Monday, December 02, 2019
Another stage prop
More misuse of tariffs by Trump, supposedly to punish other countries but actually to punish America.
Now he's threatening to impose tariffs on steel from Argentina and Brazil, who are supposedly using currency rates to undercut American farmers. Nonsense.
We constantly export twice as much as we import with Argentina.
Ditto for Brazil.
Our
ag imports from Argentina are almost entirely tropical fruits that we can't produce here. This is already the CORRECT form of trade by good populist standards.
Our ag imports from Brazil are mainly coffee. Again a crop we can't produce here.
Argentina and Brazil are NOT competing in any way with American farmers. They may be competing with American steel producers, but the reason we lost our steel producers was EPA rules, not foreign competition. If we hadn't closed down metals and mining in the '70s, there wouldn't have been an opening for sane countries with sane regulations to expand their industries.
So what's the purpose? Trump isn't hurting China, which will continue trading with both countries. He may slightly bother the steel industry in Brazil and Argentina, but they are already moving their focus eastward. This threat will strengthen their connections to the Silk Road, which will hurt our EXPORTS more than our imports.
Mainly Trump is just building another stage prop that he can move around to manipulate the Dow and the Fed. His tweet explicitly aims the action at the Fed.
And who loses from infinite Dow and zero interest? Americans. The same Americans (including me) who foolishly and stupidly voted for this vile faker.
Labels: malign misattribution
¶ 5:16 AM
