We notice China is giving 45 the silent treatment.
5
Since predicting the collapse of the stock market following Trump’s election, Mr. Krugman has essentially written the same article over and over. If China violates international norms, and less unpredictable administrations have done nothing, is Mr. Krugman content with the status quo? Does he have anything constructive to say?
1
Since predicting the collapse of the stock market following Trump’s election, Mr. Krugman has essentially written the same article over and over. If China violates international norms, and less unpredictable administrations have done nothing, is Mr. Krugman content with the status quo? Does he have anything constructive to say?
1
Mitch McConnell and all the rest of the Republicans are Trump's enablers.
Paul Ryan left in hoping to keep his name clean but history will include Ryan also in this group.
8
Just read an article stating that the flail--a medieval weapon consisting of a stick with a spiked ball attached by a metal chain--was seldom used in warfare for the simple reason that it tended to miss its target, swing in a circle, and impact its user. The article also pointed out that this left the flail-bearer vulnerable to simple counterstrikes.
Not sure why I think that might be relevant.
8
Paul Krugman and the art of HATE.
Wake up Op-Ed Journalist, your singular Hate Trump focus is not working. Why not write about what Democrat candidates are doing and proposing? You need a new tune
2
@Neil Duff Constructive criticism is what drives progress and success. You sound a little like that guy in the White House.
11
Congress could stop all this nonsense by simply reclaiming its authority to set tariffs and negating a sizable portion of the ones Trump has already levied. It might save the US a recession and the Republicans the 2020 election, but they don't have the backbone to quietly end this insanity.
8
Krugman is one clearheaded columnist, and he does not mince words. The performance of mr. Trump at the G7 meeting has been ar roaring failiure, exactly because mr. Trump well may be a "stable genious" to himself, but clearheaded he is not.
6
"World Leaders" hardly wonder “Why does the American media hate [his] Country so much?” Actually it's not the country, it's him. And in fact, they wonder nothing at all. The source of the hatred is crystal clear. It's Trump's behavior which he exhibits in accelerating and damaging dyspepsia day after day after day after day.
There's no mystery here, except for the margin of lossTrump will suffer in November 2010. He has his base, sure, but most of the country is sick and tired of tolerating an outright lunatic in the Oval Office.
But wait! I seem to be forgetting the Democratic Party's morbid propensity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
4
Trump could be a character of David Mamet Glengarry Glen Ross play.Scrupulousness behaviours
2
It’s not like President Trump is going to demand we spend $100 trillion preparing for a fake alien invasion
Every day the clinically insane democrats release some crazy, unworkable, deadly plan to destroy capitalism, freedom, and America- the green new deal, Medicare for all, open borders, wealth taxes, taxes on unrealized capital gains, etc- and Krugman thinks President Trump is erratic???
2
Trump is Clouseau, but utterly devoid of humor.
4
Trump clearly has no idea what he is doing on trade. He thinks he is back in Queens dealing with contractors, whom he expects to stiff and bully into capitulation. But this is China, for heaven's sake! Xi will be in office long after Trump leaves. They can afford to wait until Trump has totally shot himself in the foot politically and either caves or is voted out of office.
The great mystery domestically is how U.S. corporations and particularly small and medium sized businesses (including agriculture) can continue to support this crazy set of actions, and continue to express support for Trump! They must someday wake up and realize that things are not going to get better with an irrational infant at the controls reacting ro everything as if it were a personal insult or personal triumph (precious little of that, to be sure).
And then there are idiots like Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow who spout sycophantic nonsense about our "dear leader" to keep from getting thrown under the bus.
We are in deep doo-doo with Trump. When will the Republicans and particularly the Republican supporters realize this!
5
In any case, Trump has taken ownership of the trade war. He may have gotten to the point of seeing it could easily seal his fate as a one term president, and want to end it, but the Chinese could be the biggest problem for ending it now.
And even so, even if the Chinese are the ones that cause it to continue, Trump will get blamed for it. He is obviously the guy that started it, and everyone on the planet knows that.
The trade war is his doing, that’s what the world thinks.
5
A question from a small-time capitalist: How does the destruction of markets built up over the years by American farmers and industrialists through tariffs followed by "compensatory" handouts qualify as capitalism? How is a presidential declaration about being able to order private companies to take certain actions - like withdrawing from China - consistent with democracy?
Just asking!
8
It's not just the unpredictability, it's also the cruelty, stubbornness, pride and impulsiveness. Any one of them is bad. Together they are enormously destructive, even lethal.
11
When a president has no overarching economic beliefs beyond making as much money as possible and isolating the United States as he does it, Trump's flip-flopping comes into focus. He does not seem to care about this country or the world, only his elitist self. I would say he might be Neo-Malthusian, but I doubt he ever heard of Malthus. Meanwhile, we can agree he's a disaster being imposed on the world.
4
Let's leave Drump out of all this for a second, and do some compare/contrast.
Can you please explain to non economists why in past eras when we had higher tariffs on foreign made goods, American consumers could afford to buy American made goods?
Weren't American jobs staying here, with wages/benefits going up, with strong union bargaining power, and more working and middle class security?
Can you explain how this system worked, and compare with today on all these factors?
1
retired federal attorney F/70
Reuters 11 minutes ago: Compelled by a court to do so, Deutsche Bank answers a House committee's question about whether its records include this man's tax returns: "Yes."
Look for tweet storm fury to follow while FOX and Murdoch clan deflect to hold his captured-forever base.
8
retired federal attorney F/70
The most feared person in Trump's life right now is the quiet competent New York State Attorney General who will put the nail in the family's and this man's coffin shortly after he leaves the Oval Office. Date certain is January 2021.
For those who do not know this woman, NY State's AG, and want to hear her plan, find and watch Rachel Maddow's recent MSNBC show that included an extended interview with her about what is coming for this man.
She is getting what Congress is not getting in terms of follow-the-money and bank fraud cases for the whole bunch, including those now in jail who spilled the beans with great relish and detail (Michael Cohen). Two banks and the long-time family accountant providing all the evidence needed.
There will be no nice-guy Jerry Ford follow-on President to pardon this man for his federal crimes. There will be no R NY State governor to mitigate jail time for this unhinged old man and his crew.
And, for Stephen Miller, architect of our collective cruelty to families and children at our Southern Border, we have an open jail cell at The Hague. The one Slobodan Milosevic sat in pre-trail and after sentencing for genocide to the day he died.
I am already working on Miller's charges for crimes against humanity using Nuremburg trial records and Milosevich's charges. I grind my teeth in fury and just keep going on the list of U.S. and international laws broken by this psychopath.
21
If I ran a multinational business I would take all elements of my supply chain out of the US. I would also move the company out of US jurisdiction. Remember that US has only about 20% of the worlds GDP - and on a purchasing power parity level the Chinese economy is already bigger than US. Last year more new cars were purchased in China than in US. No business leader can afford to be subjected to the erratic behavior of the "very stable genius" in the white house.
276
@Ivan, the reason many multi-nationals stay in the U.S. is our rule of law. They get protection on patents and so forth that they don't get elsewhere.
But more than that, they are allowed to influence the making of laws and challenge them in court when they don't like them, claiming infringement of their "rights". This is a flaw in our capitalist system. The Supreme Court has, over a century and more, granted many corporations rights of persons despite the wording of the Bill of Rights.
For an excellent explanation, read "We the Corporations" by Adam Winkler. Then get very angry and join a group like MoveToAmend.org and support House Joint Res. 48, a constitutional amendment to fix it.
21
@Ken L
That is a good point. They do get to be people here in the US in ways they would not in EU. So the loss of personhood would have to be weighed against the erratic corporate environment created by Trump.
12
He can create as many diversions as he wants, but workers and farmers and consumers will keep hurting more and more, until some newly-impoverished member of MAGA Nation won't be able to take it -- or him -- any more and will snap.
3
This may fall under the category of nitpicking, but I take exception to the commentary's title. Nothing so hapless deserves to be called an "art"...
2
Trump fits the clinical diagnosis for at least 3 mental illnesses.
Is there any point at which the Republicans will actually stop supporting this unfit person?
What would it take for them to stand up for the United States, Democracy, the Constitution?
7
Trump is accustomed to saying whatever "thought" comes into his head at the moment and then having the people around him edit and present it in a way that makes a modicum of sense.
He's not even intelligent enough to manipulate his audience for good or for evil; others do that for him. He's surrounded by Bannons, Millers, McConnells, Putins, Kims, et al., who know he is easy to manipulate through flattery, and who entice him with, "You can be king" and he'll do whatever they want. He lacks enough intelligence to recognize how stunningly unintelligent the majority of the world knows him to be.
The economy? I don't think anyone needs a deep understanding of economics to figure out it will regroup before 2020 because that's what the Trump masters want. They don't want to lose their fortunes or their power so they'll hold it together and give Trump the "best words" to reverse whatever nonsensical word salad he spouted an hour ago.
I believe if Trump wins in 2020, the American Democratic Republic the founders of the Constitution designed will have fallen.
4
In the 2019 fiscal year the Congressional Budget Office said, the U.S. federal deficit is set to rise 25 per cent from last year to US$960-billion, or 4.5 per cent of GDP. By contrast, Cnada's budget deficit is projected to equal 0.9 per cent of GDP in the fiscal year ending next March.
The Chinese tariff money is going straight to the US treasury.
Mexico is paying for the great wall being built.
And it is being considered just a real estate deal to buy an island from a foreign Government.
