I guess we should remember the date. The trade war started today:
A trade war between the world’s two largest economies officially began on Friday morning as the Trump administration followed through with its threat to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, a significant escalation of a fight that could hurt companies and consumers in both the United States and China.
The penalties, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m., prompted quick retaliation by Beijing, which said it immediately put its own similarly sized tariffs on American goods. Previously, the Chinese government had said it would tax pork, soybeans and automobiles, among other products
China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the United States “has launched the biggest trade war in economic history so far.”
American soybean farmers are among the first victims:
Soybean prices in the U.S. and Brazil, the nations that account for roughly 80 percent of global exports, have taken drastically different paths thanks to Donald Trump’s trade war.
In the U.S., average cash prices fell to about $7.79 a bushel this week, the lowest in almost a decade, according to an index compiled by the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. China’s tariffs on American goods including farm products have now taken effect after the U.S. implemented a raft of duties earlier in the day Friday and President Trump threatened more action.
Meanwhile in Brazil, exporters have been handed high times. Soybeans to be loaded in August at the nation’s Paranagua port fetched $2.21 a bushel more than Chicago futures as of Friday, the widest gap since data starts in 2014.
Not surprising then that the Politico Playbook reports:
Republicans have privately warned us they think that a trade war with China is enough to cost them their majority in the House. The everyday economic impact — higher prices, businesses laying off employees — would blunt any positive impact of tax reform. Well, the trade war is here. Combine that with rising gas prices four months before Election Day.
It remains to be seen if soybean farming districts will punish their (mostly) Republican congresspeople to the point it causes some major upsets in the House. It could have an impact on some Senate races, too. Of course, the retaliatory tariffs are designed to do the most damage to Trump’s base thereby dividing the Republicans and eroding Trump’s position. Europe went after Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson in a clear message to Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. China is going after pork and soybeans, and also the automotive industry that is as important these days in Alabama, Tennessee and Indiana as it is in Michigan. In any case, those are all Trump states.
It’s hard to say how people will react. Will they really treat a trade war like a shooting war and rally around the president and the flag? That might happen. On the other hand, maybe a lot of people will turn on the president and his party when they feel a very direct sting from his policies.
All Trump really has going for him here is that he can argue that he isn’t afraid to stir things up and take other countries on. But he’ll have a hard time keeping his own party on board for a trade war that is hurting their own constituents and causing job loss and plant closures in their districts.
Looks like you and the WaPo editorial board are channeling each other today.
I’ve posted this elsewhere today, but there was an interview on the morning news program with small farmers in regards to the tariff. One dairy farmer said they were already struggling and now with the tariffs, they were worried about the future of their farm.
But they said they had voted for Trump and were confident that he would fight for them. They said the tariffs would be temporary and were just a bluff Trump was using to make the Chinese back down. They will never turn on Trump. He can do no wrong in their eyes, even if they lose their family farm because of his actions.
Let them go. Cut them loose. Don’t ask them what they think or give them the time of day. They’ll never change.
Instead we need to talk to other voters, encourage them to vote in November, show them the way to fight back against Republicans. We need to motivate and register ad many people as possible. Let the Maga voters fend for themselves.
These people really are totally clueless about:
A) How Trump’s personality disorders determine his behavior and what to expect from him.
B) How Chinese cultural expectations determine how the Chinese will act.
Specifically, Trump only makes deals where the other party visibly loses. Meanwhile, Chinese culture will prevent them from agreeing to lose face.
I’ll repost here what I replied to you at NMMNB:
At this point I have zero fucks left to give about these fools. Let them crash and burn and lose everything they’ve got — and then let them turn to the despised government for help and find none. That’s what they voted for, and that’s what they deserve.
It would be one thing if there was an informed intellect behind any of this. But there isn’t, just the fact-free gibbering of an ignorant fool, who knows absolutely nothing of international trade or macroeconomics, with not a single economic expert to advise (let alone challenge) him. This is what it means to have “Nazified” the US federal government–the ideas of an unqualified imbecile strongman-wannabe are given free rein, while courtiers and toadies sit silently as he blathers his nightly table talk rants.
