J.R. said:
What the administration has done relative to how tariffs were implemented were a total FUBAR. What you do if you have issues with countries with trade, you have those discussions behind closed doors. You can be frank and forceful to get their attention. If you need to threaten them, that is ok if they don't get the message and work together with a real plan behind closed doors. If that doesn't work, you go to plan B and institute tariffs if one thinks that is the next step. You just don't declare a trade war filled with vitriol in public. Very unprofessional and we got the response we deserve. It isn't Trump hate, he just wants to be a public bully and tough guy and just see where that has gotten us. Being a bully served him well in the development business, he this ain't the Bronx.
except that we've tried what you suggested and it manifestly failed.
It doesn't matter whether the nations who trade with us like us nor not. They have nowhere else to go to replace the surplus they have with us. They will publicly posture to look tough, and behind the scenes work to limit the damage by cutting a deal.
You are comically out of your depth here, on politics as well as diplomacy. If there is one nation in the world who can throw some scheisse around and force everyone else to swallow, its the USofA. We have the largest, deepest consumer goods market in the world and 11 carrier groups to boot. Nobody improves their circumstances by flipping us off. They all get weaker and poorer if they get cut off from our markets. They are not going to let that happen just because Trump is calling them the governor of the 51st state (or somesuch).
One of the unsung values of the public diplomacy Trump is doing is that it is freezing the issue for public debate. And as that debate rages, we can see the telltale signs of an establishment that is spent, failing to deliver on the things it was erected to do, out of ideas, and defending itself purely as a hierarchy of power, couching its positions as morality and issuing histrionic allegations that anyone who disagrees with them is deplorable, or worse.
Trump is letting everyone know that the days of structural US trade deficits are over. If you don't like how he's doing it, fine - tell us how ANOTHER 50 years of trade deficits is good for us. Go on. We're waiting.