Every word from the Stable Genius is just a Wag The Dog to divert attention to paragraph one. The US debt has risen $2 trillion he became president. That is one great accomplishment in fiscal mismanagement. Similar to a casino losing money.
3
Tariffs are the taxes on the foreign imports.
For God's sake, our wages and labor are being taxed!
Why should we treat the foreigners better than us?
Why should we make the Chinese goods more competitive than the domestic ones?
Why should we force our corporations to implement the best safety measures and labor protection here in America and let the Chinese state-owned companies exploit their workers?
Why should we let them chronically underpay the Chinese or the Mexican workers?
If they paid them better, the workers wouldn’t be forced to flee to the USA.
To pay for those immigrant benefits and education here in America, we have to impose the taxes on the foreign imports from the countries the workers are fleeing from!
@Kenan Porobic. While I agree that we need a more level playing field in terms of enforced basic trade rules, I can ask a similar question as you did: Why should we accept subsidized American agricultural imports when they use automation on huge factory farms instead of hiring and paying workers? Different countries are better at different things. They compete and that benefits consumers.
3
When the President is asked about the many inconsistencies, he answers "that's how I negotiate"
How this goes on is anyone's guess and the end-game is not in sight as yet albeit,for me - I'm getting more and more confused and worried.
3
Of course, Congress COULD reassert its constitutional power over tariffs.
7
Message to Congress: Deny and take back any tariff setting authority that the President appears to think he has, including declarations of emergencies that are decidedly not emergencies, and or declarations of national security threats that are decidedly not national security threats. Act in unison, Democrats and Republicans. No president should be allowed to abuse power in this manner.
2
@C.L.S. Congress appears to have relinquished its role in government allowing Trump to rule like a Romsn emperor.
1
How could people have voted for this man as their President? How many of those are regretting it today? Not nearly enough, and it is sad to see how many of our fellow Americans live in such a delusional world lead by this.... sorry I have no words.
6
What about those of us trying to invest our nest eggs? Trump is not helping here. The only thing predictable about Trump is his barking mad unpredictability - that helps nothing. And he blew off the climate meeting. And so on...
2
Every time I think our free press couldn’t sink any lower they manage to prove me very foolish.
Here is a small jubilee. We have reached the 10,000th column personally attacking Donald J. Trump.
Of course, there are dramatically more important events to address, but we are out of luck and good newspapers.
It is the truly explosive economy-related news.
Andrew Luck, the starter quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts retired at the prime age of 29 because he couldn’t handle the pain and bodily injuries any longer.
There are the hundreds of older news about the brain-damage-related illnesses of the retired NFL players.
Unfortunately, there are the dozens thousands of the college football players whose bodies are being prostituted and harmed football-wise for the sake, glory, TV time and economic prosperity of the universities supposed to take good care of our youth and the students, but there is no single critical column about such outrageously shameful behavior.
Luckily, we still have this Trump-shaped piñata to regularly beat up and relieve our every social frustration…
2
Unstable does not come close to describing this President.
5
If the Vice President and the majority of the President's Cabinet would vote to apply the 25th Amendment, Section 4, of the US Constitution, this erratic, insecure, and woefully unqualified office holder would be out very quickly, for the better of the country. A more stable office holder, even Vice President Pence, would be preferable. The Republican Party members of both Houses of Congress must realize this and consent.
4
"Tariffs are taxes on consumers"
It is astonishing that a major US news paper have to tell American people this simplest fact now.
Maybe they also should know each country has its own currency and there's a exchange rate between currencies which fluctuates according to the strength of the economy of respected country, or some political reasons.
Doller value fluctuates outside the country.
I'm too cynical....maybe
3
@uji10jo
Tariffs are the taxes on the foreign imports.
For God's sake, our wages and labor are being taxed!
Why should we treat the foreigners better than us?
@Kenan Porobic Yes. Tariffs are taxes on the cheap foreign imports produced by cheaper labor cost in China and other Asian countries. With the tariffs, you will pay more for the same imported products you used to buy. Or American factory workers have to work at Chinese wage level of $250 - $450 a month in order to manufacture your own products at the low import price level.
@kenan explain why american manufactured washing machines raised prices to match tariffed import goods? Seems like the American consumer loses out.
1
So what is his motivation? (He’s almost getting predictable.) He reminds me of a line from Pygmalion, “two pretty babies playing with their doll”, only, the doll, is the markets, who react to his every word.
@rebecca1048 His motivation is to force the Fed to lower interest rates. The self-procaimed King of Debt will benefit if the rate his company pays on its bank debt adjusts downward.
3
Trump’s success is solely a function of his instability.
Our tragedy as a nation is that we allowed this man to run our country.
It has happened to others before. It did not end well.
We need to get him out and regain our sanity.
10
Yet, despite all this, we march on. So far, the stock market’s machinations are just that, machinations.
Over the past few months, I have been asking myself these incredibly uncomfortable questions.
What if this works? My gut feeling is it simply cannot, but what if it does?
What if immense cruelty slows immigration? What if “Demented Don’s” negation tactic actually works?
There is an historic parallel that does give me hope. My gut feeling is that this simply cannot work... but that’s only my gut.
Here is the parallel. When Chamberlain returned from Munich, with his infamous “Peace in our time” letter, it was not as if he suddenly decided to do this. It was widely supported, well, except for one pesky nuisance, who everyone hoped would go away. This nuisance turned out to be correct on Sept 1, 1939, when all those who supported Chamberlain understood they had been wrong. The fact it took almost 60 million deaths and the displacement of over 100 million people to correct this wrong, is terrifying.
My prayer is that we as a nation, especially the blind supporters of cruelty and terror, have their moment, sans the price. My fear is, a price will be paid. The question is simply how big?
4
Starting a war will be Trump's next sop to the base. Perhaps China, perhaps Iraq. Maybe both.
5
Irak? Already botched.
But China? Good luck.
Honestly, all this analysis! You’d think we were talking about a basketball team! Can’t we just say that Wrecking Ball Trump is a man whose every action makes total sense as soon as you realize he’s a total charlatan with only two aspirations—personal wealth and personal glory? The only real question is, What are we going to do about him? And here’s another: Why hasn’t he been arrested? (Oh, I know—in its dubious wisdom, DOJ decided he can’t be indicted. OK, but all kinds of people are being arrested who haven’t been indicted, and by some of Trump’s buddies, too.
7
Trump does not care at all about any of the countries or policies that are ostensibly discussed. He is only interested in the eyeballs looking at him--just like a television program that only cares about viewers, and not the plots or characters. All Trump wants to do is preen and get more money (a key part of his preening). Because the eyeballs are all that matters, Trump is utterly indifferent to the accuracy of anything he says or any underlying reality.
Trump has said he is using the negotiating tactic that has worked for him before: Ask for the moon in an insulting way, promise anything, and then say nice things and back off if there is pushback. Then make new, even more outrageous demands and insults.
In is business life, this strategy worked because people could just do what they needed to make him go away and accept their losses. Putting Trump in his place never seemed to be worth the pain and expense of actually doing it.
Trump's "success" has depended on his never being so important or his demands being so toxic that he could not be run away from.
Chaos is all Trump knows. The whole world is watching the Trump reality show. Unfortunately, most of the scriptwriters of that reality show do not care about Trump's ratings.
This column describes consequences and actions as if Trump is aware or interested in anything but the attention and chances to make money. He is not.
The Trump show needs to be canceled.
3
The world economy is in peril, thanks to an irresponsible, abusive and vindictive bully in the Oval Office, undeterred by the horrid consequences on the well-being of all of us. Given that this deeply flawed individual has no remedy, his ouster is an urgent matter. But all this fanatic nonsense could not be possible without the help and subservience of Moscow Mitch McConnell, with an abrasive display of dereliction of duty. But when faced with incompetence, one ought not expect salutary results...but an opening for corruption...into abusing one's power.
4
Everyone populating the Trump administration is, like Trump himself, just an opportunist. No one is going to challenge him because they're all shorting the market, building political capital for a future office, or finding ways to steal from the US Treasury.
Until Trump is out of our WH, he and those around him, tried and convicted of their various crimes, and all of them ruined we will never be able to restore anything resembling our former democratic republic. Without those prosecutions we will have forever undermined the foundation of our democratic republic, the rule of law.
5
Why is everyone pretending that Trump is just floundering? Trump is so far out of his depth, it's amazing that anyone is even making excuses for him at this point. Trump is plainly unqualified to be the "president" of an ongoing legitimate business, much less a world-class country, much less still, of America.
And if just being unqualified isn't bad enough, he and his enablers insistence that his unmitigated lack of "expertise" ... on subjects he's totally unfamiliar with ... should be relied on for making policy that will effect America for decades, is supremely IRRESPONSIBLE!
3
One thing I have not seen mention, who says the new cost of products will go down if there is not a large drop in demand for those products? China wins I guess?
1
If I am not mistaken, General Motors has been guided by its principle that "We will make product where we sell..." This is true in China, which has become GM's largest single market in the world. GM makes cars "in China for China" and makes a very large portion of its net revenue from that one market.
And most of the other auto makers - and more importantly, the parts and components suppliers - also have invested in China to make products to sell in China.
The auto business is a global industry and most of the larger players have significant, operationally and financially linked investments in all major markets, e.g. Europe, Brazil, China, North America, etc.
The Trump administration seems willfully ignorant of the realities of industrial globalization and intentionally oblivious to solutions to address the challenges that individuals countries have available to them to relieve the very real concomitant "losses" that some communities suffer.
Trying to return to the days of "Coal Is King" is not one of those solutions: supporting growth of renewable energy is and is a proven creator of high paying jobs for nearly 20 years...
