Trump seems to not be enjoying the reaction to his twitter war against Mika Brzezinski, which underlays his irrational and primitive fear of women snd especially their menstrual cycles. He tried to quickly move on from wars against women media personalities to one of his other favorite childish ideas-- trade wars. Although Bannon was;t in the room, he had programmed Trumpanzee to make a pitch for tariffs at a high-level White House meeting Thursday, based on a plan put together by Bannon and crackpot billionaire Commerce Secretary (and murderer) Wilbur Ross. Of over 20 top officials in the room, the only support for tariffs on steel and other imports like aluminum, semiconductors, paper, and appliances like washing machines, came from Trump's lunatic trade policy director Peter Navarro and walking freak show Stephen Miller. Trumpanzee tried claiming that the steel tariffs will level the playing field with China, saner officials in the meeting tried explaining to the moron with the attention span of a gnat that the move would likely have highly negative implications for trade relations with top allies like Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany and the U.K. Trump's benefactors in Russia, of course will be overjoyed. It was Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan at Axios who broke the story of the Roosevelt Room White House meeting: Trump overrules cabinet, plots global trade war.
One official estimated the sentiment in the room as 22 against and 3 in favor-- but since one of the three is named Donald Trump, it was case closed.No decision has been made, but the President is leaning towards imposing tariffs, despite opposition from nearly all his Cabinet.In a plan pushed by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and backed by chief strategist Steve Bannon (not present at the meeting), trade policy director Peter Navarro and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, the United States would impose tariffs on China and other big exporters of steel. Neither Mike Pence nor Jared Kushner weighed in either way.Everyone else in the room, more than 75% of those present, were adamantly opposed, arguing it was bad economics and bad global politics. At one point, Trump was told his almost entire cabinet thought this was a bad idea. But everyone left the room believing the country is headed toward a major trade confrontation.The reason, we're told: Trump's base-- which drives more and more decisions, as his popularity sinks-- likes the idea, and will love the fight.The problem, according to top officials who argued strenuously that the move is ill-advised: The trade war wouldn't just affect China. The collateral damage would include a slew of allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.Watch for: Trump was warned-- and White House officials anticipate-- that an affected industry like automakers is likely to seek a court injunction within hours of any tariffs on steel.
You may recall that right after the election a worried CitiGroup chief economist, Willem Buiter, wrote in a memo to the bank's top clients that Señor Trumpanzee's protectionist trade policies might spark a global trade war, "which could easily trigger a global recession." Buiter said Citi estimates trade and other policy uncertainties could be a 1% drag on US GDP over the next year, which would affect U.S. consumers and upend macroeconomic policies that have been in place for more than half a century (precisely what Bannon is aiming to do, and what neither Trump nor is slow-witted son-in-law have the capacity to understand). As Buiter noted-- and every economist in the world gets-- these policies have increased worldwide prosperity and been positive developments for the U.S. "We stress," he wrote, "the potential multipliers of changes in the U.S. position on international trade: the U.S. has been the champion of free trade and open borders for decades. A retreat from globalization by the U.S. would likely lead to reciprocal actions from other countries, and reinforce the latest shift towards de- globalization and could be another nail in the coffin of the liberal global economic world order that has supported prosperity since 1948."Happy day for Bannon and his proto-fascist agenda. Ill-wind for Americans... and the rest of the world.
