This fool’s war of big egos will inevitably end in a face-saving compromise between Washington and Beijing. Get on with it.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/09/eric-margolis/fools-war-over-trade/
According to the great military thinker, Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, ‘the object of war is not victory. It is to achieve political goals.’…
Trump’s wars are economic. They deploy the huge economic and financial might of the United States to steamroll other nations that fail to comply with orders from Washington. Washington’s motto is ‘obey me or else!’ Economic wars are not bloodless. Imperial Germany and the Central Powers were starved into surrender in 1918 by a crushing British naval blockade.
Trade sanctions are not making America great, as Trump claims. They are making America detested around the globe as a crude bully. Trump’s efforts to undermine the European Union and intimidate Canada add to this ugly, brutal image…
Trump and his advisors are right about China’s often questionable trade practices. I did 15 years of business in China and saw a kaleidoscope of chicanery, double-dealing, and corruption. A favorite Chinese trick was to leave imports baking in the sun on the docks, or long delaying them by ‘losing’ paperwork.
I saw every kind of craziness in the Wild East Chinese market. But remember that it’s a ‘new’ market in which western-style capitalism is only one generation old. Besides, China learned many of its fishy trade practices from France, that mother of mercantilism.
China indeed steals technical and military information on a mass scale. But so does the US, whose spy agencies suck up information across the world. America’s claims to be a victim are pretty rich…
In China’s view, the US is repeating what Great Britain did in the 19th century by declaring war to force opium grown in British-ruled Burma onto China’s increasingly addicted people. Today the trade crop is soya beans and wretched pigs.
Trump’s ultimate objective, as China clearly knows, is to whip up a world crisis over trade, then dramatically end it – of course, before next year’s elections. Trump has become a master dictator of US financial markets, rising or lowering them by surprise tweets…
It staggers the imagination to believe that Trump and his minions actually believe that they can intimidate China into bending the knee. China withstood mass devastation and at least 14 million deaths in World War II in order to fight off Japanese domination. Does the White House really think Beijing will cave in over soya beans and semi-conductors in a daft war directed by a former beauty contest and casino operator?…
Trade wars rarely produce any benefits for either side. They are the equivalent of sending tens of thousands of soldiers to be mowed down by machine guns on the blood-soaked Somme battlefield in WWI. Glory for the stupid generals; death and misery for the common soldiers
This fool’s war of big egos will inevitably end in a face-saving compromise between Washington and Beijing. Get on with it.
Be seeing you
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