[wavefunction]

It is overdue but it's being prosecuted under a flawed understanding of almost all aspects of the situation and inane and unfocused policy. You tackle China first while building an economic coalition of interests with shared goals. A sane and competent person would focus on one task at a time and not undercut the strategic interests required to achieve that task, achieving perhaps effectively nothing.

[Wowfunhappy]

I agree. I don't think I actually have an issue with the trade war, but I have lots wrong with how the current administration is going about it, and I don't have any faith in their ability to extract a positive outcome from China.

[inflatableDodo]

Reminds me of the Bill Hicks joke about being 'for the war, but against the troops'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_whePVoqOY

[gscott]

China says it is their national right to hack and copy... No US President sane or not will be able to overcome that.

[jimclegg]

Its major competitors spent 2 centuries actively attacking & sabotaging it (a fact that the US population doesn't seem aware of), seems fair.

[gscott]

There must be a difference between stealing the formula to gun powder vs. downloading the software and engineering for a F-35 plane.

[jdhn]

This is my biggest complaint with Trump's tactics as well. If he didn't view EVERYTHING as a zero sum game, he and whatever coalition he could assemble would be much more credible when it comes to tariffs and threats. It's a shame that TPP wasn't passed because it would've really helped here.

[inflatableDodo]

>If he didn't view EVERYTHING as a zero sum game, he and whatever coalition he could assemble would be much more credible when it comes to tariffs and threats.

Thank fuck he does, quite frankly. We all dodged a bullet there.

[threeseed]

This isn't a children's playground.

There could've been a targeted dispute over IP. But instead what has happened is that a range of tariffs are involved which has resulted in Trump just giving $16 billion to farmers. Some of whom are now planting crops with no intention to sell but purely to get money from the US government.

[jonhendry18]

In fact, borrowing $16 billion from China to give it to farmers hurt by tariffs against China.

[ebog]

Maybe I don't get your point but a tariff is a tax, and US consumers pay for a lot of that tax. So this is effectively a super inefficient redistribution of wealth to farmers from everyone else in the country.

[jonhendry18]

That's all true. But the tariffs China places on US agricultural products aren't a tax on US consumers, and don't produce revenue for the US.

So American farmers are losing export sales due to Chinese tariffs, the sting of which Trump is trying to reduce by paying the farmers. Those payments probably aren't funded by tariff revenue collected by the US. So they'll probably be paid for through borrowing. Which may mean borrowing from China.

[RhodesianHunter]

Most of our borrowing we do from ourselves, so technically only some fraction of that came from China.

But yeah, your point is still a good one.

[inflatableDodo]

Out of interest, could you share the context for why you chose your username?

[vokep]

How would TPP have helped?

[jonhendry18]

The whole point of TPP was to strengthen trade links between Asia/Pacific nations except China. Which would have helped strengthen TPP member defenses against trade moves by China.

[jimclegg]

Good luck isolating China from its Asian neighbors, I expect that plan will backfire spectacularly.

[jonhendry18]

Well, everyone else involved in drafting the TPP is still in it. So China's Asian neighbors must see some value in it. Only the US dropped out.

[ebog]

Having a multinational agreement between several economies that the Chinese economy is hugely dependent on would have been a great trade chip for getting China on board with Western IP laws. That was the whole point of the deal in the first place.

[abtinf]

I read your comment once thinking it said something, but I couldn't remember what. So then I read it again, and again, then suddenly realized you didn't actually say anything at all. You could replace the single word "China" with just about anything and it would carry the same semantic weight.

> It is overdue but it's being prosecuted under a flawed understanding of almost all aspects of the situation and inane and unfocused policy.

What is the understanding, who understands it, and why is their understanding flawed? What is the policy? Why is the policy inane and unfocused? What is the correct understanding and what would be the substantive and focused policy?

> You tackle China first while building an economic coalition of interests with shared goals.

Which aspect of China should be tackled--just IP or something else? Who should be part of the coalition? Or do you mean with other nations? Which goals are shared? Why are those the goals? How are those goals different from the goals held by those who have a flawed understanding, or do they share the same goals?

> A sane and competent person would focus on one task at a time and not undercut the strategic interests required to achieve that task, achieving perhaps effectively nothing.

Who is insane and incompetent person to which you seek to draw a contrast? What is it about their position that leads to the evaluation they are mentally deranged or incompetent? What are the multiple tasks they are focused on? Which one particular task should they focus on? Why is it necessary to focus on one task? Are they the correct tasks? What are the strategic interests? Who holds those strategic interests? Are they they the correct strategic interests? Why are they undercutting those strategic interests? How do those strategy-level issues affect the implementation-level tasks? What would be achieved if their tasks and strategies were aligned?

[RhodesianHunter]

Just because the comment assumes a great deal of contextual knowledge does not mean that it "says nothing". Your response on the other hand...

Answering all of your posed questions would take quite a bit of typing and is probably better suited to a blog post, of which I'm sure there are many you could Google.

I'm not sure why you bothered to respond?

[kryogen1c]

As someone who is often guilty of making vague statements, I appreciate this comment.