Trump's trade war with China

A very interesting thing is happening on Wall Street.

Investor's Business Daily writes, "Dow Jones futures reversed big overnight losses, turning sharply higher Monday morning, after President Donald Trump said Beijing requested new China trade talks, in the latest abrupt shift in a China trade war that has been escalating. Beijing didn't confirm that positive turn however.

"Following Friday's big stock market declines, Trump had hiked China tariff rates late Friday."

After over 10,000 lies, after Trump imposed more harsh tariffs on China late Friday after the markets closed, after Trump's on again off again threats including the order for American businesses to leave China, Wall Street believes Trump.

After causing over a 600 point plunge on Friday, evidently all Trump has to do is say something positive and the markets will leap at the chance to improve matters. I would suppose this is because Wall Street is largely Republican, and they desperately want to believe the Republican President. Anyway, all of this is very strange.

This is just an observation. I am a Republican and an investor, and I don't care to see huge losses in the stock market. I certainly don't care to see a recession.

The problem is, Trump does not share my viewpoint. See post 196.

 

Sorry Sandy, President Trump does not need your approval before making a decision.

 

That's not what I said. Sorry but are you sure you can understand English?
I said trade deficit is the difference between imports and exports. Then I said that the trade deficit creates unemployment and generates budget deficit. Then I said the budget deficit generates public debt.
In fewer words, the trade deficit translates into unemployment and budget deficit, which translates into public debt.

I'm not talking strictly about the trade deficit between USA and China. This is not the problem. The problem is that the USA has an immense trade deficit with the rest of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_balance_of_trade#Impacts - The notion that bilateral trade deficits are bad in and of themselves is overwhelmingly rejected by trade experts and economists.
Indeed, the bilateral trade deficits are not the problem. The problem is the overall trade deficit of the country.
In order to cut your trade deficit, you have to cut your imports and you have to start with the countries which you are importing the most from. That means you have to cut the imports from China, EU, Mexico, Japan etc. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_the_United_States
This is not a problem about your trade with China. This is about your trade with the rest of the world.

The punctual, bilateral trade is not a zero-sum game.
But the overall trade of an entity is a zero-sum game. You can only spend more than what you produce if you make debts. Only by making debts you can pay for your oversized consumption. So it is a zero-sum game: you cover your trade deficit with your debt.

Once again, the problem is the overall trade deficit, not about the specific trade deficit with a single country.
Just like the USA, my problem is not the trade deficit with a specific company or a specific trade partner, as long as I produce enough in order to be able to buy stuff.
The problem exists when I produce very little (say $500 per month) but I consume a lot more (say $1,000 per month) and I keep making more debt in order to maintain that unsustainable spending for a long while.
One day that enormous debt will crush on top of me and I will have to live in poverty in order to pay my debt. Say for example I will have to pay $200 every month for the next 20 years, in order to pay that debt.
As you can see, the overall trade of any entity (either a person or a country) is a zero-sum game.
The yearly USA trade deficit is close to one trillion dollars ($0.8 trillion in 2017). The public debt of the country is increased very fast, it already reached a staggering $22 trillion, and you are not going to stop that increase anytime soon. Because you (the anti-trumpists) are so fanatically convinced that you have to support all those cretin politicians who are doing their best to increase the debt. You got the "CNN logic" and their culture of hate that convinces you to support the politicians who are only interested to get in power in order to fill their pockets. They convinced you that you are vastly superior to the people who are starting to ask themselves questions.

I perfectly understand this, and yes you are right about this particular topic. Yet the problem is that your point is meaningless in this debate about the overall trade deficit.
When you want to reduce your imports, you start with your biggest partners, like China and Mexico. You don't start with Nauru, where your two-way trade in 2005 was US$1.6 million.
And you have to do this in order to reduce your overall trade deficit, not for reducing the trade deficit between USA and China.

Once again, this is not about the trade deficit with one single country. The problem and the issue is the USA trade deficit with the rest of the world.

And it's increasing unemployment. And the budget deficit.
It is indeed cheaper to buy all the paper from China and to stop buying local-produced paper. But that means you send all your workers in paper-producing facilities into unemployment. Then you collect less taxes (from less workers) and that means you get a budget deficit. Then you make debt in order to cover the budget deficit.
Then you must increase your exports in order to solve the problem. Those increased exports will create jobs for those workers you sent into unemployment and then you collect more taxes (the number of tax-paying workers is recovering). Which is something you are obviously unable to do. You are simply not capable to export as much as you are importing.

