Treason. If I was an American this is what I would be saying that my President was guilty of. There will always be ups and downs, but as far as everybody was concerned the American economy was functioning as it should, subject to policy variations, inflections on interest rate adjustments, exposure to foreign currency movement and generally subservient to, and subject to, the bond market (US Treasuries ) – which as the debt and budget management provider of first/last resort, all seemed to be a perfectly reasonable proposition…
And then President Trump comes along and based on mercantilist perspectives on trade – and his own unknowable psychology – he decides to play a version of Russian roulette with the world economy. Again, based on zero sum methodology, that simply has no place whatsoever in international trade – or diplomacy. In fact not only does it not have a place, it is precisely the worst way imaginable to approach your allies, whether it be from an economic or a political standpoint. Janet Yellen today described Trump’s measures as the worst act of self-harm on a perfectly functioning economy.
Technical economics sometimes finds it hard to discount for ephemeral variables such as pride – yet this is precisely what is on show in China’s refusal to dance to Trump’s music. As far as I’m concerned – why should they? (Other than the pretty obvious reasons of trying to avoid the continuation and magnification of self inflicted wounds, through the application of somewhat similarly extortionate tariffs on imports from the US… But what’s a chap supposed to do, right?)
One thing that screams out is – where are all these constitutional protections that academic lawyers in jurisprudence have always so celebrated in the US Constitution? How can a guy, that in so many other instances one imagines could easily be sectioned, be allowed to wreck havoc in the international economy, embarrass his nation, and present as entirely transactional, relationships cultivated over a century of goodwill between allies?
I’d say hand me the popcorn, as this is some show – except that tariffs on corn, maple syrup and the wood pulp for the box it comes in, have now pushed the price of the popcorn up to more than the movie…
#chaos #economics #geopolitics #trump #treason
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