Trump Hypes the Pointless Phase One "Deal".

18 Dec 19

As I have repeatedly predicted, the Chinese are continuing to swamp President Trump with his own rhetoric. For the third time since these tariff “negotiations” started, as a deadline approached, the Chinese have played POTUS with the promise to purchase stuff they would need anyway. AND it won’t be the Chinese negotiators who do the buying. It is companies in China who have gotten the green light to buy these items unencumbered, if they wish. That point is made all the more interesting by the fact that the Chinese insisted the promise not be written down. Stupidly, or perhaps out of desperation, the Trump administration rolled over and pissed on itself. They removed the threatened December tariffs and cut back on old tariffs. What did we get in return? Well, for one thing, we get to pay higher corn and soy prices. An unanticipated spike in sales will lower supplies and raise prices. Beyond that, the much-praised Phase One deal yielded exactly nothing for us.  As usual, when the government tips the scale on anything, only the targeted populations, this time farmers, benefit.  The rest of us have to lump it.  It is a broad-brush, net zero. Why? Let’s review. First, as I have stated repeatedly, the Chinese do not want a deal. They CERTAINLY don’t want any kind of a deal that is binding and commits them to end their criminal activities vis a vis the theft of intellectual property and the forced surrender of technology.  China simply will not agree to that unless the West and the Pacific Rim develop the sack needed to SHUT DOWN all trade with China. The theft issue is enough to cease trade with the Chinese entirely. The technology transfer problem is the fault of the cronies who sleep with the ChiComms like whores. They don’t care that in the long-term their companies will be nationalized by the ChiComms. They know they will make personal billions in the interim and future layoffs will occur amongst the employees they don’t give a shit about. Who cares if the Chinese then dominate the industry later. The cronies got their cut. Don’t agree? Look at the 5G situation. 90% of Chinese domination in that sector is courtesy of crony whores from the West, especially big tech in the US. Thanks, Google. Thanks, Facebook. Good job, Amazon and Tesla! So much for your tree-hugging, planet loving, “liberal” titans of tech. Secondly, even if we stipulate that the whole tariff war was a good idea (It’s not. It’s remarkably stupid and ILLEGAL.), Trump et al went about the wrong way about it. The obvious reason the Chinese don’t want to make a deal is because they don’t need to right now. We don’t have anyone but the Mexicans watching our back against the ChiComms. By impulsively pounding everyone at the same time with tariff talk, Trump disunified the West.  He weakened the position of the West and the US in face of China. That’s why we had to back down on Huawei. NO ONE is willing to help, because our friends and enemies alike are busy fighting off our tariffs as well. The smart way to do the tariff move would have been to first leave Europe out of the battle for now. Invite them to do battle with Russia and China at the same time, agreeing on low hanging fruit to tariff and stick it to China all at once. They could have started with Huawei as a team. Sadly, because Europe meekly demurred from dealing with Huawei’s threat, we were left hanging. It was announced last week the company can continue “for 90 more days” (yeah right) to bid on contracts with OUR GOVERNMENT! THIS INCLUDES THE DO goddamn D. That’s right boys and girls. ChiComm, inc. (not to be confused with Chicago Communications) will continue to build electronics for our government and military! (WAIT. Didn’t B. Hussein Obama, peace be upon him, come from Chicago? Maybe…well…nah.) If, in the course of his presidency (4 years or 8) Trump gets the criminal regime (Xi’s, not Obama’s. Obama’s is gone.) to codify in law that they have forsworn theft and corporate coercion as standard business, I will declare my read of all of this as wrong and will publish a detailed and sincere apology. I have no fear of ever having to do so.