Day 83: The Retreat Continues

 

I never thought that when I began blogging about The Orange Ass's tariff policy, it would become a cottage industry of nearly daily updates as Trump fell back from defensive redoubt to defensive redoubt. Once again, China has called Trump's bluff and, once again, Trump has retreated. From the New Zork Times:

Smartphones and Computers Get Reprieve From New U.S. Tariffs on China

Smartphone reprieve: The Trump administration published a rule late Friday night that appeared to exempt smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from most of the president’s punishing tariffs on China, giving tech companies like Apple and Dell a break from levies that threatened to upend their businesses and increase prices for consumers.

I am not at all surprised. In my post yesterday, I warned about the coming COVID-like shortages and price increases on the electronic devices Americans both need and love.  Apparently, this obvious cause-and-effect result which eluded the First Felon and his cast of imbeciles was finally hammered home when major American electronic firms, such as Dell and Lenovo, announced a pause on imports because they know that nobody is willing to pay $1000 for a Chromebook or $2000 for an iPhone. As with the other tariffs, when the economic reality hit home, Trump was forced to retreat, this time quietly in the dead of night. Chalk this up to a FAFO learning experience. Again.

Let me ask a question of those MAGA supporters who have defended these tariffs: If the placement of tariffs was "Liberation Day" as Trump put it, does that mean that the reversal of these tariffs makes for "Re-Occupation Day"? Is Trump just Marshal Pétain in a boxy, off-the-wrack suit? 

If anyone is wondering why this nonsense of placing tariffs-->reversing tariffs is happening, the reason is as prosaic as it is terrifying: the United States government is in the hands of a man who is both profoundly stupid as well as suffering cognitive decline. Making matters worse is that Trump has done what Ted Cruz predicted he would do (this was back in 2016 before Cancun Cruz turned his colors): surrounded himself with people stupider than himself as a way of keeping his ego unbruised. This is why felon Peter Navarro, a man who invented a scholar to justify his wacky economic theories, is one of his most trusted advisers.

As I keep banging on about, Trump has dug our nation into a very dangerous situation by alienating our friends while also provoking a powerful rival, China, who is the real evil genius that Trump styles himself to be. 

Just recently, a revelation was published in the WSJ concerning the 'Volt Typhoon" cyber attack in 2023. Apparently, this past December, China bluntly admitted it was responsible for the attack, a stunning revelation.  One has to ask why now, of all times, is this story being made public.  The answer is that either China or a surviving patriotic State Department official not yet purged by ReichsMarshall Rubio wanted it to be known so it could serve as a warning about how dangerous this needless trade war may well become. It is not a coincidence that the CCP has begun posting images of Mao on official channels; they view this fight as a clash of ideologies, as a new Cold War threatening to go hot. 

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The tragedy of the situation is that confronting China on its trade abuses is a worthwhile endeavor. The wise course would have involved the following steps:

• Lower trade barriers with our closest trading partners to strengthen trade ties
• Identify areas where China is making trade inroads and use targeted trade policy - such as lowering tariffs - to lure susceptible nations away from China and towards the US and its allies
• Identify areas of trade that China dominates and use government policy to encourage domestic investment in those areas so that there is an American source of those goods. This is particularly important when it comes to strategically important goods, such as semiconductors
• Only once all those steps have been completed, begin using punitive tariffs to encourage China to cease unfair trade practices

Incredibly, this administration has done the opposite. This administration has:

• Imposed punitive tariffs on China before ensuring America can replace supply shortfalls (which is why Trump has now reversed some of them)
• Attacked Biden-era programs, such as the CHIPS Act, that would have lured production of important goods, such as semiconductors, back to our shores
• Increased trade barriers on nations that are being tempted to make China a primary trading partner, ensuring that they will turn to China
• Broke faith with our closest trading partners so that our attempt to isolate China would be a "go it alone" policy, giving China plenty of room to not only resist our efforts but fill the void left by America's isolationist trading policies

It is the mirror image of the correct policy! This is why many foreign policy analysts are now starting to openly question whether Trump is deliberately pursuing a counter-intuitive policy not because of some misguided grand plan but out of a form of destructive mental illness. It is a disturbing thought. 

Trump has already put the nation into a deep hole but instead of stopping with the shovel work, he keeps digging. As Mary Chestnut wrote at the start of the Civil War, "Deeper and deeper we go in." 

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