NYT: Trump’s Trade War Escalation Will Exact Economic Pain, Adviser Says

New York Times: Trump’s Trade War Escalation Will Exact Economic Pain, Adviser Says
Relevant snippets:

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s chief economic adviser said on Sunday that American consumers would bear some pain from the escalating trade war with China, contradicting Mr. Trump’s claim that his tariffs are a multibillion-dollar, mostly one-way payment by China to the American Treasury.

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My comment: So, even Larry Kudlow now admits the trade war will hurt Americans. “In fact, both sides will pay,” Mr. Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Both sides will suffer on this.”

Financial markets reflected the potential for pain. Asian and European stocks were mostly lower early on Monday, and futures markets suggested Wall Street would open down, too.

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My comment: Whenever investors suspect that Donald Trump will really go through with his threats of big tariff increases, provoking retaliation abroad, stocks plunge. Every time they decide it’s just theater, stocks recover. Markets really, really don’t like the idea of a trade war.

Mr. Trump’s confidence in the strength of the American economy is fueling his decision to escalate the trade fight. But it is an economic gamble, one that could inflict lasting damage depending on how far Mr. Trump is willing to take his battle and what it produces in the end.

In a tweet on Sunday, Mr. Trump said the United States was “right where we want to be with China,” adding that the United States “will be taking in Tens of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs from China.”

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My Comment: Trump fundamentally doesn't know how tariffs work. Consumers pay the tariffs, not the country of origin.

The latest round of increases will push the per-household cost above $800, said David Weinstein, a Columbia University economist and a co-author on the research.
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Analysts at the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank that forecast a large increase to economic growth from the tax cuts Mr. Trump signed in 2017, now say that the tariffs the president has put in place or threatened — and the effects of Chinese retaliatory tariffs on American exporters — would more than cancel out all the economic benefits of the tax law.

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My Comment: The wealthy and corporations got tax-cuts and the American consumer gets higher prices due to tariffs. Moreover, any growth aspect of the tax-cuts has worn off -- just in time for the contraction effects of the tariffs to kick in.

General comment:
In some ways, China really is a bad actor in the global economy. In particular, it has pretty much thumbed its nose at international rules on intellectual property rights, grabbing foreign technology without proper payment. And to be fair, Trump officials do sometimes raise the intellectual property issue as a justification for getting tough.

But if getting China to pay what it owes for technology were the goal, you’d expect the U.S. both to make specific demands on that front and to adopt a strategy aimed at inducing China to meet those demands.

In fact, the U.S. has given little indication of what China should do about intellectual property. Meanwhile, if getting better protection of patent rights and so on were the goal, America should be trying to build a coalition with other advanced countries to pressure the Chinese; instead, we’ve been alienating everyone in sight. Not for nothing, this issue was addressed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that Trump cancelled on day one.

As I write this, DOW futures are down over 500 points.

MTAtech said:

As I write this, DOW futures are down over 500 points.

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All this winning.

tres borrachos said:

All this winning.

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Yes, all this winning is getting tiring -- with a cost per-household above $800.

This just in: China Puts New Tariffs On $60 Billion Of U.S. Goods, Retaliating For Trump Action

China is imposing new retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, days after the Trump administration said it would impose higher tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods on Friday morning. The latest tit-for-tat exchange comes as trade talks have failed to yield a deal.

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MTAtech said:

This just in: China Puts New Tariffs On $60 Billion Of U.S. Goods, Retaliating For Trump Action

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Geezus. God help us.

MTAtech said:

As I write this, DOW futures are down over 500 points.

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I will bet a thousand dollars that Trump is engaging in some form of a pump and dump scheme, and that announcements of trade wars have been the single most effective method for crashing the markets after he and his buddies sell.

Well at least the gubmint can pay the farmers for their rotting soybeans and send them to third world **** hole countries, amirite?

tres borrachos said:

Geezus. God help us.

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I have little doubt the Chinese feel much as Juncker did when Trump first started the trade wars:

"So now we will also impose import tariffs. This is basically a stupid process, the fact that we have to do this. But we have to do it. We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley Davidson, on blue jeans, Levis, on Bourbon. We can also do stupid. We also have to be this stupid."

Juncker responds to Trump's trade tariffs: 'We can also do stupid' | Euronews

Does Trump know that this is harmful and that nobody actually wins a trade war? Yes, actually I believe he's perfectly aware of this.

Cardinal said:

I will bet a thousand dollars that Trump is engaging in some form of a pump and dump scheme, and that announcements of trade wars have been the single most effective method for crashing the markets after he and his buddies sell.

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You know, that has crossed my mind.

Trump tweets somethning and the Dow is crashing! He (and/or his friends) buy the market. Then, he tweets something opposite and it bounces back, so he sells. Rinse, repeat.

As I posted in another thread, the results of these tariffs are already quite clear:

Time to go vegan, tofu should be getting dirt cheap!

Bloomberg Markets on Twitter: "Soybean futures fall further after China measures announced https://t.co/5I2Ecy3E8g… "

Cardinal said:

I have little doubt the Chinese feel much as Juncker did when Trump first started the trade wars:

"So now we will also impose import tariffs. This is basically a stupid process, the fact that we have to do this. But we have to do it. We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley Davidson, on blue jeans, Levis, on Bourbon. We can also do stupid. We also have to be this stupid."

Juncker responds to Trump's trade tariffs: 'We can also do stupid' | Euronews

Does Trump know that this is harmful and that nobody actually wins a trade war? Yes, actually I believe he's perfectly aware of this.

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Yes, I agree that he is aware of how harmful it is. I also think he's so anti-American that he doesn't care. It's red meat for his fan base, and he knows they are too stupid to challenge him.

tres borrachos said:

Yes, I agree that he is aware of how harmful it is. I also think he's so anti-American that he doesn't care. It's red meat for his fan base, and he knows they are too stupid to challenge him.