Indeed, that's true. But that's not the point.
The point is that whatever the rest of the world buys from you does change that.

No, you learn from CNN / NYT / Washington Post that the supporters of Trump are morons, stupid, racists, idiotic and cretins. Just open any mainstream media outlet and you can convince yourself in a matter of minutes. They promote ridicule, despise, disdain and hate about anyone who dares to be worried about mass immigration and trade deficit.

Sorry this is a big, huge lie. The money are not getting back to you because the corporations keep their profits into the tax havens. You legalized the tax fraud. Heard about Panama Papers? Or about Ugland House? And even when the money get back to the USA, the corporations keep the money hooked into their accounts and they are not going to share it with the public.
It is really insulting to talk the way you do. Your statements are based on pure fantasy. You are insulting the intelligence of your conversation counterparts. You talk like you are convinced you are talking with morons that you can convince about anything.
Your statements raise a lot of basic questions: How much money come back through foreign investments? Do you have any numbers? How much of that money are kept into tax havens and how much of it comes back to the USA? And what kind of magic process makes that money to be shared with the US general public?

Again, you are convinced that you talk with someone with a very weak mind. You are watching CNN and you are reading NYT too much. They are teaching their followers to believe that the Trump supporters are very stupid people. They know the people don't care about the facts and they drive the people using emotions.
Unsurprisingly, your statements could not blow my mind.
You defend the companies, not the country. You defend the corporations, not the population of your country. The corporations do not care about your country or about your people.
The companies you talk about don't care about the workers, and they send the workers into unemployment by increasing imports. Then the government has to pay them welfare. Then it has to increase the public debt in order to pay that increased costs for welfare. Or it has to cut other expenses (ever heard about the Government shutdowns in the United States? or about the three-year pay freeze from 2011 through 2013 under Obama?). In both cases the result is increasing the poverty "to improve the economy" (of the companies)

Sorry but this is a big and huge lie.
If that would be true that means you will produce something using that imported stuff. And then you will export that stuff. And that creates jobs and more money collected in taxes. Only then it will turn profitable.
In reality you just eat more, you get more clothes and you buy more electronics that end up in the garbage dump. You are not producing anything profitable from your increased imports, you just increase the garbage dumps by consuming and wasting more. If you don't believe that, then just check for yourself the huge difference between your imports and your exports.

You failed to give any indication how the money come back to you. You just suggest that somehow, some magic foreign investments will bring more money to your people.

It is indeed extremely disgusting to say "us" when you talk about companies. The corporations don't care about the people. Do you remember the 2008 economic crisis? The corporations (and the politicians) are doing their best to drive the people into deeper and deeper poverty. They don't even really care about increasing their own profits. Because the corporations are just instruments. Into the hands of some very dangerous people.
The very nature of the problem is spiritual. There are very few moral values left. The people support the corporations and the governments because they just want more money and more profits and they don't care about how much they hurt their brothers into the process. Your very greed transformed you into docile servants and instruments into the hands of the ultimate satanists who drive the economy of the entire world.
Soon, all that huge debt of your country will come down crashing over your head. The hate against Trump and against his supporters will not be able to save you. Instead, it will only create more hysteria, madness, insanity and chaos.
The next economic crisis is inevitable - because you make it to be inevitable.

Sorry but you just derailed the conversation to the irrelevant point of the trade deficit with a single country.
And you make some very alien claims about "companies = us", which are very insulting to anyone's intelligence.

 

Trump is a show man, he doesn't take his job seriously.
For three years, he did nothing to reduce the huge trade deficit of the country. Unfortunately he did too little for the country.
Yet the Democrat and the Republican politicians who do not support Trump are extremely dangerous. Like for example George Bush, Clintons or Barack Obama.
The only thing they are interested to do is to increase speculation, debt, unemployment, poverty, artificial conflicts with Russia, military spending and mass immigration. They will never stop until they transform the USA into another Honduras or Haiti. Because they are sold to the satanist international bankers who control the economy of the entire world.
Their very actions prove all that.
The very little that Trump did, they are doing their best to reverse it.

As for the Republicans who accuse Putin of being a communist: They also supported Bush to pulverize Iraq. They support wasting astronomical amounts of money for an artificial conflict with Russia. They also support mass immigration, just like Bush. There is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. They are all paid by the super-rich to distract the attention of the public with irrelevant and absurd, ideological debates.

