political leanings for almost one year. As a student in his class, I was present wearing conservative apparel, including a MAGA hat, Trump-Pence 2020 T-shirt and several related stickers on my laptop. After reading his article, I understand why I was not called on with the frequency that left-leaning students enjoyed. The article further creates a feeling of unwelcomeness from Omari toward students of different mindsets.

At my university-affiliated internship, these concerns became a reality. Less than two weeks after Omari’s article, “Seeing Red: A professor coexists with ‘MAGA’ in the classroom,” was published, I wore a T-shirt which read “#BuildTheWall” to my internship on a day when no meetings were scheduled. It had been expressed that we could wear T-shirts, and that has been the norm for my one year at this internship. I took extra precaution by bringing a light jacket to cover it up if a client came to meet with me unannounced.

While in a seminar that afternoon, I received an email from my supervising attorney asking for a meeting after I finished the class. I obliged, only to learn that another supervising attorney and faculty member (who happens to have a sign on her door reading “all are welcome here”) had expressed discontent with the message on my T-shirt. Instead of engaging in a meaningful dialogue regarding the reasons why I wear that shirt, the disgruntled faculty member put me in a position where I was at the mercy of my supervisor.

Mere days after this incident, law school faculty who direct my internship enacted a revision and began an effort to ensure compliance with the dress code to ensure that politically conservative T-shirts may not be worn. The revision added one sentence, which reads that no attire may be worn that contains any message or slogan. What was a facially neutral policy revision, when considered with the circumstantial evidence, became a clear affront to the freedom of speech of conservative students.

[myboynoah]

This is the type of lie that this lying ass-wipe tells.

Embedded Tweet

No, we have not been paid "very little" by Korea over the past years for our military presence on the pennisula. In 2018 Korea paid $830 million. The previous 10 years before that, payments were between $600 million and $800 million per year. In 2019 the dope negotiated a 1.04 trillion won contribution from Korea, which at the time was about $925,000, but due to currency exchange rate changes, has now decreased to somewhere around $860 million, not $990 million. He's a straight up liar, and a horrible negotiator. Deal artist? I think not.

[imanihonjin]

This could go in any number of threads, but because it involves a MAGA hat, I'm putting it here.


http://www.abajournal.com/voice/arti...egal-classroom

That kid (who wore the shirt) is an idiot, and professor Omari seems like a real whiner.

[frank ryan]

This is the type of lie that this lying ass-wipe tells.

Embedded Tweet

No, we have not been paid "very little" by Korea over the past years for our military presence on the pennisula. In 2018 Korea paid $830 million. The previous 10 years before that, payments were between $600 million and $800 million per year. In 2019 the dope negotiated a 1.04 trillion won contribution from Korea, which at the time was about $925,000, but due to currency exchange rate changes, has now decreased to somewhere around $860 million, not $990 million. He's a straight up liar, and a horrible negotiator. Deal artist? I think not.

He wanted to pull out of South Korea. He had to talked out of in the early days of his term. In fact, I think Kelly and others might have ignored some of Trump's orders. If we were to pull out, we'd also lose our ability to to detect NK missile launch within a few minutes. We'd fuck ourselves.

Trump is good at one thing - self-promoting and self-mythologizing. That's it. People here still buy into the trope that he's a business mastermind.

[imanihonjin]

People here still buy into the trope that he's a business mastermind.

Who thinks that?