What gives?
5
".....that's what we'll have as long as Trump remains in office." The magic words are "as long as." Gives me hope that in Nov 2020 we will make it possible to wake up one glorious morning in Jan 2021, and be DONE with the chaos and erratic unpredictable behavior of this man. It will be a collective sigh of relief.
4
Trump throws grenades daily; no wonder things blow up.
3
I would like to thank the hundreds of "recommend" readers and the many replies to my previous comment because they show that there are a boatload of us who are wondering the same thing. (What is the connection between the president’s financial tweets and threats and his personal finances? )
8
Trump represents the "Art of the Fail" more than the art of the flail.
Our democracy is failing which is how Trump has been empowered by the Republican Party to cause our nation to fail in its effort to remain a credible force in the world.
Bumbling Trumpian economics and trade wars are the result of a failed electoral system, corrupted by the GOP with the willing assistance of the Russians.
As long as Trump is in power surrounded by his Republican lackeys, the US is doomed to fail about in the world and to fail its own people.
2
Here's a problem: we're no longer shocked by the wild statements of the president. We've gone into our self-protection mode by tuning him out, and there's a danger in this. Congress is in a collective coma and the GOP leadership is happy with all that's going on. It's a very bad scenario as the feeling of the security of the individual as well as national security is shaken.
We're rudderless and the would-be captain of the ship has no compass.
1
Trump's a deal maker all right. NBC just offered him Let's Make a Deal in daytime, but cancelled any future Apprentice in prime time due to his failing "code of ethics" he signed. He has until midnight tonight to accept.
2
Trump complains that Obama was outsmarted when Putin and the Russians 'Annexed' Crimea in Ukraine. Trump stated if it had happened under his watch, he's at least apologize.
So I'm still waiting for Trump to apologize to the American people for being outsmarted by Putin as he takes over Venezuela - even now, Puting has flown into their capitol piloting a Russian Bomber, as hundreds if not thousands of Russian troops and military intelligence officers land at the Caracas airport. Trump has now completely lost Venezuela to the Russians and has compromised the Monroe Doctrine.
Hurry up Trump, America is still waiting for YOUR apology.
7
Trump seems "erratic" because you think he is participating in a "trade war". This is not a trade war. Mr. Trump/Pompeo/Bolton are pursuing any and all actions to suppress China as a world power. It is the lastest version of a Western "crusade". Pro Israel fanatics , Pompeo and Bolton are passionately committed to suppressing China because China will not cooperate in the world order that recognizes the status quo maintained for the benefit of the U.S./Israel. Yes, Israel. (What is the official beef with Huawai ? Huawei violated anti Iran sanctions. Who cares about Iran....Israel). Conspiracy theory? Read Boltons past work (which he does not deny). Pompeo believes God made Trump president so the he , Trump, can defend Israel. "Mission accomplished" in this case means a wrecked Chinese economy even if the U.S economy is also wrecked.
3
Of all the grade A megalomanic behavior, I particularly love that businesses were ‘hereby ordered to withdraw’ from China. This is the leader of the Republican party, the selfsame party dedicated to getting government off their back.
7
As John Adams wrote to his wife about the White House:
"May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof"
Interesting that he placed honest before wise, although trump is certainly neither.
I know the rest of America often dismisses NYers as liberal elites, but I really wish they had listened to us on this one. We've seen trump's narcissism and chaos for years. I think it's telling he was booed here in NY the morning he voted on that fateful day in 2016.
I hope we survive this period, and the next POTUS is able to return the position to some normalcy.
7
Trump's base will keep believing him no matter what he says or what happens because their pride won't allow them to be wrong. So be it. It's time to do some triage and cut their lifeboat loose. They're dragging us backwards and down and it's time to let them live with the consequences of their actions. We need to take our country back from the "under-educated" amongst us and restore our Democracy back to where it was before Trump and his cronies tried to make it the United States of Trump Inc. Time to fire the CEO and his entire board.
3
Perhaps we offer an agreement to not prosecute Trump in return for his quiet departure due to "health issues" ... the health and sanity of our nation.
7
Paul Krugman is a free trade advocate. He offers no solutions to our growing dependency on Communist China and other slave-wage labor foreign countries. Just more of the old days is fine with him. He has written yet another hit article in support of the wealthy capital ownership class calling the tariffs in goods and products imported from Communist China damaging to the United States economy, but citing no blame on the traitorous controlling owners of American corporations who gutted and moved their manufacturing to Communist China as they invested there rather in the United States.
What gets me is the "enemy" is always Russia, but we have not ourselves dependent on manufacturing in authoritarian Russia. Then there is Communist China, a dictatorship with the Chinese Communist Party's control over the economy and the social behavior of the Chinese people.
There is no fair dealing with Communist China who just cannot and refuses to play fair. The Chinese Communist Party government cannot be trusted and strong responses such a tariffs are absolutely necessary and perhaps further totally decoupling and terminating all trade with Communist China. In any case, the controlling owners of American companies have been directed to remove productive capital assets in Communist China with this directive incentivized with harsh, increased tariffs, which will go into effect sooner than previously announced.
2
Gary, Donald Trump has dress shirts made in China with the TRUMP name and his daughter gets her shoes and other stuff made in China as well.
Stop wasting your time watching Fox News.
1
Trump is simply impulsive giving no fore though to his decisions. He's always been that way in his career hence the 6 bankruptcies and myriad failed businesses. He was always buoyed by his father until he found his niche.. a reality show personality. He leveraged that into a branding business and kudos to him for finally getting something right but he's never been a good business man. If he was the head of a public company he would have been axed a long time ago. He doesn't know how to run a business or a country.
2
if the gop were a species ( imagine that !) they would have become extinct by now. As they are narrow minded, clueless about their environment, think their species is the best , and have a current leader of their tribe who is one of the worlds most brainless creatures. If dinosaurs can evaporate imagine what would happen to the gop and trump.
6
Donald, as a political and human being - beyond this who habitually serve in place, according to their proscribed roles, to stroke or manipulate his need - is a failure in establishing and maintaining relationships.
This is especially true relative to his governmental incapacity. He's parenthetically an isolationist racially, politically, environmentally, ethically, corperately, mentally and socially.
It's becoming ever more visibly a truism that Donald simply doesn't know how to play well or engage effectively with others of any differing mindset.
3
Our President, on top of everything else he is, is deeply incompetent. You don't have to take a position pro or con the trade -war to know he's mis-managing it because he simply does not understand what he's doing. Deep incompetence was one of the hallmarks of the previous Republican administration as well.
Yet earlier today I read something on Impeachment involving Democrats from swing districts either resisting it or supporting it. Some who support it say they'll support it even if it costs them re-election because it's not about their careers, it's the right thing to do. Spare us from Democrats who think doing the right thing is still the right thing if they lose the House to Republicans. They're right that it's not about them. It's about the rest of us. If they don't understand that why are they in office?
And spare us from those who think doing the "right thing" is more important than defeating Trump because defeating him is mere politics while they are concerned with something they call "ethics." Ethics is merely the name a lot of people give to their self-righteousness. To their anger. Those ethics gave us Nixon, GWB and Trump. Those ethics will destroy us.
3
If Trump were not President he would be a patient in a psychiatric hospital or in jail but we elected him and a nation gets the government it deserves.
11
Actually, Trump would not be hospitalized on a psychiatric unit because he is not at imminent danger to himself or others. He cannot be hospitalized because of “what if’s” and “I wonder.” I am definitely not a Trump supporter, just someone who worked mental health and crisis.
1
How is he not a threat to others?
1
@Steve L Legally, it has to be imminent.....as of this moment.
Welcome to Donald Trump's Magic-8-Ball Tariff Show!
3
"History is, in fact, full of examples of economies that combined high tariffs with more or less full employment: America in the 1920s, Britain in the 1950s and more."
Q: And how did those end?
A: 1. With a Great Depression that ended only when a world war increased demand for manufacturing.
2. With the collapse of a manufacturing economy that was able to export outdated products only until its defeated enemies could rebuild their factories.
Neither is a good model for us today.
4
Is it in any way possible that Trump sees his strange and chaotic behavior as a negotiating tool? I wonder if he acted this way in any of his real estate businesses? Well, we know that many of those ended in bankruptcy, but still.
2
Unfortunately Dr Krugman provides no solution to the $400-500 billion annual trade deficits with China not to mention their theft of intellectual property. He may not even care about the lost factories, jobs or devastated communities in fly over country as they don't fit neatly into his models. It's easy to bash Trump but at least he is standing up to China unlike his predecessors.
2
Bunk! What, lower our living standard through paying more for imports? Please tell me how the trade deficit bothered us? Unemployment at all time low and has been low for a long time. Jobs shift all the time in a free market. That’s the point; gain productivity.
I’d be careful of what you wish for. Maybe be more concerned about borrowing more money for a tax cut. Maybe concern yourself with central bank balance sheets.
Americans don’t save and had the good fortune of China and other emerging countries loaning us trillions in the last two decades. This paid for our wants and massive government build up post 9/11.
If those economies were not so keen on exporting, thus buying dollars to keep their currency cheap, we may have been unable to spend all that money productively!??
2
https://images.app.goo.gl/RY2imFBnyQjYTydy9
You are barking at the wrong tree: Your hero gets his shirts made in China.
Trump is the main character in a play goin on right now and he has the applause of a huge audience who would gladly pay for the sequel. He's not on that stage alone. And he's collecting and using the tomatoes hitting him to supply his special secret sauce. The Dems MUST get focused and smarter about finding the right candidate to shut this show down!
