I think we all knew from the beginning this wasn’t going to happen. El Presidente Imbécil was going to boast and brag until reality smacked him in the face. Negotiating is not a quick process. As a matter of fact, it can be quite drawn out. From Raw Story:
President Donald Trump’s deadline for his “90 Deals in 90 Days” initiative was July 9, but after making only two “deals” with hours to go, Trump is pushing his target date back. On Monday, Trump sent 14 letters to the leaders of various countries, threatening to increase U.S. tariffs on goods imported from their countries dramatically, from 20-40% for each country. NBC News’ senior White House correspondent, Garrett Haake, reported Tuesday that the president is promising there are about a dozen deals with “major economies” that he wants to negotiate on.
Uh, huh. I believe that as much as I believe his cologne and perfumes are going to do well, that is, I don’t. I did a piece recently on how many things Agent Orange has failed at, and it’s a LOT. More than 60, actually. So I’m not believing any “deals” will be made.
“It’s pretty clear that that slogan from the White House has crashed headlong into the reality that negotiating trade deals, especially with some of our largest trading partners, is complex work,” Haake noted. “But for the vast majority of other nations in the world, the president seems set on setting tariff rates unilaterally by letter, using a power provided to him that’s actually already bogged down in the courts,” said Haake.
These “letters” were full of errors. And he’s sending these out to world leaders. Check out Ursula’s column here. Good gods. I’m embarrassed, and I have nothing to do with it! I think he’s going to get a lot of slapback for those letters. It will only make him look even more like an imbecile.
After moving the deadline back to Aug. 1, Trump confessed that even that date isn’t firm. “I think it’s pretty clear this is going to remain a moving target,” said Haake. “The president also said in that same media availability that even though he sees essentially his work as done, he’s willing to continue to listen to offers. As we journalists know, a shifting deadline is no real deadline.” Over the weekend, a White House insider claimed that Trump’s tariff war was for show, calling it “all fake.”
Now isn’t that interesting? The tariff war is fake. Alrighty then! What’s he going to try and do next? And how soon is it going to flop? Only the Shadow knows. Thanks for sticking with me!
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All this so that he can impose higher import taxes, (tariffs) than even those of Smoot-Hawley in the 1920s -which wrecked the US and world economies.
So this time it can be worse?
I recommend Paul Krugman’s thoughts on the subject.
It certainly can be worse 🙁 I’ll have to go find that.