All you needed to do to realize that the clown in the White House was shooting his mouth off was to link to the Chinese announcement and hit "Translate" on Google.

Trump claims that Tariffs are a tool to solve many problems; he says Tariffs will lower the trade deficit (yet it continues to go up); bring back manufacturing (though by raising costs for US based businesses, he is making them LESS competitive); and allow him to negotiate better trade deals (yet USMCA is virtually identical to NAFTA). Tariffs are a tax that hurt both American businesses and consumers. Tariffs are a lose-lose strategy. Only morons would support such a stupid strategy.

Once the economy slows enough, Trump will claim ”mission accomplished”, like all previous US governments have done when ending tariffs. He will also claim that he has ”fixed” everything that is wrong with the economy and set it up for long term growth. At that point, the economy should have stalled to less than 1% growth. Whether it dips into recession is still a toss-up.

And the trade deficit will not change much at all. Though if the economy slows enough, the trade deficit will shrink a bit.

In his first year he listened to the grown ups and signed Paul Ryans tax cut and vastly slowed down the regulation state. The result was a little bump up of GDP to right around 3% for 2018. This year he listens to the Tariff Man because the Tariff Man is the geniusy of all men and we will probably see recession is 2019. At the very least we will be back under 2% gdp.

Very few people getting rich in the stock market these days.

Trump and Elon Musk, birds of a feather, only with Trump, taxpayer's and every American's wealth is stake instead of just shareholders'. Bankruptcy stalks them both. For how long can saying it is so make it so? Maybe possibly Musk can outtalk reality, make good despite his misrepresentations, and intone every conman's mantra: no harm, no foul. Tragically, it is almost inconceivable that Trump, and hence we, will avoid the reality that Trump's economic con (manufacturing will return; we can win a trade war ) is vesting upon us. We not only will be poorer, but also will suffer increased disillusion with our economic system, increasing the temptation to follow an even more destructive economic charlatan, a serious socialist the most likely.

Trump negotiates like George Costanza:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "...i am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our NATION, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN." - Dec 4, 2018

Ford to Announce 25,000 job cuts - December 3, 2018

General Motors to Fire 18,000 workers - November 26, 2018

Homebuilders Admit Housing Market Optimism Has Collapsed - November 19, 2018

And the list goes on and on...

History has shown that tariffs are generally never the best way to correct trade imbalances. In fact, they have this nasty tendency to lead to massive layoffs, and they often eventually lead nations to military conflict.

Obviously, the Donald has no idea who really ends up paying for tariffs (the people do with higher prices). And obviously, he is no serious student on the history of tariffs. Not only do they make a nation's people poorer, but they are usually the next step towards war. All major wars have been economic wars.

If you haven't noticed, the prices at the grocery stores have really been going up lately. That shouldn't surprise anyone who knows that a lot of our food stuff ends up coming from China, or in some association thereof. I recently bought a fly line kit for my fly fishing rod, and I presumed that since it said USA STOCK on it that it was USA Made. My assumption was wrong, the USPS tracking info indicates that it is being shipped from QINGDAO CHINA. I thought I'd get it before the price really went up.

In my humble opinion, we have nothing more than a demagogue for a chief administrator. (Demagogue - a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power amid popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.)

The last election was nothing more than the choice between a demagogue and a scammer.

Hoover Man