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"Trumps trade war was a total flop
Rick Newman at Yahoo Finance
Tue, February 8, 2022
Donald Trump, the American president from 2017 to 2021, said he knew more about trade than most economists and foreign-policy experts. Trade wars are good, and easy to win, Trump famously declared in 2018. He described himself as a Tariff Man and proved it by imposing new tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. imports, to be paid by the American firms buying those goods.
Trumps dubious logic was that making imports costlier to Americans would hurt the foreign sellers and give him leverage he could use to demand concessions. His biggest target, of course, was China. Trump added new tariffs on about $450 billion worth of U.S. imports from China, while China, predictably, retaliated with similar penalties on U.S. imports. The escalation rattled financial markets in 2018 and 2019 and ultimately led to the Phase One trade deal between the two countries, signed on Jan. 15, 2020. Under that deal, China would sharply increase its purchases of U.S. goods as a precondition for Trump (or his successor) removing the new tariffs and getting back to normal.
New trade data for 2021 shows that China came nowhere near fulfilling its commitments in the 2020 phase one deal, with U.S. exporters ending up worse off than they would have been had Trump done nothing on trade. Analysis of trade data by Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that during the first two years covered by the trade deal2020 and 2021China purchased just 57% of what it had committed to in the trade deal. China said it would buy at least $502 billion of U.S. goods during those two years. Yet total purchases added up to just $289 billion.
If there had been no Trump trade war, and no tariffs, U.S. exports to China would have been $119 billion more than actual levels from 2018-2021, if the U.S. share of Chinese imports had simply remained constant. That's a net loss of business for American companies. And it doesnt include nearly $30 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds Trump doled out to farmers to compensate them for lost sales to China from 2018 through 2020."
Skittles
(152,963 posts)thanks
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)in the end is beyond me.
Poiuyt
(18,087 posts)All he knows about everything is what his advisors tell him. I don't think he's never had an original thought in his life, and if he did, it failed!
Of course, in the rare event one of his advisors (only the BEST PEOPLE) was correct, it was totally his idea, and he demanded all the credit.
I can't think of one renowned economist that thought Trump was knowledgeable about the economy, can you?
iemanja
(53,001 posts)and that is ALL they care about, certainly not democracy.
Poiuyt
(18,087 posts)They think because he has money that he must know about the economy. No reputable economist would think that way.
BTW, I don't think he listened to his advisors very much. Just Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity.
SergeStorms
(18,880 posts)other than one or more of his spoiled rotten kids, and that was nothing more than an echo chamber.
He had Steven Miller, that twisted little nazi, advise him on everything regarding the border, and Bannon, Mr. Fascist, advise him regarding "foreign policy", which was a major disaster.
Trump doesn't really listen to anyone though. He sees himself as the smartest person in any room, where the direct opposite is actually the truth.
Trump mostly played it by ear, and his ears are on par with his tiny little hands, so everything was just a festering pile of evil, republican stupid.
Poiuyt
(18,087 posts)Blue Owl
(49,902 posts)orwell
(7,753 posts)...by me to anyone who would listen, which were scant few.
Trade wars like this are always counterproductive. They are a problem when they are well executed, but Drumpf's ham-handed political sleight of hand homage to his duck dynasty blue collar goon squad was a patchwork quilt of fail, neither targeted, nor strategic.
I am really tired of the endless stupidity...
zaj
(3,433 posts)... might have had some effect. I'd have liked to have that factor reflected in the analysis.
Seems a silly comparison absent any recognition of the pandemics effects.
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)so I got to thinking trade promises couldnt be kept by China or America. Lot of other nations as well.
keithbvadu2
(36,360 posts)Fox convinced my gf that China paid all those billion$ of Trump tariffs on Chinese goods.
It is the consumer who pays tariffs.
A tariff is a tax.