 

Investor's Business Daily may have been wrong. Due to the 600+ loss on Friday because of Trump's tweets, some of Wall Street's investors may have seen an opportunity ... buy certain stocks while they are on sale. After all because of Trump's trade war with China, many stocks were lower than they were in January 2018. http://politicalforum.com/index.php...-source-of-our-prosperity-think-again.560730/

Surely investors were aware of these developments before the market closed.

Trump, speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at a joint press conference, said he thinks Beijing wants to make a deal “very badly.”

“I’m not sure they have a choice” but to deal with the U.S., whether they want to or not, he added.

“I don’t say that as a threat.”

Earlier Monday, Trump said U.S. trade officials received overnight calls from the Chinese saying Beijing was ready to return to the negotiating table.

“China called last night our top trade people and said. ‘Let’s get back to the table,’ so we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something. They have been hurt very badly but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it. This is a very positive development for the world,” Trump said.

“I think we are going to have a deal,” he added.

“Just had a long and very good call with President Xi of China. Deal is moving along very well. If made, it will be very comprehensive, covering all subjects, areas and points of dispute. Big progress being made!” Donald J. Trump, December 29, 2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ss-on-possible-china-trade-deal-idUSKCN1OS0IL

CNBC reports, "In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was not aware that a phone call between the two sides had taken place. And Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times, denied that negotiators had held the phone calls Trump described.

"Asked about reports that China denied the calls took place, Trump snapped: “The Chinese are not saying that!”

"Trump reiterated that the U.S. had “numerous calls” at the highest levels with the Chinese but refused to discuss the calls."

 

I think you need your own thread. Just a thought.

 

Good luck into transforming the USA into a new, big Haiti. Just a thought.

As for the EU, where I live, I really doubt the Europeans will have enough intelligence to stop the transformation of the Europe into another big Haiti (Hungarians are the exception). I just pray that something will happen to slow the process. I'm 44 years old already and I'm so happy that I have no children, because the people like you transform this planet into a living nightmare. The only hope for the decent people is for the worst changes to be delayed long enough so it won't happen in their life time.
Enjoy your sterile, outlandish, absurd and meaningless debates.

 

I'll have to cover this in more detail later, but your entire argument is based on the false notion that trade deficits cause net employment loss. This isn't even remotely true.

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text...-policy/s06-02-trade-imbalances-and-jobs.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwor...ficit-doesnt-cause-unemployment/#13e5c02d378f
https://www.aei.org/publication/the-trade-deficit-does-not-cost-us-jobs/
http://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-us-jobs-vs-trade-deficits/
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/trade-deficits-dont-mean-lost-jobs
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trade-deficits-dont-reduce-us-jobs-2018-08-22
https://seekingalpha.com/article/3121106-no-trade-deficits-dont-cause-unemployment
https://www.ntu.org/publications/detail/just-the-facts-trade-deficits-do-not-reduce-us-employment

 

LOL and you don't even recognize the possibility that he could be right even though you CLEARLY don't know what you're talking about. You can't make it up...

 

This is a pure outlandish claim supported by the same experts who encouraged the increase of speculation and debt right before the 2008 speculation and debt crisis.
They have no credibility whatsoever yet they keep making the same kind of idiotic claims forever and ever.
They are not capable to answer the most basic questions like:
What happens when your country stops producing paper and it buys all it's paper from China? What happens with the workers who are working in the local paper-producing facilities? Aren't they sent into unemployment? And how are you going to provide them jobs after sending them into unemployment if not by increasing your exports?
How can you spend more than what you produce without making debts? You gave me the example of buying a computer and the trade deficit with the computer shop yet you refuse to answer what happens if you spend $1,000 per month when your income is only $500 per month? How are you going to support your inflated expenses without making debt?

Experts correctly predicted only five of the 153 recessions recorded around the world between 1992 and 2014 - https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-...ible-at-predicting-recessions-20190812-p52g8r
That's exactly where their credibility stands - at 5/153 = 3.2% which is an extremely low percent.

The "experts in economy" can never understand the benefits of reliable public housing like Gemeindebau in Austria. Yet they always give precious advice for increasing the poverty "in order to improve the economy".

You made a lot of false claims already and you are not even capable to answer to the most basic questions. Yet you talk exactly like the "experts in economy" - in full arrogance, refusing to answer the most basic questions and dictating 'the truth'.

 

Arrogant and insulting statement, exactly like the statements of the "experts in economy" who are never capable to predict recessions and who always recommend increasing the poverty "in order to improve the economy".
Yardmeat made a lot of false claims, like "companies = us", "money come back through foreign investments" and "we are using the imported stuff in order to produce things". He failed to provide any evidence or indication to support his claims.

