...does nothing about it.How fentanyl flowed through the U.S. Postal Service and across the southern border. New by @sarihorwitz and @highamsj https://t.co/wZO9rxvCpJ— Matea Gold (@mateagold) August 23, 2019
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
Does he imagine he has just nationalized all U.S. companies, and did he just declare the Chinese market irrelevant to America? What, are we just going to sell to ourselves? Fortress America and Market America, too?
....your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon. This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States. Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE,....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
Yeah, that's what he thinks he did. That makes this news oddly relevant (oddly because I'd started a different post with this article, but wait five minutes, everything changes):
“We have breaking news, China is announcing new tariff rates to apply and as a result, this market has completely reversed course,” Bartiromo stated while displaying a ticker showing the stock market plunging.
“Here is the news,” she continued. “Beijing will raise the import tariff rate on some goods. It will apply to that $ 75 billion worth of goods and in a nanosecond this market reversed course — Dow industrials down 91 points. Joining me right now on breaking news, is Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director, Peter Navarro. It’s good to see you, timing is everything, isn’t it my friend?”
“You can’t make this up,” Navarro said while shaking his head and then adding, “This is not planned, by the way.”
“No, but Beijing is out,” she countered. “And it is saying what it is it is going to do. going to do: $75 billion. You knew a retaliatory move was coming, is it worse than you expected?”
Unprepared to respond, Navarro attempted, “Look, we know China is going to do what it is going to do. Here is the thing that is really interesting, in the two and a half years that the president has been in office, he has galvanized the American people and Capitol Hill behind his China policy. And we know why, China steals our stuff. They flood our communities with fentanyl and everything in between. I think the risk here for China when it does things like this is simply to galvanize support even more for the president. So look we are going to have negotiations.”.”
Noting his lack of specifics, and Navarro dismissing the stock market downturn, Bartiromo pressed, “No, but it is Peter. You saw what was just happening when you first sat down in that seat this market was up 80 points, right now we are down 127, so you know what comes out of the White House, what comes out of Beijing is impacting markets directly.”
After breaking down the specifics of the new tariffs, the Fox Business host once again pressed Navarro, who didn’t want to talk about China.
“Negotiations continue hidden closed doors going to resume talks in September,” he parried before changing the topic. “In terms of the world economy, in terms of the U.S. economy, I think what really matters here is what European Central Bank is about to do, which is lower interest rates. I think that is good for America, because a stronger Europe is going to mean more export demand for American exports.”
So, Europe is going to take up the slack from China? In what universe? At least Navarro and Trump are on the same page: the best way to negotiate trade with China is to call them a drug cartel. On that, Trump isn't finished ranting yet:
....all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!). Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop - it didn’t. Our Economy, because of our gains in the last 2 1/2 years, is MUCH larger than that of China. We will keep it that way!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
Private industry is to do the job the government under Trump apparently can't do, and violate privacy rights of users of those industries (and the U.S. Mail) to do so? And he made this fiat by tweet?
Yeah, none of this works that way, starting with Trump "hereby" ordering something (ooh! legal word! must make it official!) in a tweet. Tweets are not recognized as government directives in any way, shape, or form. Trump can't issue a tweet that has the force of anything except the integrity and reliability of the office of the POTUS behind it. And he's shredded that already.
Wonder how Wall Street will react to this? Or maybe Trump was watching Navarro and is reacting to the market fall by making sure he's not to blame. That would be consistent with how he "governs."
Oh boy.
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