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I don't think he's stupid, and I don't think that he gives two craps about his base when it comes to finances. As I said, I strongly suspect that he's been engaging in a form of pump-and-dump scheme for the last year and a half, and that will be the single greatest scam he's inflicted on the planet.

Everything has always been about profit, for himself and for his friends.

Cardinal said:

...
Does Trump know that this is harmful and that nobody actually wins a trade war? Yes, actually I believe he's perfectly aware of this.

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What seems to really bother Trump isn’t China’s genuine policy sins, but its trade surplus with the United States, which he has repeatedly said is $500 billion a year. This trade surplus, he insists, means that China is winning -- in effect stealing $500 billion a year from America. That's like saying that I'm losing to the supermarket because I give them money but they never buy anything from me.

MTAtech said:

New York Times: Trump’s Trade War Escalation Will Exact Economic Pain, Adviser Says
Relevant snippets:

My comment: So, even Larry Kudlow now admits the trade war will hurt Americans. “In fact, both sides will pay,” Mr. Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Both sides will suffer on this.”

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Let's pretend that Trump has enough brains to actually think he's on the right side of history with this and his intended effect is to stimulate American manufacturing to come home.

We DO REALIZE, of course, that literally ALL of said manufacturing is going to be AUTOMATED, yes?
It's not going to look like Chinese manufacturing in any way.
It's not going to be Chinese style automation or Chinese sweatshops, it's going to be a uniquely American style of automation but automated IT WILL BE, guaranteed.
Guaranteed because there is no other way for domestic manufacturing to be remotely competitive or even feasible.

Are we cranking out millions of American kids who are trained to work in an automated manufacturing environment?
No, not in the least, not even remotely.
And why aren't we doing this?

Airyaman said:

Time to go vegan, tofu should be getting dirt cheap!

Bloomberg Markets on Twitter: "Soybean futures fall further after China measures announced [url]https://t.co/5I2Ecy3E8g… "[/url]

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So much winning.

Cardinal said:

I don't think he's stupid, and I don't think that he gives two craps about his base when it comes to finances. As I said, I strongly suspect that he's been engaging in a form of pump-and-dump scheme for the last year and a half, and that will be the single greatest scam he's inflicted on the planet.

Everything has always been about profit, for himself and for his friends.

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Himself and his children, and his rich friends.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Let's pretend that Trump has enough brains to actually think he's on the right side of history with this and his intended effect is to stimulate American manufacturing to come home.

We DO REALIZE, of course, that literally ALL of said manufacturing is going to be AUTOMATED, yes?
It's not going to look like Chinese manufacturing in any way.
It's not going to be Chinese style automation or Chinese sweatshops, it's going to be a uniquely American style of automation but automated IT WILL BE, guaranteed.
Guaranteed because there is no other way for domestic manufacturing to be remotely competitive or even feasible.

Are we cranking out millions of American kids who are trained to work in an automated manufacturing environment?
No, not in the least, not even remotely.
And why aren't we doing this?

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I'm not too worried about the movement of jobs. Before 1900, 80% of employment was on farms. Somehow, we were able to bring that down to 3% and still have found work for those people displaced. What it did was cause geographical disruption as workers moved to cities to take advantage of factory jobs. Movement away from rural areas is why today those areas are more like ghettos of the 1970s, which were inner cities. Rural areas are where the new drug problems exist, mainly due to economic despair.

tres borrachos said:

So much winning.

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I feel bad for the farmers that are suffering. Frustration Mounts Among Farmers as China Trade Talks Break Down - The New York Times

However, we warned them that this guy doesn't know what he's doing and they voted for him anyway.

MTAtech said:

I feel bad for the farmers that are suffering. Frustration Mounts Among Farmers as China Trade Talks Break Down - The New York Times

However, we warned them that this guy doesn't know what he's doing and they voted for him anyway.

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It just shows that you really need to know who you're voting for.

All this cheerleading of haters....doesn’t it get tiresome getting proved wrong time after time?

cough Mueller report

This drama shall to pass. :2wave:

tres borrachos said:

It just shows that you really need to know who you're voting for.

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I don't want to think that Americans are stupid, even though the evidence is against my belief. My 18 year-old saw right through Trump from day one. "This guy is a con artists -- like that guy in that movie I liked as a kid, 'The Music Man.' "

Somehow, DJT was able to convince enough voters of his business acumen that they voted for him. When he claimed to be super-rich but wouldn't show his taxes, it told me he wasn't so rich. It's like the person who tells us how smart he is but won't show his/her report card.

Now, we learn that he lost more than any other person in history -- that 3% of all losses in the nation were his. So, the guy they thought was such a great businessman really sucks at business. He also doesn't understand trade or macroeconomics.

MTAtech said:

I'm not too worried about the movement of jobs. Before 1900, 80% of employment was on farms. Somehow, we were able to bring that down to 3% and still have found work for those people displaced. What it did was cause geographical disruption as workers moved to cities to take advantage of factory jobs. Movement away from rural areas is why today those areas are more like ghettos of the 1970s, which were inner cities. Rural areas are where the new drug problems exist, mainly due to economic despair.

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I can't bank on "somehow".
What work are we going to find for all these people?
Are we going to put everyone on farms now?

Trump said:

All this cheerleading of haters....doesn’t it get tiresome getting proved wrong time after time?

cough Mueller report

This drama shall to pass. :2wave:

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...says the guy who clearly isn't a soybean farmer.

While you use the Mueller report as an example, you clearly pay as much attention as your namesake. The Mueller report clearly said that Trump obstructed justice and the only reason he wasn't charged with the crimes was because he was president, not because he was innocent.