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Trump proposed a 25% tariff on foreign steel. Good countries are exempt. Bad countries have to comply.
China is a bad country. The United States owes China slightly over $1 trillion dollars. Also, China steals our intellectual property and sells us more things than we sell them.
Calling a friend, a bad country, harms whatever friendship there is.
Now, it’s tit for tat. China slapped the U.S. with tariffs on 106 products. The only consequential one, in my opinion, being whiskey. Jack Daniels is made in Trump country, Lynchburg, Tennessee. China’s going to make Trump supporters suffer the most as Tennessee will not realistically continue to sell their product in the Chinese market. That creates a stockpile. Money’s not coming in. The price of jack Daniels should fall some in the United States and probably other places as well. But I think it’s a horrible tasting whiskey at any price. By the way, Trump supporters will be laid off and some of them won’t be able to make their mortgage payments or feed their children. Will the “very stable genius” Donald Trump order relief for them? Or will he continue to divert available resources to the pockets of the rich?
I’ll be drinking Canadian whiskey from now on: Tom Russell Canadian Whiskey mpg - YouTube
The prices of other whiskey’s will probably also fall.
People pay a premium for quality, generally speaking.
Trump has got it wrong.
All China has to do is to dump all their U.S treasury on the market and this war is over. They’ve been subsidizing our lifestyles for a while now and I do not understand why they (meaning China) keep thinking it’s a good deal for them to buy this many worthless pieces of paper (U.S. Bonds) in exchange for producing the vast majority of our consumer goods.
P.S. I’ve been hearing a lot of EU politicians saying that free trade is good and that Trump is wrong and so on. They’re right, but hypocritical. The EU is as protectionist as they go: taking the exchange rate into account, almost everything that’s not produced within the EU is about 30% more expensive than it is in North America.
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“…The EU is as protectionist as they go: taking the exchange rate into account, almost everything that’s not produced within the EU is about 30% more expensive than it is in North America…”
One of the actual “evils” of the EU, in my opinion, is the way they conspire to disadvantage African producers of, for example, coffee. There are people in the third world right now who are being kept down, kept poor, while the EU-fatcats in Brussels guzzle their fine wine.
Corrupt people - for the most part in the pockets of big Franco-German banks and corporations.
They send humanitarian help 
Nothing to see here!
Step 1. Impose tariffs on food imports, hence helping our farmers and forcing our people to buy overpriced food.
Step 2. Third world farmers can’t compete and stop farming.
Step 3. Third world countries starve, time to send humanitarian help so that we can feel better about ourselves.
Your mistake is to think that the Chinese oligarchies care about their people. They don’t use the U.S. Bonds because still worth it to them like still worth it to Saudi Arabia to have, is good to control any attempt of any candidate to prejudicate their business.
China is moving away from the dollar but they need more time to expand their influence in Africa, Latin America, other regions and countries(including Canada as you know).
Besides that the Empire of U.S.A will fall by itself, the chinese just need to watch while they eat popcorn.
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That’s not what I’m saying. China can stop buying (meaning selling) U.S. bonds, which would cause a rise in the interest rates (and a U.S. stock market crash) and then the U.S. would probably have to default on the debt since Americans can’t afford to finance their government.
The problem to China is that they keep buying U.S. bonds because they believe in the Keynesian theory that a weak currency promotes export which is completely wrong since all that typically does is that your imports get more expensive.
Investopedia explains it better than I do. But you’ll notice that they also believe in the “weak currency = good for exports” fallacy.
Also, Schiff nailed it as usual: đź”´ Ep. 344: Americans Have the Most to Lose in a Trade War - YouTube
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Yes, I already listen to Schiff about China so I know the argument of why the Chinese are doing a wrong move buying U.S. bonds, but this in economic terms. We can not rule out the political influence against the United States that this gives China.
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