Let’s compare trade policies and other economic policies of Trump to those of president Biden. 
“Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win”
On March 2, 2018, Trump famously Tweeted “Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win“
That was one of the silliest and most inaccurate statements on trade in history and I said so at the time. The results are in, as I have posted numerous times. Here’s a brief recap of some of my posts.
- October 7, 2020: 3,500 Corporations So Fed Up With Trump’s Tariffs They Sue the US
- July 28, 2021: Let’s Check In on How Well Tariffs Are Reducing US Trade Deficit
- December 5, 2021: US Trade Deficit in Microchips Shifts From China to Taiwan
- February 9, 2022: Trump’s “Historical Trade Deal” With China Final Results Are a Big Zero
- May 21, 2022: Who Won the US-China Trade War?
Praise and Honors to the Nonparticipants
President Biden pledged to be better than Trump on trade. That should have been an easy feat. But, amazingly, it wasn’t.
America’s Trade Abdication
Please consider the WSJ article from today regarding America’s Trade Abdication
The United Kingdom signed onto the Indo-Pacific trade pact on Sunday, becoming the first European country to join the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). In addition to its economic benefits for Britain, the event is notable for exposing America’s growing trade failures.
The CPTPP is the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Donald Trump walked away from in 2017. It includes Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia, among others. The pact excludes China, which made it an ideal opportunity to shape global trade rules and expand U.S. economic influence in the fastest-growing part of the world.
The U.S. won’t negotiate tariff reductions or market access measures. U.S. companies say the White House even seems to be backtracking on its promise to promote new standards for digital trade.
That leaves the U.S. on the sidelines as the rest of the world negotiates new trade deals, including the European Union with Indonesia and India. This also leaves the U.S. the odd economic man out in the Indo-Pacific even as U.S. companies urgently need supply-chain alternatives to China. The costs of Mr. Biden’s trade abdication are growing by the month.
The WSJ says “After criticizing Mr. Trump’s trade policy as a candidate, President Biden has been nearly as protectionist in office.”
Excuse me for pointing out that Biden is the most protectionist president in memory, far worse than Trump.
Biden will not even work out a free trade agreement with the UK, perhaps as punishment for leaving the EU. And team Biden show no interest in digital trade standards.
When it comes to sanctions, Trump was bad but Biden is worse.
Biden Weaponized the Dollar
The US weaponized the dollar when it impounded Russia’s foreign reserves.
What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free? Buy Gold?
In response to Biden’s actions, I asked What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free? Buy Gold?
Janet Yellen Warns China on Russia and Creating a Bipolar Global Financial System
On April 13, 2022 I noted Janet Yellen Warns China on Russia and Creating a Bipolar Global Financial System
That’s really quite the hoot given US actions under the Biden administration are behind the impetus for a bipolar financial system.
Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US
On May 13, 2023, I commented Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US
A Game No One Can Win: China Retaliates Against Biden’s Chip War
President Biden not only continued Trump’s trade war, he escalated it.
On July 5, 2023, I commented A Game No One Can Win: China Retaliates Against Biden’s Chip War
Trump did not win a trade war with China, and Biden won’t either.
Trump kowtowed to unions and blue collar workers. Biden went overboard doing the same thing.
Trump ended a bunch of silly regulations. Biden put them all back and then some at record speed.
Fiscal Stimulus
At the tail end of the pandemic, Trump wanted bigger stimulus.
Biden topped Trump by a mile in the biggest, most unwarranted, inflationary fiscal stimulus in history.
For discussion of the above chart, please see A Reader Asks “Does an Increase in Money Supply Cause Inflation?”
I will do a separate post on this, but literally everything Biden does increases inflation.
Biden Economic Policy Two-Point Summary
- Everything Trump did that was wrong, Biden made worse
- Everything Trump did that was correct, Biden reversed.
Finally, please note my Hoot of the Day: Yellen Is Eager to Work With China on Mutual Interests
I thought no one could outtrump Trump on promoting one-sided trade policies that no other nation would accept.
I was wrong. Biden is more polarizing. But he gets away with it because he is more polite.
There is a reason for the electoral college. Its to prevent tyranny of the majority. Read up on it. We are a republic not a democracy. A democracy is two wolves and a lamb sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner.
The term “tyranny of the majority” comes from the Federalist papers, Federalism lost the Constitutional debates of the 1790’s, with one major concession – the comprisal of the Senate having two reps per state regardless of population.
Federalists wanted NO Bill of rights, they lost.
Those debates also discussed “tyranny of the minority”, comparing Federalism to another form of Monarchy where only landowners had the rights of free citizens.
