Trump losing the trade war.

[downbeatplumb]

I think one of Trump's biggest brain-blocks on the whole trade thing is that he can't shake the false notion that trade is a zero-sum game.  He thinks that if China or Mexico (or, for all I know, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick) exports more to the US than the US exports to them, the US is somehow being cheated.

Why are his aides and various hangers-on so afraid to explain 'trade deficit' to him?

Boru

He doesnt know what a tariff is.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think one of Trump's biggest brain-blocks on the whole trade thing is that he can't shake the false notion that trade is a zero-sum game.  He thinks that if China or Mexico (or, for all I know, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick) exports more to the US than the US exports to them, the US is somehow being cheated.

Why are his aides and various hangers-on so afraid to explain 'trade deficit' to him?

Boru

He doesnt know what a tariff is.

That as well.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Trump is nothing more than an ego driven grifter and vandal whose entire “career” is based on his notion of ‘success”, which is having boosted his own ego by skirted and broken the law to screw other people.    Actually enriching himself is merely incidental to the ego boost of skirting the law and screwing other people, which is why he made no real money, went bankrupt many times, and in all likelihood maintained his appearance of wealth with shell games and Ponzi schemes.   Of course it is inconceivable for him that there could be a common good or a non-zero sum game.

In fact, he likely define success in such a way that the best game to him is a negative sum game.   If he merely swindled other people, it would not stroke his ego as much as if he also got away with destroying some of what he can’t convince himself he had taken by fraud.

He is not just one who trashes the institution of the state for his own power and position.  He is a down right vandal who derive satisfaction from destroying what he did not create.

[Fake Messiah]

Let me play the devil's advocate - but to a certain point. The problem is that factories left to China where everything is now made and not just from the US but pretty much from whole Europe too. And indeed, how do you make them come back? - Certainly not by giving them tax breaks because they are already making a killing, like Nike makes pair of snickers for $2 and sells it for $100. And perhaps China should be punished in some way because they treat workers there really badly and even make kids work and they ruin the ecology for, ultimately, all of us.

Indeed, this is something that has been talked about before Trump became president but now it seems people stay quiet. I mean guys like Michael Moore made a carrier about how factories are leaving for Mexico and China - and what is he saying now?

Or maybe people don't want those jobs anymore because when they were in US there were numerous movies depicting how horrible it is to work in a factory - like "Norma Rae" (1979) comes in my mind.

Or maybe it is impossible to bring those jobs from Asia. Maybe it's not that you can perhaps only make computers and phones in Japan, China, Korea - with some parts from other parts of the world, but that people with factory wages could not live in a corporate country where venture capitalists are investing in their (worker's) housing, food, energy needs etc.

Or maybe the solution would be to socialize factories and make them part of the government and make people buy only what is made in the US.

Trump's "plan" if you can call it like that is to free corporations of taxes, remove all laws that protect the environment, lower the wages - to make US more like China, but if he wants to make it like China does he also wants children to work too? Of course none of that from his "plan" is any good for anyone, but what is the solution?