So far the stock markets haven’t reacted as if this is a day of economic/trade infamy, but they are famously irrational and can hang in the air for months.
Der Trumper is definitely throwing some sand into the gears of the machine with this one. This is how Great Depressions arise. But then again (as a silver lining) only Gotterdammerung could possibly alter the thoughts and opinions of Trumper’s reactionary white minority at this point.
The stock market is always the last thing to react.
Even so, the stock market could keep doing great while people suffer. We forget America’s Fortune 500 has been investing HEAVILY in China in the last few decades. A significant number of the few privately held Chinese companies are actually American owned subsidiary’s. Since at least 2000, China is where American corporations have found revenue growth as market growth in the U.S. and western Europe has stagnated and even regressed because of forced government austerity and declining consumer buying power.
Therefore, the companies that drive the Fortune 500 are playing both sides of this “trade war.”
Some diffuse economic pain in the heartland won’t hurt Trump. It will take high-impact, high-visibility events like serious job losses and wrenching stock market devaluations to create a nationwide sense of ‘Trump is a #!*!@! disaster’
Until then, his base will cling to excuses.
The only thing that can hurt Trump now is if he reinstates DACA, or signs an immigration bill that institutionalizes DACA, or does anything that provides more or shorter or smoother paths to citizenship, or increases the number of immigrants, or migrants, or asylum-seekers. Something like that might dent his support.
Other than that, he’s fireproof.
Not even that would do it.
Only being proved a cuck, with video, would be enough.
.
Fireproof with who? All institutionalized pols are fireproof with certain segments of population. We have seen no evidence he has a polling floor, but a lot of evidence he has a hard ceiling.
Let’s just say that if the Republicans lose the Senate on a map like 2018 I wouldn’t call that “fireproof”
It is not just the heartland. There is a entire processing/transportation infrastructure that moves the soy and corn from the farm to the cargo ship. Also, the donald has given China the opportunity to develop sources closer to home and never buy American soy/corn again.
also, although Trump forgot about North Korea as soon as his photo-op “summit” was over, there’s no way any NK policy can work without China’s cooperation. That’s gone now.
He just remembered his new BFF:
Trump Is Reportedly Sending New Pal Kim Jong Un An Awkward Gift
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-kim-jong-un_us_5b3ef90de4b05127ccf081bd
“I packed my bags last night, pre-flight…”
WTF?????
Even The Onion would find that almost too ridiculous to publish.
If the White Supremacists perceive that Europe, China, Canada and wherever else are deliberately targeting Trump’s most ardent fan’s industries/businesses/farms, that’ll just make ’em cling all the more tenaciously to their Nazi Fuhrer. They’re already out there in their White Sheets proudly displaying the Stars and Bars.
All the tariff’s mean is that Trump can point more new “enemies” of his “his people.”
So just like how these garbage Nazi’s cling and grasp to every single Trump “policy” because, in their feeble “brains,” it “makes Libtards mad”… they’ll just get their rocks off in making China, fancy-pants Elitist Europe, Enemy Number One Canada, etc, “mad” by continuing to support Trump Uber Alles.
These stupid idiots appear more than willing to lose the family farm (literally), live on the streets with no health care, no food, have their kids die from malnutrition, all in the name of “supporting” their Nazi Fuhrer, while pissing off everyone who’s not them.
I have serious doubts that any of these deplorables can ever be pried away from their brain-dead worship of this worst offal that this nation has ever produced.
I want to see how they vote this fall when there is no market for all those peanuts, pork, and chicken in Georgia. I believe they will just stay home and not vote.
I’d settle for that.
Reuters reported last week there is a long line at the White House door looking to get a Tariff Exemption for their specific business.