There is not one mention of the word “Democracy” in the Constitution, the word didn’t exist, “Republican” was the word that meant representative Democracy.
Worth noting, “Capitalism” isn’t mentioned either, and yet, some act like infringing on “the right to capitalism” is a breach of Constitution.
So, yes, read up.
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Here’s a thought –
How much did Trump’s tariff’s effect the recent spike in inflation?
I distinctly recall Mish posting numerous protests to Trump’s tariffs, as well as numerous illiterate comments that China pays the tariff’s, not us.
As I recall, Trump’s tariff on $380b of goods was $80b, that cost is passed on to American consumers, there’s no question it played a role in inflation, but how much?
Trade tariff’s are a stealth sales tax, they’re flat, which means they’re regressive, they hurt lower income earners a lot more.
Biden hasn’t touched them, my guess is he won’t as long as it looks like it’s Trump’s fault.
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We shouldn’t worship at the altar of an academic global trade theory that every trade needs to be an allocation of labor and skills until we reach economic nirvana with all in perfect balance. Biden arrived in office found out that the trade direction is in our best interests. Maybe not in the interest of corporations.
And I’ve said this before, something needs to be taxed, what do you want to tax?
Like politicians, economists and their theories are paid for by those whom benefit from their work.
If an economist has a theory that higher worker wages benefit the economy, he’ll likely be serving burgers at a fast food chain, not much demand for that economist in corporate America.
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“Biden will not even work out a free trade agreement with the UK, perhaps as punishment for leaving the EU.”
Demonstrating just how much Democrats hate democracy. Obama even went over to Britain to interfere in their Brexit election. As i recall, he threatened to put a trade deal with Britain on the back burner, if they left the EU.
When you disobey the U.S. you should be punished. How’s the UK doing now?
That’s like saying grounding my kid after telling him I would ground him if he snuck out makes me a bad father
Trade with China will be largely irrelevant in a few years. The same holds true with Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and a few other key places where the demographics are horrible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqDCiJwcI18
Trade deals that matter moving forward will be with India, South America, and parts of Africa. Middle East too but they don’t have much beyond oil.
I think Vietnam should be on that list, labor there is dirt cheap and US relations are finally thawing.
We’re approaching paying a trillion a year in interest. The debt this year is expected to be about $1.4t. So much for the claim of reducing the deficit. At some point, I hope a democrat speaks up and stops this borrow and spend nonsense. I know we’ll never have a balanced budget again, but throwing money away in Ukraine and forgiving debt is nonsensical with what we’re looking at. Seems we should do everything necessary to reduce costs.
One thing puzzling to me is tariffs on solar panels coming from China. if climate change is the biggest threat to human survival, shouldn’t we be doing everything possible to reduce CO2 emissions? Seems like it’s more of a conveniently used political tool to get their way than an actual crisis.
“At some point, I hope a democrat speaks up and stops this borrow and spend nonsense.”
If a Democrat does speak up he/she/it will be hammered back into line. Remember what happened when the Progressive wing came out against sending arms to Ukraine? 24 hours later they withdrew their letter and apologized for their wrongthink.
Never forget that borrow and spend is a time-honored and sacred Democratic tradition and much easier than taxation. Even the Republicans have learned.
Democrats are in charge now. And with interest rates a lot higher, paying interest is going to become prohibitively difficult. It’s now the largest budget item having passed defense and the gap is only going to increase.
No, the republicans cut taxes and deficit spend. Brilliant. Probably worse than the democrat playbook. Cutting taxes good, increasing spending bad. WTF these idiots (D and R) never will do what is in the best intersest of the countrly, only themselves in order to get reelected.
How do you propose the republicans cut spending?
The least they could do is keep spending the same. How do you propose to cut spending??? Is that a serious question??
” how do you propose the Republicans cut spending”
Perhaps a review of failed tax policies, like job creating tax cuts that only benefited job creation in foreign countries.
As you have stated several times, Joe Biden is doing everything he can to stoke, if not accelerate, US inflation.
The dollar will continue to devalue and eventually die as the global reserve currency. I give it less than 10 years.
I heard the same prediction in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020….2030?
Any decade now the dollar will collapse…lol.
No fiat currency has ever survived. You are correct it will remain in place until the Minsky moment happens. Unforseen. Brandon is doing the best job ever of accelerating that eventuallity.
Whatever “Brandon” does is irrelevant. The western world is in a demographic death spiral. Less workers = less production & supply which means higher prices for everything moving forward. It wouldn’t matter if Trump or Biden or Mickey Mouse were president, nothing is going to change that because even if you mandated every woman start giving birth TODAY, it will take 20 years for those kids to be useful workers.
