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MAGA FAILURE: US Falls in World Esteem: Trump Desperate for a China Deal

According to Trump’s former chief economist, Mr. T is now desperate for a deal with China.

At home, the Trump Administration is faced with scandals that are epic … Grant’s Whisky Ring and Harding’s Tea Pot Dome are now faint memories after and administration where two thirds of the appointees have resigned in shame or indictment.  MAGA may still sell among Trump’s faithful in the US  but that is an America only core.  According to Gallup, Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan seems not to be doing very well in the global market. Chinas’ brand is now number one.   China’s median global approval rating has surpassed the U.S. at 34%.  The US brand in now tied with the Rissan brand.

Trump’s foreign policy of “America First” and the BREXIT mess in the EU has opened the door for China and Russia to flex their global influence.  While Russia does this through military might, Xi’s China has replaced the US as a global commercial power .. woning 50% of the world’s shipping, investing heavily in Africa, and funding the New Silk Road, an initiative with deep echoes of the Marshall Plan with China as the hub of a new world trading empire built on trains, railways, and shipping.  .

 Axios’ Dave Lawler: It’s well-documented that global views of the U.S. — which always shift based on who’s in the White House — have fallen dramatically under Trump. What’s interesting is that views of China and in particular Russia, generally considered a malevolent power in the U.S., are ticking upwards.

3,000 years of the rise and fall of Dynasties can be attributed to “Divine intervention”, thusly making History pretty simple.

Even Gary Cohn, President Trump’s former director of the National Economic Council, has chimed in.  Cohn was by far the most prominent  American business man to join the Trump Administration.  The Wall Street Journal described Cohn as an “economic-policy powerhouse”and The New York Times called Cohn Trump’s “go-to figure on matters related to jobs, business, and growth”.  Cohn quit on March 6, 2018 in public discord with Trump.  Cohn became upset first because of Trumps support for the white supremacists at the 2017 Charlottesville rally Those comments about good people on both sides were made while Mr. Cohn, a Jew, was standing next to Trump.  Cohn did not resign at that time but did so followeing Trump’ import tariffs on steel and aluminum.  Gary Coh was replaced by Larry Kudlow[37] a TV econ9most with few or no credentials in business or academia.

During an interview on Freakonomics Radio Cohn talked about China and Trump’s economic policies.

“When you put tariffs on goods that people in the United States consume every day, it’s a consumption tax. So all the tariffs did is they made products that Americans were going to buy more expensive. And in fact we got the final trade data numbers … And lo and behold [in 2018], we hit an all-time record-high trade deficit globally, and with China.”

“Tariffs don’t work. If anything, they hurt the economy because if you’re a typical American worker, you have a finite amount of income to spend. If you have to spend more on the necessity products that you need to live, you have less to spend on the services that you want to buy. And you definitely don’t have anything left over to save.

“So we should try and make the goods as cheap as possible. And we don’t produce the goods in the United States; we import the goods from other countries. And if we could produce the goods as cheaply as other countries do, we would produce them in the United States.”

“The president needs a win. The only big open issue right now that he could claim as a big win that he’d hope would have a big impact on the stock market would be a Chinese resolution. Getting the trade deficit down I will never say is easy, but of the issues on the table, that’s relatively easier. Getting the intellectual property, the forced technology transfer and the market access — much more difficult.

Cohn refused to answer questions about journalist Bob Woodward’s book in which he is quoted calling Trump a “professional liar” and a “f–king a–hole.”

Go deeper: 2018 pew poll shows which countries trust Xi and Putin more than Trump


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