To put it impolitely, bullshit. Zero rational analysis comes to this conclusion.
Trump began this idiocy by attacking Canada and Mexico, the very countries he triumphantly signed his trade agreement with just five years ago. He lied -- that's what he does -- about a made up Fentanyl emergency, but it's clear the guy loves tariffs (he's been going on about this for years, and still people try to pretend that isn't what this is about...amazingly everyone just assumes that everything out of his mouth is a lie). Outside of oil and gas the US has (or rather had) a massive trade surplus with Canada, but oh well that's a thing of the past now and will never return.
Then he attacked everyone else.
He did the same thing in term one. He could easily have gotten everyone onboard with strategies to contain or slow China, but instead he pushed everyone else away. He had adults in the room containing his profound sabotage of the US the first time, but this time he's going to speedrun the country to dissolution.
I get that the Trump faithful are desperately trying to do the 4D chess thing now. It will never work. The clown has no idea what he is doing, and has build such a cult no one can tell him how profoundly stupid he is. His treasury secretary is likely to quit in days.
China is the real target, others tariffs are mostly a smoke screen and considered a potentially beneficial side effect.
>China is the real target,
To put it impolitely, bullshit. Zero rational analysis comes to this conclusion.
Trump began this idiocy by attacking Canada and Mexico, the very countries he triumphantly signed his trade agreement with just five years ago. He lied -- that's what he does -- about a made up Fentanyl emergency, but it's clear the guy loves tariffs (he's been going on about this for years, and still people try to pretend that isn't what this is about...amazingly everyone just assumes that everything out of his mouth is a lie). Outside of oil and gas the US has (or rather had) a massive trade surplus with Canada, but oh well that's a thing of the past now and will never return.
Then he attacked everyone else.
He did the same thing in term one. He could easily have gotten everyone onboard with strategies to contain or slow China, but instead he pushed everyone else away. He had adults in the room containing his profound sabotage of the US the first time, but this time he's going to speedrun the country to dissolution.
I get that the Trump faithful are desperately trying to do the 4D chess thing now. It will never work. The clown has no idea what he is doing, and has build such a cult no one can tell him how profoundly stupid he is. His treasury secretary is likely to quit in days.
I am not a Trump fan (pretty much the opposite) and you are right that this strategy is dumb is very likely to fail spectacularly.
But I maintain that the real core thing behind this chaos is about China.