And it won’t matter if the Fed hikes to the moon or goes negative, the Fed can’t make babies or labor out of nothing. So I’m still waiting on those robots to fix all of this….
It is rumored that many Fed PhDs believe that you can add 2 additional women and get a baby in 3 months.
In there 90’s there were women giving birth to sextuplets or some variation largely because they were on fertility drugs so perhaps fertility drugs will be mandated for women now.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/general-information-about-sextuplet-multiple-births-2447328
Sextuplets have been widely followed in the media, from the Dilley “Six Pack” born in 1993 to the television series “Jon & Kate Plus 8” which documented the daily life of the Gosselin family. Kate Gosselin gave birth to one set of twins and one group of sextuplets.Sextuplets have been widely followed in the media, from the Dilley “Six Pack” born in 1993 to the television series “Jon & Kate Plus 8” which documented the daily life of the Gosselin family. Kate Gosselin gave birth to one set of twins and one group of sextuplets.
You are correct, but immigration and technology may overcome those problems. AI, automation, robotics, etc. I am optimistic that problem will resolve, neccessity is the mother of invention. What I am not confident of is the corrupt crony capitalist economic systsem combined with the malevolence of our and other govts. throughout the world.
The US has immigration that will fix some of these issues. Other advanced economies aren’t taking advantage of this
Oh yes, the same Minsky moment that’s been happening for the last 30 years, I’m definitely terrified, we all better submit now!
Sooon! Sooooooon!
Nothing new under the sun. Trump & Biden are making a rd trip to Friedrich List :
“The national system of political economy”
Back to the Gilded Age tariffs, deep recessions and a supreme court who ruled this country 150 years ago.
People who were allergic to the regime change king and Hillary voted for Trump.
The abandoned flyover people voted for Trump.
Those who are against Garland, Bragg and Biden corruption family might vote for Trump.
Trump inverse, an unknown, might win.
Trump inverse – quiet, withdrawn, wimpy?
Glenn Youngkin.
Good choice.
Trump is a pudgy, loudmouthed wimp idolized by same.
We really need to know who is the president. Obviously, Biden is not there mentally. Biden cannot be the person in charge. It is not possible. Whoever is running the show, seems intent to see the US bankrupt and destroyed in every way conceivable.
Trump beat China in the trade wars. Instead of capitulating though they released a bio weapon on us.
Silliest comment of the month
Month is only half over.
Trump beat nobody, and is still whining about it to anybody in earshot.
Under our dumb Electoral College system, Trump DID win in 2016.
Personally, I like elections where the person who gets the most votes wins.
Yes, yes and yes
“It’s ‘Headley’, NOT ‘Hedy’!”
Trump is a loudmouth and a total narcissist. Anyone who voted for him because they thought he was a great guy is a fool. But this is the man that beat queen Hillary. That’s more difficult than running down a cephalapoid. With Hillary, Obama and Biden, there is no good. It’s all Satanic leftist socialist globalism.
You have to step WAY back to see the good in trump but once you do, there is quite a bit to see. Trump wanted to build the wall. He saw what was coming. HE SAW IT. Others did NOT and then of course Biden wanted it. Trump got enough conservative judges in place, especially SCOTUS to keep the country from turning into animal house. Without that I think we would be in civil war right now on the verge of a break up. That may still come.
Trump also called out the lying, agenda infested liberal media. NOBODY every went head to head with the media before. Trump did it and Trump won. CNN is a shell of its former self and so are other liberal media outlets. Face it. Trump was the father of that movement.
I could go on quite a bit. Trump is an obnoxious man in so many ways but it is part of his superpowers. He literally doesn’t care what they say about him or his family. It does not affect him or change his course. If though I know he is majorly flawed, fairness demand that I admire the political version of the Juggernaut character from X-Men.
Toot toot! Kook alert!
Thanks for announcing yourself.
Apparently, new “damning” Fauci E-mails have come out about Covid-19 origins. I don’t recall any kook alerts over the false information being generated by the public health agencies, which continues to this day.
And monkeys are flying out of your butt at an accelerating rate.
I see you couldn’t refute what i said.
I read your first sentence and was ready to comment negatively to you. Shame on me for not reading the total comment
Your first point is correct and so many people can’t get past it, maybe because life in America has been too easy for toomany?
Old girlfriend and other people, first thing out of their mouth is he is loud, obnoxious, should not call a country a _shit hole, my first response is are you looking for your prom date , future husband or do you want someone making decisions that create a better life for your great grand children?
The fact that Joe Biden got elected shows you how far this country has fallen. The insider swamp people know Biden has been on the take for over 30 years but they needed the face of a white man to sell their socialist BS.