2
Trump is showing the world how he managed to lose over a billion$ in biz over a 10 year period. Trump's numerous bankruptcies and thousands of lawsuits indicate his chaotic biz mind. Trump has been a con artist fraudster for decades before the GOP allowed him to seize control over our economy and international relations. Trump admires and fawns over dictators like Putin and Kim as he sees them as role models as how he would like to rule America. Trump's administration is high turnover chaos with no one left to keep Trump's erratic nature from causing severe damage to our economy or international relations. Trump is dedicated to Putin for one reason, fear of a powerful man who knows all about Trump's shady dealings with the Russian mob and seeks his help again in 2020 as he had in 2016 . Trump does all this in plain sight as he hawked his Doral resort on the world stage which would force participants to put money in Trump's pockets . Trump has no sense of shame all that matters is what is good for Trump if a MOscow Trump Tower works for him he will lie and say no dealings with Russia if China didn't call for a deal he will lie and say they did to give the market a boost. Trump needs to get re-elected as if he does not Barr is not there to protect him and new forces will look into his shady dealings with new vigor and powers. Trump may consider his exits and a penthouse in Moscow Trump Tower as Russia has no extradition treaty with the USA and Trump is aware of this.
3
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “The only thing worse than having allies is not having them.” Apparently, Trump didn't learn that lesson in war college nor did he bother to learn it from past conflicts.
Trump arrogantly and foolishly alienated our trading partners and jumped headlong into a war he couldn't win.
The three opinions former Fed Official Bill Dudley published today that criticize Trump and admonish the fed from doing anything to further facilitate Trump's madness, are stunning.
Trump support is about to crack wide open.
3
"Tariffs are taxes on consumers,"
Those words should preface any quote from Trump that includes the word "tariffs."
Only stupid people or people who believe that nitwit Trump don't understand that tariffs hurt the consumer. We pay the tax, not the seller.
7
"his instability is starting to have serious economic consequences."
And yet Republicans sit on their hands doing nothing to save our economy or democracy from this unstable, ignorant bully.
5
Ah, Tuesday in Trumpland.
You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps.
7
So China, who depending on the day of the week is either our "enemy" or "We have a great relationship with", has been around as a civilization for 4000 years. Their leader faces no elections, the job is his for as long as he wants it. The U.S. as a nation has existed for 243 years and we have an election in 16 months. Who do you think can afford to wait?
Maybe these tactics work in New York real estate, I don't know. Jerking people around, walking away from the table and lying about phone calls that never happened doesn't seem to be such a brilliant strategy with people that have 4000 years of history behind them, they make your ties and your daughter's shoes and that very tweeter box you use to strike fear in your opponents. You're too dense to realize it but as polite as those European leaders were to you at the G7, it was equivalent to sending you to the little card table with your coloring book.
5
Trump's emotional outbursts were damaging. The last thing the world needs is a US president who is nothing better than an amateur self proclaimed genius having ridiculous immature temper tantrums.
6
So... does Trump think the rest of the world watches Faux News too?
1
The art of the fail practiced and perfected by an artless/heartless fool, Trump.
6
There once was a man child who was bored as he sat in his bed twittering. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, "Believe me! The fake news is trying to destroy me!"
His sycophants came running to soothe his insecure ego. They bolstered, again, his self aggrandizing determination.
The next day, the manchild cried out his mantra "Believe me! Believe me! The fake news is coming to get me." To his delight, he watched the sychophants run up Capitol hill to assuage his fears by their gutless quiet actions: "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
But most Americans began to acknowledge what is most evident about this narcissistic manchild, he only creates chaos to his liking.
Unto himself, the manchild just grinned because he was living in his own reality.
Later, when his was in front of not only the people of his own country, but in front of the whole world's population, he not only puffed himself up to dribble once again his repeated shams, and then boasted (so he could sell) the great merits of the beautiful wonderland he had created....so close to the airport....
But the wide audience of many cultures saw for themselves that he was still full of untruths and the fairy tales that came and left his own imagination. Even his sycophants began to rethink their priorities....this man child,or their country.
One compassionate sychophant tried to comfort the manchild by coddling him. "Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"
1
This is not protectionism so much as tantrumism
2
Yes, business planning has come down to trying to read Trump's psychologically disordered mind. I haven't tried because I'm afraid that what I'd see would make me pluck out my own eyeballs and throw myself off a tall building.
2
Has anyone here tried to buy a kitchen appliance actually made here in the USA? Toasters, hand held blenders, waffle irons--ALL now “fabrique en chine!” Made in China.
And every appliance has a very short life....my last three toasters lost function almost immediately like only toasting one side of the slice of bread. Irons aren’t used much with our wrinkle free clothing but I would sure like an iron that doesn’t scorch a dress at “low” setting.
The name on the box may say Black and Decker, Cuisinart, GE, Electrolux etc but 90-95% of all of our appliances are simply not made here anymore.
I have found a few appliances made here but one US made toaster cost >$400! Perfect for that $90 million penthouse in Tribeca. This paper had an article on affluent Chinese buying luxury condos in Manhattan.
"Most of these buyers are seeking apartments for personal use, either as pieds-à-terre or as housing for children studying in New York.”
How quaint! To me a pied-à-terre was a 200 sq ft apartment on the less luxurious outskirts of Paris I rented for a year in the mid 1970s...without hot water.
A friend gives me a subscription to The Economist each year. The editors have been predicting since November 2016 that Trump will take the USA out of the top ten democracies in the world. Wonderful! Our economy was beginning its free fall while we were laughing at Sean Spicer’s alternative facts about the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd.
Pride cometh before a fall.
5
Whenever I unluckily meet a corpulent American, I am filled with trepidation for having to interact with a uneducated, uncouth person that when upset is liable to resort to lethal violence to get their way.
2
At last, Dr. Krugman has begun to say what we all know: Trump is seriously mentally ill. He is also uninformed and incompetent. Treating his statements as being subject to rational analysis is a fiction that the media indulges in to have stories to write. We should just admit that everything Trump says should be ignored.
6
Read Karl Marx's address entitled: "Free Trade" Published by the Socialist Labor Party - You can find it online. - Thanks for your commentary.
That’s right Mr. Krugman. No one wants to invest in an unstable country. You’ll be sure to see a flight of capital (foreign and domestic) if this clown is re-elected.
4
You got it wrong.
It is the Art of the Fail and it is something, maybe the only thing, Trump is good at.
6
Even in the rare instances where Trump's instinct may be right such as the need to get tougher with China, Trump is completely incapable of executing a coherent strategy. The Jekyl and Hyde strategy he says has worked so well for him made him lose more money that anyone in America for the decade of the late 80s, early 90s. Trump was taken to the cleaners by Kim Jung Un, and the President of China has played Trump like a violin. Trump's only success in negotiations has been with subcontractors he could bully.
3
Trump is like the arsonist in the fire department who sets fires so he can look good putting them out. He sows chaos and then portrays himself as the only leader strong enough to rescue us. How can one third of the American public fail to see this?
7
@Ohio MD If it was only one third, all would be good.
1
Sorry, but it is not protectionism but an attempt to rearrange the highly unfavorable trade with China.
And it is not only China although they are the biggest stone in the shoe.
Alas, you can never expect any one calling him/herself a liberal to understand that, for such people the unnatural hatred they have for Trump trumps all sane arguments.
What is mind boggling, what defies logic is the farmer's blind loyalty to his president. Top of the news today in the Times' front page is the effect of this trade war on agriculture. To paraphrase, farmers are becoming increasingly frustrated with Mr. Trump's obstinate, misguided, self-inflicted trade war with China. Yet, for the most part, they are sticking by him. What on earth is this man's magnetic pull to maintain such blind loyalty? Is it ignorance, hate for the Democratic tenet of equality for all races and creeds, religion? I have a news flash for our neighbors throughout the 50 states. If California's economy goes, so goes the nation. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand how much of said economy relies on this state's agriculture. Maybe that is the answer, and it is not an exaggeration when one understands the mind-set of Mr Trump. He needs to get back at my state for all the "trouble" we cause him. You don't think he would be that vindictive to bite off his nose to spite his face, do you?
6
@Kathy Lollock The farmers just couldn't vote or "that woman" who actually was a stable genius.
5
The continuing effort to make sense out of an aimless wandering mind and give shape and substance to mental gumbo is taxing our own mental and emotional stability.
As a community of people we are stretched thin to the point of shredding. The zeitgiest of our world view no longer can be fitted to wrap this gymnastic contorsionism we are called to apply to make our captain somehow stable and alright.
The invisible agent or force is the press to accomodate a man who is on the floor crawling about looking for his marbles.
Who or what is at the helm of our ship of state? When the answer is as elusive as the tracking of a hurricane we surely must face the issue and not hide or conceal it.
The entire media machine does the country an enormous disservice and reveals a systemic malady that borders on total irresponsibility by failing to call a spade a spade and get on with the 25th amendment issue like yesterday.
How much more dismayed do we need to be? Pick your issue: race, immigration, trade tarrifs. etc. etc. and flail along with the great one. Flail and fail.
1
Frankly, I am l amazed that The Donald is still in the White House and people are still taking his tweets and his lashing out seriously.
I thought that when the big business types and "Wall Street" saw how little he knows about anything, and how out of date the little that he does know is, that they would have thought of someway to neutralize him. The man in clearly unhinged. He knows nothing about business, economics, trade, etc. He just lashes out with whatever pops into his head. His followers like to think that he has some clever negotiating tactics or deep knowledge of business but that is all baloney.