This is how the super-rich and their puppets in the media convinced the people to get into the 2008 speculation and debt crisis - by telling to the people they are stupid and that they simply can't understand economy. Truly a criminal mindset - they are convinced they can repeat lies as much as they please and they can do whatever they want with the people. And this is exactly the way you are also acting. No matter how many lies you produce, you will always claim that your conversation counterparts are not capable to understand anything.

Yet the vote for Brexit is an indication that Abraham Lincoln was probably right:
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

 

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post writes, "Apparently, President Trump will lie about anything. He lies that his wife has gotten to know North Korea President Kim Jong Un. They’ve never met. He lies that Russia was excluded from the Group of Eight (now Group of Seven) because Vladimir Putin got the better of former president Barack Obama (and then lied that the other members agree with him); in fact, the members collectively threw Russia out for invading and occupying Ukraine. He lied that he had concluded a trade deal with Japan when in fact there was only a deal “in principle.”

"He lies about calls from Chinese officials:"

Trump claimed to have gotten two phone calls on Sunday night from high-ranking Chinese officials seeking to negotiate a trade deal. “High-level calls,” he said. Chinese government officials said Monday that they were unaware of any such calls.

Trump couldn't even get his own treasury secretary to confirm the calls. Mnuchin is no idiot. He is not going to get wrapped up in a Trump tall take.

Trump untruths included at least eight false claims in his G7 press conference, plus at least five more misleading/questionable/lacking in key context. He lives in his own little world where he is allowed to make up his own reality.

The Dow and the broader stock market finished sharply higher on Monday, reversing course from Friday's selloff caused by Presidential tweets. Trump said China wants to get back to the negotiating table, and the Dow gained 270 points.

When it became apparent that Trump lied about the phone calls, the Dow today lost 121 of those 270 points.

It is anyone's guess as to how much longer Wall Street will continue to believe Trump.

 

According to that statement, the current $0.8 trillion trade deficit creates no net employment loss. Also, a trade deficit of $2 trillion or $5 trillion or even $20 trillion can't create a net employment loss. Not even a trade deficit of $40 trillion!
In fact, if you produce absolutely nothing and you import everything that is still fine - that's not going to affect employment. This is what you are suggesting, and that's utterly absurd.

On top of that, a large part of the Trump haters have a very high self-esteem and they believe they are socialists, superior and compassionate unlike, unlike the "racists" who support Donald Trump.
Yet they have no problem to buy goods created by the slave workers in China, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico and pretty much everywhere in the world.

 

Trump told reporters. “Kim Jong Un, who I've gotten to know extremely well, the first lady has gotten to know Kim Jong Un and I think she would agree with me, he is a man with a country that has tremendous potential.”

Press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement shedding light on Trump’s lie. “President Trump confides in his wife on many issues including the detailed elements of his strong relationship with Chairman Kim. And while the First Lady hasn’t met him, the President feels like she’s gotten to know him too.” Wheee!

Why does Trump tell such obvious lies?

Because he is an idiot. The whole world laughs at him, and he is an embarrassment.

I continue to wonder why it is that 84% of Republicans still support Trump. I continue to wonder why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his minions continue to protect Trump. Mitch has to be embarrassed by Trump. None of this makes any sense.

Can anyone help me with an understanding of this phenomenon?

 

I see you are unable to handle what Trump is actually doing and saying. Well, each to his own, but that is a sure sign of weakness.

 

Don't encourage him. Blizzard is trying to hide the ongoing issues of this thread with his long-winded and numerous replies.

 

I've never called people racist for supporting Trump and I provided you with evidence of my claim. Trade deficits have nothing to do with unemployment. In fact, to the extent that there is a correlation, trade deficits correlate with higher employment, not lower, though I won't claim that's necessarily a causal relationship. Your theory has already been disproved.

 

It's the Wall Street and their international bankers friends who repeat lies forever. They told everybody that we need more speculation and debt right before the 2008 speculation and debt crisis. They were giving AAA ratings to the real estate, speculative investments right before the bubble has burst. Their lies and their crimes are endless. They work people to death. They are stealing the depositors money - and the tax payers money. They promote the increase of the trade deficit and the subsequent de-industrialization of the USA and of the EU countries. And so on

As anyone can see for themselves, the credibility of the Wall Street is at the level of absolute zero.

 

You deliberately try to create confusion by talking about bilateral trade deficits when the issue is the overall trade deficit. You refuse to answer to the most basic questions (check my previous reply for you). Your arguments contain the same expertise as the claims of the "experts in economy" who always promote the increase of the poverty "in order to improve the economy". Your claims are completely baseless.
So you are just dictating 'the truth'.

