| You're being downvoted because you're repeating trivially disproven, clear nonsense... which is unfortunately the official position of the whitehouse. > "I don't care how your trade barriers work - currency manipulation, tariffs, excess regulation, unequal rules - just fix your sh*t to reduce the trade imbalance." Except that that is NOT what is going on. Trump has been screaming something to this effect for weeks, but when it comes to actually negotiating something he tells world leaders that the tariffs are there to stay! He just did this with the Japanese PM, mere days ago. Not to mention that many countries have actual, effective tariffs or "trade barriers" on the order of 1% with the US, which means that he can't possible negotiate anything that will improve things more than that. Trump has no actual strategy. He can't possibly, because his stated list of goals are mutually incompatible. He also wants to eliminate income tax and pay for this with tariffs! He can't do that and return tariffs to 0% after countries capitulate. He also keeps talking about bringing manufacturing back to the US (note that it never left, it just got more high-tech), but he's tariffing industrial machinery and robots imported from Germany! This "policy" makes about as much sense as a first-year student's homework essay thrown together the night before it is due. Anyone engaging in good faith debates is missing the point entirely. There is nothing of substance to engage with, as multiple world leaders are discovered. PS: Trump apparently made 200 deals, more than the number of countries in the world, then 17, and now just 1 with the UK, where he reduced tariffs from 1% to 0.8%. Wooo! Winning! |