Wonder how many nights a company needs to book at a Trump resort, booked “corporate events” or, fuck it, direct reelection campaign contribution to get an exemption Trump is charging for them?
If the economy starts hurting, which I’m pretty sure it will, I don’t think the idiots matter that much. Whether the money’s coming in or going bye bye, money talks, bullshit walks. Business leaders across the country will make their feelings known.
Well a good fascist needs external enemies for his followers to hate on. If there aren’t any, he creates them. I suppose a trade war is better than a hot war, but I’ll be listening for saber rattling from the WH as this ramps up.
July 6th pales in comparison to what happened on July 4th, which should truly live in infamy as a lowest of lows in this fascist turn of events we’re dealing with:
Russian officials and state media mock ‘weak’ GOP senators after Moscow visit
https:/www.rawstory.com/2018/07/russian-officials-state-media-mock-weak-gop-senators-moscow-visit
“Russian broadcasters mocked the Republican lawmakers who visited Moscow over the Fourth of July holiday and gloated about the Kremlin’s role in electing President Donald Trump.”
“Seven U.S. senators and one congresswoman — Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND), Ron Johnson (R-WI), John Kennedy (R-LA), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) — traveled to Russia for closed-door meetings with high-ranking Kremlin officials.”
<snip>
“The Alabama Republican dismissed the widespread agreement among U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election, but Russian TV hosts disagreed.”
“‘What trouble did we cause?’ one Russian TV analyst said last week, before the senators arrived. ‘We just elected Trump, that’s all.'”
<snip>
“Russian broadcasters mocked the Republican lawmakers as ‘weak,’ saying their tough talk changed after arriving in Moscow.”
“‘We need to look down at them and say: You came because you needed to, not because we did,’ said Russian military expert Igor Korotchenko on state-run television.”
So these “tough” GOP senators went to Moscow on their knees, were openly mocked as weak, laughed at for their effort. Meanwhile, Russian newscasters reported they elected Trump. And this from the tough guys who complained loud and long about Obama “apologizing” for America.
Just more circumstantial evidence that its not just Trump, the GOP itself is owned by Putin. Putin has something on the GOP itself that, if published…not sure how to finish that; given the slavish cultishness of their followers, they may even love them more if whatever they got on them was published, not matter what it was.
This happened on July 4th, and the media basically avoided it. Just imagine if democrats had done something like this; they’d have the breathless reports with air raid sirens going 24/7.
You couldn’t have made this shit up if you tried.
Aah, soybeans. Where to get started? 90% of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois’ soybeans go to Asia, Japan and China specifically. Printer’s ink is derived from soy beans. I taught a Japanese chemical engineer who described soybeans as the gift that keeps on giving. They’re easy on the environment, good for the soil as nitrogen stablizers, and farmers in the Midwest can’t produce enough of the stuff, so prices are always cheap. And as a food source we get tofu, edamame-the Japanese word for crisp, fresh soybeans (which is what Trader Joe’s now calls their edible soybean pea pod like snaps that go really well with beer (!)), tons and tons of tofu and finally soy sauce. Kikkoman’s Soy Sauce has a huge factory in southern Wisconsin.
That same region of southern Wisconsin is home to Racine and Lake Geneva which is Paul Ryan’s stronghold, and the area went big for Trump in 2016. The farmers in those areas are going to be severely impacted by Trumpkin Lumpkin’s trade war. I think sheer economic hardship will impact his base, and that base will erode further as he essentially shuts out and pimps region after region demonstrating, that yes, he most certainly is a false populist.
“But he’ll have a hard time keeping his own party on board for a trade war that is hurting their own constituents and causing job loss and plant closures in their districts.”
This assumes that Strongman Trump needs the Republican party to get elected. He doesn’t. He has 63 million idiots and morons who I have no doubt will double-down on their idiocy in 2020.
It doesn’t mean it won’t hurt the Republican party, but I don’t see it affecting Strongman Trump at all. Regardless of a trade war, or jobs lost.
The pig people are lost.