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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No country in the world of economic importance is capable of or has the political fortitude to run perpetual deficits. Full stop. That’s the rub and why Trump has leverage.

This doesn’t mean that Trump will win, but economic alliances to date have been sustained by America’s willingness to run trade deficits and kill off our manufacturing base in exchange for all the benefits and influence of of being the world’s reserve currency.  The idea that a bunch of countries who have [b]built their economies on trade surpluses are now going to be okay with more balanced trade[/b] or be willing to run perpetual trade deficits is pure fantasy.

The probable outcome of all of this from Trump is that nobody wins. [/quote]

The part in bold makes the case for what Trump is doing.  You just made his argument for him.

Glad you finally said the quiet part out loud.[/quote]

So it's been raised that the short-sightedness and pettiness of MAGA Trump supporters to this ridiculous approach for resolving trade deficits is somehow equalizing the playing field or maybe punishing other countries for taking advantage of US markets is totally whacko. [/quote]

[quote]Trade is a game where everyone wins.  Some things you can get more but in other areas, you may get less.  The fact that Japan is a smaller country than us means they - guess what? - consume less than the US!  They in turn may have more money to come visit and spend on tourism in the US whereby, helping us out economically.  Do you get that equation?  Trade is not just a one dimensional zero sum game.  It's about building relationships where we help each other and we want a win-win business relationship because when it's not a win-win and when there's too much greed for one country, nobody actually wins.  The relationships element of trade keeps things a win-win.  Of course, you can tweak relationships/balance and you can approach various strategies to help your country optimize trade transactions but typically you do that very carefully, over time usually and industry specific. [/quote]

This is just naive. Trade is a game where theoretically everyone wins at the nation state level. But at the individual citizen level there are absolutely winners and losers in trade.  Communities of every political persuasion in the USA have been economically wiped out by free trade over the past 30 years.  And their loss has been a gain of communities in place like Canada, Mexico and China.  The idea that coal miners and journalists are going to retrain into knowledge economy workers has proved to be a farce. Maybe retraining  workers was a good theory in the mid-90s, but Ross Perot was right:  the giant sucking sound was jobs leaving for Mexico and there was nothing else for these people to do.  Add in downward pressure on wages from undocumented migrants, and is it any wonder there is an isolationist/protectionist flavor to Trump’s base?

[quote]You do not climb over everyone and try to get to the top of the hill and say everyone has taken advantage of you so now you are going to take revenge and equalize so that you change all trade policies overnight.  This ruins the relationship, it ruins the ability for other countries to actually help you out as well because you take away their economic stability.  This is called lose-lose and this is what currently Trump is imposing on all of us![/quote]

Buying friends works until you stop paying. We can decide to stop paying whenever we want to.  If the relationship cannot withstand it, then it was not a friendship to begin with.  [/quote]

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