He is just creating unnecessary havoc and chaos for the corporations such as Apple, General Motors, etc. which do business in China and worldwide. He doesn't seem to realize that most large corporations do business on a worldwide basis and that some do more business in China than they do in the United States.
Many people (including me) are wondering if the Democrats can beat The Donald in 2020. Isn't that bizarre?
6
Trump is a true reflection of many Americans and whatever happens economically, his poorest (lower middle class) supporters will feel the brunt of the devastation.
6
It’s important to remember how trump is hampered by the thinking style that goes along with his narcissistic personality disorder. Us neurotics have a hard time comprehending it. It took me years of analyzing narcissistic behavior both personally and professionally. There is an excellent set of videos on You-Tube by Les Carter, Ph.D, a psychologist, that explores the effects of narcissism on a personal basis. If you want to understand narcissistic thinking in a listener friendly mode, you might check these out.
The selfishness of trump is not an action he decides to do. It is who he is. His inner world is preoccupied w/ getting the things that make him feel better. This only works for a short time. Then he rages and becomes erratic, searching for something/someone that will make him feel better. Other people are not discerned as separate individuals w/ their own wants, needs and lives. They ONLY exist for the narcissist to use. The narcissist exists in a world of shadows where no one is real except himself.
W/negative feedback, the narcissist lies to make it fit his view of himself which is never bad. If people are saying things that he doesn’t like, he believes and tells himself something better. Under pressure, like now, those internal voices become externalized and he believes someone else is saying them. These voices can increase until they become auditory hallucinations, which is psychosis, and which can account for his erratic behavior. He is transiently psychotic.
6
Please, give us just one smart columnist!
Is it too much to ask?
“The truth is that protectionism gets something of an excessively bad rap. Tariffs are taxes on consumers, and they tend to make the economy poorer and less efficient”
The consumers are the mythical beings equivalent to the unicorns. Everybody heard about them but nobody has ever seen any!
Only the citizens exist.
The citizens are the real people capable of multitasking.
They are simultaneously everything – the human beings with their emotions, the parents, the spouses, the workers, the tax payers, and the shoppers...
It means it is absolutely irrelevant if we pay more as the shoppers if such a policy reduces our tax burden and increases the wages and salaries.
It only matters what’s best for a country. Of course, the tariffs will cut into the profit margins of the global corporations that exported their manufacturing plants to China to produce there and sell her in America.
The question is whether the citizens will be better off as a whole and America too.
If the tariffs inflicted the pain on the global corporations while benefiting everybody else, it would be a deal worth pursuing.
The pain of the global corporations is the gain of the regular Americans and otherwise!
By the way, should the NYT disclose that the tariffs would be harmful to the global corporations that are the owners of the free press publications too as a part of their very wide portfolio?
1
.."a flailing Trump lashes out at China, and possibly others (Europe may be next)"...
Trump is most at home when he is in front of his adoring crowds. When he comes to a G7 meeting with top leaders of other countries, he has a difficult time. He no longer has sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear.
This is what happens when we have a leader with no clear EDUCATED thoughts on any subject. He meanders around hoping to hit something right. He is an embarrassment to this country. He is, according to Paul Krugman, "an unstable leader with an insecure ego".
6
There's a line in Billy Joel's "Piano Man" referencing someone as a "real estate novelist."
Never understood what that might mean … until now.
maybe he'll go away if we ignore him?
2
That would be like ignoring the rabid dog in your neighborhood. It will bite you anyway.
Once the recent benchmarking adjustments are applied to the jobs data, the pace of job creation in Trump's first 30 months will be 26% lower than it was in Obama's last 30 months. Like Obama, Trump has not reached 3% annual GDP growth. Trump has always portrayed this sub-3% performance as being terrible, so it is really a huge insult to his own record. Trump likes to brag about stock gains during his tenure, but so far he ranks 7th out of 13 post-WW2 administrations when it comes to annualized gains in the S&P 500 index. Only 1/6th of the improvement in the overall unemployment rate and the unemployment rate for blacks and hispanics has come under Trump. 5/6ths of all three (from the Great Recession peak) came under Obama. Meanwhile, of course, federal deficits, which Republicans used to pretend they cared about so very deeply, are soaring.
Trump's supporters need to stop being so gullible. Trump is a con man and a pathological liar. The accomplishments he claims for himself are either not his own or they are not accomplishments at all. He has accomplished nothing with North Korea, nothing with Iran, nothing with China. In fact, we're backsliding in all three cases. We'll soon see more backsliding in the economy.
3
Can the world economy finally just get on the with inevitable recession born of these insane and arbitrary economic "policies" so can swap out this basket of deplorables for rational actors in government?
4
China is helping us bring Trump down. Have patience.
4
Within a month or so of trump taking office, I was sitting at work one day trying to deal with the ongoing nightmare of it. I was doodling on a post-it note, and wrote down, “flailing grotesquerie”. Since then, everything that I’ve seen him do has been witnessed through that lens, and he has not yet done a single thing to dispel my opinion. Over these last three years, more and more people are using the word “grotesque” to describe him, and “flail” has also been used. I guess that I really nailed it with those two words, didn’t I? Wish I’d trademarked the expression in relation to the criminal in the White House!
2
GOP 2022 Hidden Campaign Message:
"We wrecked the economy in 2019, and made it worse in 2020.
But have the Democrats fixed it fast enough? No! They shouldn't be given any more time--they'd just waste it!
Vote for us so we can fix what we broke by doing the same things that broke the economy in the first place!"
Economic growth much touted seems to need more overpopulation than we have, the destruction of more rain forests and the species who considered it their habitat.
I resent the Fed cutting interest rates so much that the only game in town is Wall Street -- Clinton, GWBush (the worst), Obama - all favoring big business -- #Why we have the most expensive.... in the world.
I want tariffs to slow down the consumer economy-- I want away from the throw away economy. I want real green (and I praise all of the energy saving everythings) -- reused not pretend recycled. Let the upper middle class see their wages fall and then maybe they'll get the point about true progressive taxes (the tariff is a regressive tax), medicare for all, and eliminating at least interest on college loans or making them dischargeable in bankruptcy When they feel the pain,, maybe their brains will tune in.
This is all so painfully obvious. Trump will eventually pull his tariffs and proclaim he got the best trade deal of any American (or foreign) president, ever. The market will spring up. Supporters will revel in how brilliant Trump is. Trump wins another 4 years. Helen Keller was deaf and blind but she saw more clearly and listened more intently than any Trump loving Republican ever could. I don't wish any bad to come to our nation's farmers. I just wish they would wash away their veil of ignorance. That would be in their own best interest, not Trump.
1
It's time to call out the men in the white coats to take this clearly very unstable mentally troubled man who suffers from delusions of "genius" and other grandeurs back to his gilded attic in Trump Tower. After essentially making the other G7 leaders walk on eggshells around him lest he make them into an omelet of taunting tweets, nothing was accomplished in Biarritz. That means nothing on the global economy, nothing on the global environment, nothing on the Mideast oil crisis with Iran despite the theatrics, and nothing even on the pressing local issue of Brexit. For Trump this may mean "Mission Accomplished," but for the rest us it may mean it's time to head for the lifeboats on Tariff Man Trump's Titanic.
1
"...[the] claim that “World Leaders” (his capitalization) were asking him, “Why does the American media hate your Country so much?”
Is there no opportunity for a reporter to challenge him to cite one example of a world leader who asked that question?
And no opportunity to challenge him to cite even one example of any of the incessant false claims he makes on an hourly basis?
If not, why not?
2
Trump made the highly improbable claim that “World Leaders” (his capitalization) were asking him, “Why does the American media hate your Country so much?”
Call it as it is: A LIE!. I mean, the other members of the G& in attendance know that our media don't hate the country. This was just another instance of Trump anti-journalist propaganda being played out before a world audience. Leaders of those countries have dealt with him for several years now. They know the journalists are doing their job which is why they're in his face and asking him to explain himself. The Donald is upset they're now fawning all over him with the cult-followers' adoration and love for their dear leader. Anything less and they're enemies of the State, which Trump considers himself the embodiment of.
1
I believe Donald Trump will possibly win a second term and along with it pick up the House and add a few more seats to the senate. If this happens the 22nd amendment will be overturned and the supreme court will allow for a "departure from convention" rule citing the USA is in a crisis and this will allow for the president to run for a 3rd term or maybe more.
2
Everything said here is right on point. Unfortunately there is no relief other than making Trump a one term president.
2
I have no doubt Trump and his family are enriching themselves immensely and his base is losing but don't know it and most of them wouldn't care if they did. They are not involved in the massive stock market gyrations. Trump's other base, the super rich who pull the strings on the presidential puppet and aid and abet the drastic market fluctuations are simply thrilled with what is going on.
1
Arbitrary and capricious rule is not good in any sphere of governance. Inconstancy is a built-in element of arbitrariness.
Whipsawing the markets makes an ideal environment for the very lucky day trader (or those possessing inside information). Remember that high up members of Trump's inner circle made fortunes from the disaster that unfolded during the Great Recession. Bloomberg News has an article linking Trump's tweets on economic matters to gyrations of the stock market. No other president in my memory has done so much to cause market instability.
Is your portfolio being taken advantage of? Are you planning to make major investments in this environment? Is all this tweeting just a little suspicious?
5
The United States has survived 2 wars with the mightiest power on the planet, a 5 year Civil War, numerous wars against Native Americans, a war with Spain, a Great Depression, 2 World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, military conflicts in Korea and Viet Nam, and Richard Nixon.