Which is absolutely unsurprising at all. Since many decades the "experts in economy" make all kind of outlandish claims and dictate the truth. The 'truth' that only drags the people into deeper and deeper poverty and into bigger and bigger wealth inequality. Sane logic and facts can never make them change their minds. And the same applies to you.
In the end it's all about your own decision to follow the path you are following.

 

yardmeat's reply for me was long so I had to reply with a long post in return, in order to be able to actually address his claims. That's all about my "long-winded replies".

 

The links I provided are about the overall trade deficit, not bilateral. There's a graph of employment and the trade deficit together since 1975. You are, objectively, wrong. My claims are based in reality and I've provided evidence. My decision is to go where the facts lead. Feel free to choose another path.

 

Josephwalker said: ↑
Farmers are being subsidized for they're losses with tarrif money and our economy is doing quite nicely as China's is in a tailspin.

Subsidized? B.S. They are getting welfare because of Trump's trade war with China. Farmers do not want welfare. They want a level playing field, but the President they voted for isn't giving it to them.

Another aspect of Trump's stupidity.

In an interview with an older Wisconsin farmer who still supported Trump, the man said that in the end things will improve for farmers and the rest of us. He said this while prices on popular consumer items will skyrocket beginning Sept. 1 because of Trump's 15% tariff.

In 2 1/2 years Trump has yet to sign a major trade deal. "Sorry, it's the way I negotiate," Trump said unapologetically.

Strange how all the good things that are going to happen are always in the future with Trump. At this stage of his Presidency, that is getting a little old.

That is particularly true when his domestic and foreign policies are not so good. Such as the inflation/loss of employment/recession cycle.that is currently threatening our economy.

 

Yes yes, I've seen it very well how nice the employment and the economy were evolving in the years 2008-2014.
When you have a big trade deficit you can create more jobs, indeed, by making debts and then wasting money on useless jobs. Look at the public debt of your country. Soon it will come down crashing over your head.

The "facts" you believe in are the facts of the "experts in economy" who always increase poverty "in order to improve the economy".

You refused to answer the most basic questions like this one:
What happens when your country stops producing paper and it buys all it's paper from China? What happens with the workers who are working in the local paper-producing facilities?
You can't answer even the most basic questions because you are only dictating 'the ultimate truth of the experts'. Your 'truth' is absurd and devoid of any meaning, it doesn't make sense at all and it can't stand in front of the most basic questions. In your mind, it's all magic. If you say something then it has to be true, simply because you say so. Any common sense question is rejected by this mindset. Because in this artificial world, any invention and any declaration automagically become 'the ultimate truth'.

You have no other arguments than outlandish claims and arguments from a parallel universe.
Back here on Earth, you have to produce something if you want to be able to consume. In 2017, from the $0.8 trillion trade deficit, you consumed it all and you produced nothing. But you managed to increase your debts, indeed. Coincidence? We living in a world full of surprising coincidence, isn't it?

I can answer any question about the palpable reality. In the same time, you can only come with fancy claims and you can't answer to the most basic simple questions.
This is the difference between understanding reality and living in a parallel universe.
This is the difference between that little thing called 'reality' and the 'CNN logic'. As anyone can notice, those "experts in economy" in the media always dictate 'the truth' and they never have to answer any question. Trying to simulate it on a forum is a little bit problematic since it's in the very nature of a web forum to encourage dialogue and asking and answering questions.

 

Did anyone with a brain actually think stopping Chinese exploitation in trade would go off without a hitch? Its apparent that liberals want to cave to their commie friends and allow the US to suffer further more. Trump is literally the only president who has done anything in the last 100 years to end exploitation of the US by others...

 

I agree here. Trump should reduce the imports from Mexico too, so those farmers producing soybeans will produce the fruits and vegetables you are importing from Mexico at this moment. That's a more reliable way of doing farming than depending on exports of soy to China. Your own, internal consumer is more reliable than the Chinese consumer.
That will create more jobs and more income collected from taxing those jobs. That will reduce the budget deficit and subsequently your public debt.

Yet that's so much better than the politics of the other US presidents who always increase the poverty "to improve the economy". Have you ever heard of bailouts and austerity?

With the other presidents, your life is becoming a living nightmare right now and it stays like that for many years to come. That's quite an awful difference, isn't it?

With a president like Obama or Bush, the recession is not threatening but it's actually happening. Again, that's quite an awful difference, isn't it?