I have a picture of Joe Biden raising the hand of late Robert Byrd, Democrat and once KKK member. not to mention how he treated Thomas Sowell, Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas;with a side by side picture of a young Trump next to Muhammad Ali and the late Rosa Parks at a U.N convention ceremony in propably late 1980’s early 1990’s.
And Trumps the racist. yeah ok…….
We are on our way to a civil war in some cities(maybe undeclared already) unless the Democratic party in its current state changes.
Call me crazy but I actually believe the DNC should be registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act(FARA)
Trump is his own worst enemy. He had some good ideas but failed to execute effectively. Tariffs don’t work, some other solutions to the problems should have been explored. Free trade is in the best interest for all countries. I think we put to many eggs in one basket allowing China into the WTO without fulfilling the requiste requirements hoping they would. It might have elinimated some low skill work but those jobs should evolve into higher skiller higher pay ones. One eg of his tariffs was to tax Canadian lumber and drive up lumber costs as well as housing. Not the only housing inflationfactor but contributed. This was to protect US lumber. DIdn’t make sense. Protectionism never has worked. Everyone in DC is trying to get reelected and caters to populism even though its the worst thing for us in the long run. Securing the border good idea, but immigration reform never happened because of populism. This is one of the reasons we are circling the drain.
If you call your countrymen satanists, you’re a kook. Full stop.
KOOK.
I watched parts of his interview with Maria B on Fox News. She straight up asked him what he would do to hit back at China. Trump, give us some damn policies, even if it’s spouting off about re-implementing tariffs & sanctions. He totally whiffed it & immediately started taking about something related to him. It’s always about him which is just utterly frustrating. I’d love to see him win a second term, so he can go scorched earth. That would be fantastic and is needed! On a certain level, I can’t blame him for all the whining he does about how corrupt the system is, because any reasonable person agrees with him.
If he wins, he’d be SMART to appoint Vivek as his Chief of Staff. That would be HUGE!
His answer about moving the FBI out of DC was classic Trump that’s just so frustrating. He thinks having the FBI & DOJ being able to walk across the street is a big win. DUDE, the deep state in these two organizations have tried for going on 8 years to take you down! Moving the FBI to Huntsville, AL like Jordan wants to do is a great start.
“Anyone who voted for him because they thought he was a great guy is a fool.”
I voted for him because he wasn’t one of “them,” the political establishment. He upset their cushy apple cart. Goldman announced bland political insider JEB, and Hillary were acceptable to them. Effectively, those were supposed to be our choices in 2016. The day Trump was inaugurated, the Washington Post opined, “let the impeachment begin.”
If people think we have a democracy…
“Trump also called out the lying, agenda infested liberal media. NOBODY every went head to head with the media before.”
That’s pretty much what Putin did, used the bully pulpit to discredit any free press as “fake news” that disagreed with him, then took control of all press, and now, has passed laws that imprison journalists that critique him.
“Trump did it and Trump won. CNN is a shell of its former self and so are other liberal media outlets. Face it. Trump was the father of that movement.”
Fox isn’t exactly doing so great either, especially once they stopped blindly kissing Trump’s ass and lying for him, but more so the aftermath of lying for Trump, thankfully Carlson’s career is finished.
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The process of deglobalization is well underway. We’ve gone from an environment of trust from the time China joined the WTO to distrust after Xi amd Trump took the stage. The likelihood of things reversing again are nil. Where I sit in the semiconductor industry there will be consolidation between US, Japan, Korean and European companies. The world will actually never be as good as we had it in the US from 1980-2000. Many events have led to the opening or economies globally but this has impacted mainly the working classes of developed economies. In short, you can’t get something for nothing and this is why populists like Trump can win. Globalization was a grand vision but it takes trust, liberty and freedom along with credible systems of government across the world. At some point I think the youth in China and Russia will rise up but it will take a lot of bloodshed. Fighting for liberty always comes with a price. At some point, the fingers of instability will lead to a tsunami of the sandpiper and a new equilibrium will have to be found.
You are correct on all points. However, why do you think these governments outlaw private ownership of firearms? This is really why gun control works so well.
well said sir
America needs to decouple pharma & rare earth metals ASAP!
And to push back on Mish a bit, Trump never really took the steps he needed to. The best example would have been placing a 25% tariff on all Apple imports from China. He never did that. So he really didn’t do what he said he was going to do. He just didn’t have the stomach for it. Most politicians wouldn’t.
Senator Warren.
First chart: Looks like China tariffs are about 10% above US tariffs……would that be 10% to The Big Guy?