Our nation can survive another three years, tops (impeachment will end it if he wins in 2020), of Donald Trump. It will hurt. Badly. But, we and our country will survive.
1
There are many things Donald Trump dislikes. Being wrong is one. This is evident in his “decision-making” as he roams across the entire spectrum of possibilities. He’s field-testing every idea he can, right or wrong, to see which one is best received. In a world of multiple-choice answers, Mr. Trump is “all of the above”.
4
The ongoing trade war with China can't be won by any definition. First, Trump is at "best" a six year president, whereas Xi appears to have become "dictator for life". That is, the Chinese leadership can wait. Trump can't.
Second, while this my sound xenophobic, Chinese leadership has over and over demonstrated little concern for its citizenry. I.e., at the start of her entry into the Korean War, a third of its soldiers had no small arms (they were expected to pick up the arms of fallen soldiers ahead of them), and a quarter wore such poor shoes that their feet were frozen solid before amputation.
Mao "joked" that China could afford a nuclear exchange with the U.S. by reason of being able to "afford" losses in the tens of millions.
Tiananmen Square was much more deliberate than Kent State.
In short, if a nation's leadership is in absolute control of its citizenry, it's willing to starve them of consumer products - including food - in order to achieve a national economic objective.
One need only look to N. Korea to see that function in effect.
3
Tom Ferguson suggests in a recent paper that a massive surge in business Republican investment in the last weeks of the campaign put Trump over the top. If this column is a good guide the business community will desert Trump en masse.
Lets hope that this is the case and that Massive support surges to the democrats for the entire race. It is very difficult to defeat an incumbent President with a good economy so if the economy turns sour for Trump this will advantage his opponent. While Trump seems to be an incompetent boor lets hope we see the last of him. Trump like Woodrow Wilson serving with a massive stroke and the government run by his wife shows that the President himself has less power than imagined. One needs to realize that so far Trump like Obama before him has started no major Wars. We need to be thankful for small favors.
1
Trump may think that hormone-driven negotiating behavior is effective, but he is up against a rational actor who, culturally and historically, has a very long term view.
A few years of suffering by the Chinese people mean nothing for China's leadership. Trump, however, is going to feel political heat from American farmers as his base collapses. Culturally, Americans have no patience.
The Chinese know this is the strategic play and simply will wait him out.
9
In 1960 Mao was asked his opinion on the French Revolution. His reply was that it was to early to tell.
The China today isn’t the China of Mao. China is integrated into the community of nations. They no longer have the luxury of time.
I believe Trump when he says the inconsistencies are part of his negotiating strategy and served him well for a long time. How successful this "keep 'em off balance" strategy has been for him in real estate deals is debatable - and you don't want to be a vendor. Clearly, he is out of his league and China knows it.
5
@Robert Wunder Good comments.
The Donald doesn't seem to realize that there is a difference between doing one time real estate deals where only the participants know what is going on verses deals with countries such as China, Europe, etc. where everything is talked about in the media. The Chinese, North Koreans, etc. can see what is going on day by day.
When The Donald stiffs his plumbing contractor, next time he needs a plumber he just calls a different plumber who does know how he stiffs people. The truth is that the leaders of China, North Korea, etc. are all con men, they are just better at it and smoother than The Donald.
Best wishes.
4
"Now imagine yourself as a business leader trying to make decisions amid this Trumpian chaos."
I don't have to imagine because, unfortunately, I am one. So let me share with you and your readers the following. As a domestic manufacturer, my company sources raw materials and subassemblies from China as well as domestic suppliers. This has been our practice over the past 10 years for several reasons. First, in order to remain cost competitive. Second, because the capacity and capabilities of domestic manufacturers is limited. It's kept us relevant, profitable and in business.
My company and employees are now scrambling to figure out - on a daily basis - what the future holds and how we are to react. There is no such thing as long term planning when your future hinges on the schizophrenic tweet of the day. To ignore the ranting and gyrations which, depending upon Trump's mood, may either spell the end of our supply chain or significantly increase our costs? I've written and rewritten a letter to my customers four times in the past two days, trying to keep them up to date on potential cost impacts while equally trying to ensure that I don't lose their business by overreacting.
All I can say is that at the end of the day, it seems that Trump wants to duplicate his "business success" with all U.S. manufacturers. That is to say, we'll all be filing Chapter 11 by the time he's done.
21
You have my sincere sympathy. I am a retired corporate logistics manager and a retired international trade lawyer and judge. Predictability is the underpinning of all intelligent business decisions. Without it nothing can ever get done. You, your suppliers and your customers can never finalize any action in such a climate. Can’t you or your trade association make this case?
1
I wonder how many of your hard working employees voted for Trump and continue to get their economic information from Fox business channel. Are you doing anything to enlighten them? Somehow I doubt it and so its hard for me to care about your plight except that we are all in this together something the stable genius is throwing in the trash
@Eric
I don't know how many voted for Trump. Our corporate values - publicized to all our employees - includes one which states that we act in a manner to maintain high standards of honesty and integrity and be recognized for doing so. This, by itself, is counter to any way that Trump and the current administration behave. I do think it's a bit presumptuous for you to say that you doubt that we do anything and thus it's difficult for you to empathize.
1
I agree with some of the comments here about the stock market. Is not Trump the ultimate insider and manipulator of the market? People have gone to jail for much less than this, and everyone (I'm talking to you media) sit back and say tsk tsk.
Maybe more important than Trump's taxes are what stock trades Trump. Inc. have made in the last two years.
4
@Peter Lemonjello and jared, ivanka, dj, eric, anyone in the republican party, gop, senate, congress.
1
It's not protectionism...It's political posturing. These are hollow gestures by Trump to give his base the impression that he's a strong man taking action, when in reality he's resolved nothing. Trump will eventually lift the tariffs (possibly after forcing more fed rate cuts), him and Yi will agree to a few token concessions to give the appearance of doing something, and Trump will declare victory. All the while, doing nothing to address the trade deficit, intellectual property, Chinese cyber crimes, etc.
4
MAGA - make america great again is actually a cry for help from Trump and his G.O.P. Can you imagine the Pillars of the community in ancient Athens putting on a MAGA cap? When democracy was born, the Pillars chose from among themselves to form their government.
Looking for a few good Pillars.
Thank you, Dr. Krugman, for creating clarity in understanding the economic impact on the United States (and the world) of Trump's volatile behavior and decision-making.
Donald Trump is doing everything he possibly can to weaken the United States economically, politically, socially and militarily.
Simultaneously, Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, his family and his friends.
It appears Trump is implementing a strategy designed by Vladimir Putin that will benefit Russia, the Trump family, and cause permanent damage to U.S. ally relationships, race relationships, and global economic stability.
Given this reality, the question is why Moscow Mitch and Senate Republicans will not act to defend the United States' democracy?
The second question is: Where is this leading us to? (What does the end of this look like?); (How much of this will not be able to be undone?).
8
Is trade war class warfare? I wish Dr. Krugman would address this subject.
To my simplistic way of thinking, trade war is class war. It is a regressive tax, like the sales tax, because it ends up increasing prices for everybody. Compare this with the tax cut for the wealthy Trump and the Republicans passed a few years back.
I suspect a deeper view might even disclose other arguments: rich countries benefiting while poor ones suffer, for example. Chinese employment dropping in the areas where they have made distributional progress.
Of course, trade warfare also affects corporations, and the economy generally, in the many ways that have already been discussed. But wouldn't an informed discussion of the distributional consequences of this be interesting?
1
Quote for the day from James Madison, Federalist Papers #62, in discussing the need for stability in government policy:
"To trace the mischievous effects of a mutable government would fill a volume....In the first place, it forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once, by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him, but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his; and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his."
427
@Ken L. Well-stated. Thank you.
26
@Ken L
Thank you, so prescient, and applicable to today.
14
I wonder what Madison would say about a President who doesn't read but "tweets?"
17
Leadership takes many guises - JFK through oratory, FDR through activist governmental reconfiguration, DDE through insightful warnings about consequences, Jerry Ford through taking a hit for the team to get the country back on track. Churchill's genius was multi-faceted.
Trump doesn't have a clue.
321
@Tad La Fountain Maybe he hasn't a clue, but you can also look at it as a deliberate and elaborate plan to divide and destroy the United States and its alliances, sully our brand, support the rise of dictators and thugs, and make the world safe for autocracy and eventual fascism. A "useful idiot," with Putin as the puppeteer.
34
@Tad La Fountain Thank you for citing the oft-unheralded Jerry Ford for his sacrifice for the greater good. Gerald R. Ford was the real deal.
19
@PJMD
Those are all things that are happening because of Republican corruption and Donald Trump's ego and self-dealing. But they are more a result than a deliberate plan. Donald Trump is simply playing at being "president."
4
What is very concerning for us in Australia, is that Trump’s ill thought out economic policies, will not only lower economic growth in China, but his will in turn, lower economic growth in Australia.
As an ally of the US for well over 70 years, including US military initiated wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, one would have thought our economic future, would at least be of some concern for the US government. We are also one of only two other nations including Bahrain, to back the United States-led mission in the Strait of Hormuz, aimed at protecting freedom of navigation in the Gulf region.
That Trump can so easily ignore the wider economic consequences of his trade war with China, shows that Trump’s America First policy, is doing far more damage to the reputation of the US, than any perceived short term benefit.
