Dictator Don blinked on the trade war with Canada and Mexico. He’s making my predictive powers look bad, and I’m not happy about it! Moreover, the markets were right — I should have known. Just after I had excoriated the markets for failing to heed the rantings of a mad Orange Julius, it turns out they were right after all. It seems the markets took a wait-and-see approach before reacting. They waited and waited. The markets slid a bit — a 500-point dip on the Dow is relatively insignificant — but it was not a full-on sell-off as I was expecting. And then the markets were right: Dictator Don backed off implementing his tariffs for 30 days. Market: 1. Me: 0.
But I am still perplexed. I firmly believe that The Don! is not using tariffs primarily to negotiate. (And let’s be clear about something: What Dictator Don “won” from Canada and Mexico were not major concessions at all.) Was this him merely creating a paper tiger only to bat it away and claim victory before his fellow MAGA moron base? I guess. I miscalculated his usual showman tactic. But I am convinced, nonetheless, there is something deeper going on; I think these tariffs will eventually go into effect. He may try to extract more from our neighboring countries in the meantime, but at some point, he’ll pull the trigger on tariffs in earnest to accomplish his ultimate goal: Subsume Canada and Mexico under U.S. control. I think he’s willing to cripple economies, knowing that the U.S. can withstand more economic pain than Mexico and Canada.
As for his trade war against China, I say, eh! Go to war with China all he wants; it is a rare instance of me not minding his China policy. I think American companies should have avoided trading with China from the beginning — maybe food stuffs but certainly not moving most of our manufacturing base to China. If you want to talk about one of the worst political moves in the last 50 years, it would be Nixon going to China.
But I digress. While The Don! may be playing the same game, I think his definition of winning is much different than his first term. He wants to be the first president to expand the United States of America since World War II, so when he talks about acquiring Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, he’s not kidding. Welcome to stupid America.