339
@Barry of Nambucca: To call Trump’s conduct of our nation’s affairs ‘policy’ is to glorify behavior that has no discernible unifying principle. Trump has proven himself to be a man with an extremely short attention span, incapable of long term planning and oblivious to the complex web of cause and effect relationships that constitute the global economy. He also knows very little about how our federal government operates, which is why he has proven incapable of accomplishing anything that anything cannot be done by executive fiat.
Trump plays chess one move at a time. Watch Mickey Mouse chasing about madly in Disney’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” That’s Trump’s ‘policy’ in action.
We’re dealing with a man who inherited considerable wealth and who, through a series of impulsive, ill-conceived, reckless and grandiose business ventures, endeavored to lose it. He eventually found the secret of his ‘success’ as a ‘business man’ not by actually creating and managing businesses, but by playing the part of a bombastic tycoon on television and then parlaying his ‘celebrity’ into a ‘brand’ and licensing his name.
Trump is not a President of the United States, he merely plays one on TV. And does so badly, I might add, because aside from being willfully ignorant and incompetent, he is also vulgar, inarticulate and ill-mannered.
Other than that, he’s doing a wonderful job!
79
@Barry of Nambucca
Not that it’s any consolation, but Trump isn’t particularly concerned about long-term consequences for the US economy, either—his concern is short-term success which will get him re-elected. That’s as far as his interest goes.
It’s not that he cares only about the US—it’s that he only cares about things as far as they affect him personally. He’s a malignant narcissist. He can only understand a situation in relation to himself.
Everything he does is to satisfy fairly short-term goals. Even if those actions may prove detrimental or disastrous later. Because he simply can’t focus long-term, and he knows he won’t be around when the bills come due.
Hopefully, we can all survive until 2020 and begin repairing all the damage Trump leaves in his wake, including the incalculable damage he’s done to our relationships with our strongest allies.
47
@Barry of Nambucca
"That Trump can so easily ignore the wider economic consequences of his trade war with China..."
Oh, hon, he's ignoring its narrower consequences as well. He's not aware that there are consequences from anything for anyone but himself.
He just can't think past the end of his own shoes.
We ALL need him gone.
49
The reality is Trump and the Republicans don't care about jobs lost to China. If they did, they would have required mandatory investment in American jobs in exchange for their tax cuts to American corporations. They are in on the China trade, the ones doing all of that outsourcing in the first place to get around U.S. high wage and benefits structure.
Having said that, taking a stand on the stealing of intellectual property by the Chinese is the right thing to do. They have a separate branch of government that just does that, and they want to make that theft customary and usual by law for foreign companies doing business in China. They also have nuclear weapons and fighter jets exactly like ours, not to mention all the personal employment data of everyone who works for the Government. They may be trying to kill the golden goose in Hong Kong, but they are probably happy with either the Republicans or the Democrats running things here.
Dr. Krugman writes about the uncertainty of business investment from the trade war. How about the economics of choices by individuals from this? (there was a Nobel prize for this recently) For example what should ordinary people be buying for Xmas when facing a recession? The answer would be, "not much", or only necessities like bathroom and kitchen supplies that they would buy anyway. No luxury goods or big appliance/car expenditures that can be put off. Also, half of global warming is caused by buying goods that are unnecessary.
1
Trump's economic "advisers are game show host actors (Kudlow) or absurd dogmatists (Navarro) whose careers depend on adherence to long held disproven theories.
The Press is somewhat to blame for Repub's success with the Repub electorate. It forms questions poorly. It misleads to ask, "Is the economy improving?" or "How much does the average taxpayer receive from Trump's tax cut?" These disregard how much it cost the average income tax payer to create the temporary "sugar high".
Better to ask if the the tax break to the Don Jr.'s of America and the slightly improved trend for a few quarters was worth the average cost to joint filers of $30,000.
Ignorance does not extenuate any Republican voter's support of racism, science denial & their duty as citizens.
1
It's like a well run classroom or a well run school in contrast to chaos where the students have no idea how to move forward. We are a Nation At Risk thanks to Republicans since Reagan.
8
The only positive thing, if you can call it that, is that the suffering of the many will rid us of this horrible man.
11
@pkbormes, I agree that the economic damage brought about by Trump's incompetence and unstable mind will also likely (but not assuredly) lead to him becoming a one-term president. But the multitude of factors that paved the way for Trump to become the eventual election winner will not go with him. The circumstances that have brought us a Trump Presidency was fermenting for decades. A multitude of causes are responsible but the prominent include growing cultural and social diversification in the US, the slow erosion of historical white privilege which has stoked nationalism and racial fearmongering, the hollowing out of the middle class, and a Republican Party that has at best been indifferent to the needs of middle and lower income Americans. Most Republican Party policies have deliberately hurt these groups, not to mention the interests of LGBTQ, black and brown people, and well, just about anyone that isn't white, rich, and Christian. The best solution we have is to beat all Republican candidates at the ballot box. It's simple.
3
I've lost count of the number of times I've watched Trump flail. He flailed over Rosie O'Donnell labeling him a bankrupt. He flailed furiously when comedian and satirist Bill Maher questioned his simian ancestry. He flailed miserably on the Helsinki podium with Putin. He recently flailed over the failure of Jerome Powell for a falling stockmarket. Not waving - flailing, and nobody is tossing him a lifebuoy.
7
(Mnuchin + Navarro + Kudlow) Trump= 0 or -1.
In addition, their of-the-cuff vision implies increasing deficits, lopsided budgets, and decreasing growth. At least we'll achieve some serious inflation and a worsening healthcare system.
Go figure.
4
Trump's myopic strategy is that he regards his threats of tariffs as his "leverage" but that begs the question:
While Trump is making threats while hiding behind his Twitter account or a half-dozen or so bodyguards as a matter of routine, and while he runs up the deficit by over $1 Trillion per year (while his GOP supporters do nothing but stand up and clap hands) -- Trump even of how much US Debt China actually owns?
Couldn't they hold over $1 trillion in US debt as THEIR leverage?
Trump is neither "stable" or a "genius". He's a one-trick pony and his tactics don't even work in the business world, as evidenced by his numerous failures.
So the example of a trade - off -- rather than Trump's trade war: Isn't that an example we should be looking at, really?
This scenario isn't going to get any better with Trump's one-act play. It will just get worse.
4
Trump has no foresight. Just play this out: We impose ever increasing tariffs, because China responds with their own tariffs (they're not going to just roll over). So, we keep doing this nonsense until we either go back to square one or something catastrophic happens. Trump is too stubborn to admit this was a stupid path forward, and China is smartly making his constituents in the Midwest suffer because of his decisions. And so it boils down to this: who can better weather a economic crash? A president in a democracy with a 62% disapproval rating? Or, a single party quasi-dictator that has essential secured power for the rest of his life?
2
Thanks Prof for an impecable presentation. The question that hunts me is how and why the richest and wisest country in the world ends up choosing a band of incompetents to lead?
8
“Protectionism is bad; erratic protectionism, imposed by an unstable leader with an insecure ego, is worse.“ How about — an unmitigated disaster!
Paul you pulled your punches, time to unabashedly take off the kid gloves.
“So there’s an obvious possibility for a vicious circle. The economy weakens; a flailing Trump lashes out at China, and possibly others (Europe may be next); this further weakens the economy; and so on.”
Same here, the vicious circle has been running up for nearly three years and steadily escalating.
Once again uncanny Trump has managed a grand diversion — the Trade War — at the peril of the economy, any semblance of rational governance, and the democracy.
Proof positive — not a word in weeks about the Muller Report or the prospects for impeachment.
This economic competition is ridiculous. The Chinese will inevitably “beat us.” Their system allows high productivity at low wages. Chinese citizens are thrilled with minor freedoms we would not settle for. We can’t compete. We shouldn’t compete. We must become the large France or Sweden and forget about global domination. The Chinese will not invade the US. They are not a threat, unless we remain arrogant and insistent on “winning.” Let them win. They eventually lose if they are not humanistic and just.
5
Dear Lieutenant Krugman,
Would you please investigate deeper the ongoing crime scene where apparently little Donny's continued playing with tariffs is burning not only his backyard but has now jumped the fence and is fanning the flames in the Amazon. Yes, you probably feel you've made a pest of yourself by repeatedly pointing out that tariffs are taxes on the citizens of the country that imposes them and that they can also alter global prices and markets. Is it possible that Trump's tariffs have caused China to find new markets for beef and soybeans and Brazilian farmers are responding to this by burning forests? Or maybe I'm wrong - and maybe the tariffs and fires are just a coincidence. Please help me out - you can take off the trenchcoat if it helps you think better.
1
It is time to demand that Trump leave the presidency.
For me, the straw that breaks the camel's back is the failure to participate in the global warming section of the G7.
We know that global warming is the existential problem. To increase the threat rather than work to reduce it is unacceptable.
Let's stop complaining about all the lesser problems and demand that he leave. Let's take this to a higher level.
7
In addition to the instability that Trump creates, we have a handful of GOP apologists for him, like Lindsay Graham, who made the outrageous claim that we have to deal with this because only Trump has the gravitas to take on the Chinese, ignoring the fact that Obama's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have restrained the Chinese while building alliances to provide multilateral support to counteract unfair Chinese trade practices. Meanwhile the rest of the GOP sits by silently, happy to do what ever leader McConnell orders as long as the donor cash keeps rolling in.
How will this continue before Trumps irrationality causes the corporations that are funding the GOP to begin pulling the plug? And if they wait too long, will there be anything left to rebuild?
5
Only little people obey rules
2
Brilliant new phrase that is spot on: the Art of the Flail. Made me laugh so hard! Good points, sound reasoning, and great language, Mr. Krugman.
3
Forget that last comment. I have read your book to death. Your writing is very inspirational. You're a very good writer and have mentioned this in the workplace.
So the "unstable genius" or the VP? Be careful what you wish for.
1
@Florence pence would be so weakened by the fall of his mentor that he would get no more done than donnie has
1
It has become evident that Donald Trump’s behavior is of such seriousness as to pose a threat not only to our present generation but even to Homo sapiens future planetary existence. This raises a very serious question. Is it driven by something destructively Genomic Psychotic in his Brain? Everything about him suggests that it is. This may be an explanation. Paleontologists are telling us there are Post Cambrian cranial/neurological predatory behaviors that are a part of our DNA makeup; so deeply embedded that many of us today are driven by them. They describe this as well-developed eyes for seeing predators. Predators, in turn eyes for seeing prey from afar, also appendages and mouth parts for getting past some defenses. Clearly this is his problem - and now ours.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
1
Coming soon - WHVN. The White House Value Network.
Hotel rooms
Air travel - by fighter plane, bomber, or missile
Golf
Weapons
Coal
Our prices are insane!
Our president is insane!
The only things we lack are compassion, diversity, manners.
8
our founding fathers are utterly & shockingly aghast in their graves !!!!!
1
So, the solution is simple: remove genus, "Unstablus Trumpus" permanently from the Oval Office STAT and let the national and global healing begin and the hate tweets stop.
1
Weak leader = weak country = weak economy
2
Quotes from today’s column: “...protectionism gets something of an excessively bad rap.” “Protectionism is bad...”
Maybe you might want to rephrase one of those quotes.
1
Trump has a severe personality disorder according to
ret. Harvard Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Lance M. Dodes M.D.
Please Professor Krugman reference Professor Dodes
assessment of Donald Trump;
Reference: Professor Dodes Letter to the NYT Editors
dated February 13, 2017;
Reference: Professor Dodes interview last week on the
Lawrence O'Donnell Show
According to Professor Dodes, Trump is a sociopathic narcissist who is pathological...and due those who challenge
him, his condition is becoming dangerous and erratic.
The New York Times should re print Dr. Dodes Letter
which was signed by 33 members of The American Psychiatric Association.
Amendment 25: Section 4 of the US Constitution would be
the way that a mentally ill US President can be dismissed
from office.
Please focus on this avenue to removing Trump from office.
5
Why? Because you like being told what you say you already know?
What's keeping Mnuchin in the White House. that's the real mystery? When the Goldman Sachs twins, Cohn and Mnuchin enlisted on the Titanic, it seemed clear they were only there to shepherd through the tax cut and a possible "public/private" infrastructure scam, and indeed, once Cohn got his cut and it was clear infrastructure was a non-starter with the Turtle, he jumped ship, somehow salvaging a sliver of undeserved integrity. Recall his bogus letter of resignation after Charlottesville that moldered in his desk drawer. What a mensch! Mnuchin must have his reasons for staying, if only to keep Harriet Tubman off the $20 bill.
4
The only thing we, Americans, can do is to take this bully man-child over our knee and spank him in the 2020 elections.
Turn him out and see how bad his tantrum is during the days between the election and the day he leaves office.
2
What the "L" Paul? Art of the Fail.
1
Hard to stomach rationale from a man who historically was a mouthpiece for globalists ... were too far down the road at this point maybe best to keep quiet now ....
Has anyone looked into the possibility that Trump, his family or associates have been making money on this chaos? Could Trump world be shorting stocks before a Trump announcement and then going long when he rescinds his threats of tariffs?
9
I would love to hear any ideas that Dr. Krugman has regarding the recent meeting business bigwigs had wherein they stated business should help all stakeholders. Particularly, is there a way to codify business practices to create a more equal distribution of wealth.
Are we sick of his nonsense yet?
1
The dirty little secret the MSM refuses to confront
is that Trump has no idea what he is ding.
Never fails to take opportunity to do Putin's
bidding and lies constantly
2
He knows well what he is doing: he causes chaos by upsetting arrangements and customs so that he can come in and say “I, the hero, am the only one who can fix it.”
Then he won’t fix it because it serves his ends to keep it chaotic, and he can pick at the bones for cheap investments the way Bain Capital did.
The Art of the Deal Gone South
The reality show sequel.
Just a thought: How are Trump's tariffs effecting HIS bottom line? How much money are HIS companies making (or losing)? Are any Chinese companies making a "token gift" to the Trump re-election campaign in exchange for a "special exemption" from Trump's tariffs?
Trump certainly must be lining his pockets against the day when he is no longer President and no longer immune from indictment. Hiring a lawyer is expensive. Hiring a whole law firm to take on the Southern District of New York is astronomical. The money's gotta come from somewhere.
As Deep Throat said some 35 years ago, "Follow the money."
3
The stock market drops every time Donald Trump threatens to increase tariffs, and it recovers every time he backs away from these threats. Is there a way to check whether he and his family are profiting from this? That is, are they timing stock purchases and sales according to these pronouncements?
6
One danger of protectionism that is not mentioned here and I think deserves notice, is that as we get more protectionist, so do other countries. Resources world wide are dwindling, and not enough is being done about global warming. In addition, the world cannot sustain current population growths.
So where does that leave us? In a world where international cooperation and community is dwindling while in order to combat the problems that face us, we need to unite on a global level.
As I see it, protectionism, given that the world is in impending crisis, can only lead to WWIII, and I think we can guess the nuclear fallout of that one.
2
I ordered some electronic gear (wall warts) from a well known distributor in Minnesota. The devices were designed in Ventura California. They were manufactured in China. (The company does have an alternate production base in Mexico, but the label on the devices was 'Made in China').
My bill summary:
Summary
Subtotal: $99.80
Shipping: $8.99
Tariff: $9.98
Sales Tax: $6.86
Total: $125.63
All prices are in USD
I wonder where I can get reimbursed for the 3rd line item 'Tariff'? Do I send the bill to Trump, or directly to the Chinese Embassy?
7
I give up. No, I surrender - this word implies greater finality. “Trade policy” is but one aspect of the grand economic policy of Laissez Faire in its various forms that has evolved since Adam Smith suggested some order to what he observed. The myths associated with the equilibrium of land, labor, capital have long since vanished. The neglected social costs of unfettered Capitalism are never included in investor calculations. Why should it? - it would destroy profit. We are expected to absorb the social costs of disease, poison in our water, and climate change. Outsourcing does not lead to restoration of labor wages (through the “magic” of education) at least in the U.S. Poverty continues to increase as government relief is withdrawn. While the First World continues to control global finances, the Third World struggles to imitate the American Capitalist model. So, why do I surrender? Because the ‘all boats rising’ myth is being drowned in the wakes of the yachts.
10
"...the jobs lost in industries that either rely on imported inputs or depend on access to foreign markets can be offset by job gains in industries that compete with imports."
Or in other words, journalists losing their jobs can be made up by becoming soy farmers who process the beans into ink for the newspapers.........
2
When will this nightmare end?
2
I think it is more the art of the fail
2
Unstable and confused. Claiming the first lady has been getting to know the North Korean megalomaniac, he has forgotten it was Ivanka who went on the trip and did get to him.
A man who can't remember who is his daughter and who is his wife has no business pretending to be a stable genius.
9
Seriously, doesn’t any rational observer easily discern our president, among other egregious personality disorders, is a rather conspicuous artful dodger. One day it’s this; another it’s that; the next it’s back to this again, and so forth. All psychological insight aside, the guy is slicker than the handle of the outhouse door.
2
“Yea but he’s not as bad as the Democrats!,” said half the country. We are in trouble!
7
When this ends it will end badly. Rubes in red states should take the blame but will play victim. Pathetic.
5
“Erratic”....”Unstable”...? We have an “Elected” “President”, who
is a bonafide Sociopathic Personality Disorder, publicly displaying
All of the classic symptoms of the diagnosis, including free-floating, unbounded Lying. Meanwhile, we have a Mass of
Unaware, gullible citizens willing to simply watch (and Cheer),
as “ President” Trump gleefully “Leads” the Country blindly
into His Kingdom of Chaos. At 82, a long retired Licensed
Family Therapist and Lutheran Pastor, I am Grateful to be nearly
Beyond it All. I fear for the future of those who Follow.
5
Unstable. Your being too kind Paul. Unhinged is more like it. He's really lost his grip on reality, just a fish out of water, flailing away. That's the President of the United States of America we're talking about.
God almighty, we are in a heap of trouble.
6
It is impossible to pin Trump down on anything - because he doesn't know himself what he knows until he checks with Fox and his base to see what works with them. He will say whatever seems to play well at the moment - and will constantly reframe everything to make it appear as though it all turns on him, that he's the one in charge, and everyone is very pleased to be working with him.
The man is not well. He's not getting better - and neither are the people around him. If he doesn't crash the economy, it will be a miracle. But that's only one part of the damage he's doing to everything he touches.
If you wanted to destabilize America and throw the world off balance, you could hardly find a better man for the job. You'd almost think there was a playbook...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
"Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".
1
Vote. Him. Out. In. 2020.
(along with the spineless Senate)
6
You mean: "Trump and the art of the Fail"
1
Trump can't make it to the end of a sentence without meandering, contradicting himself, veering off-topic, and generally being incoherent. Why should his economic "policies" be any different?
2
So much to say and do, all fueled by nothingburgers.
@db2
Nothing burgers that crash economies?
Nothing burgers like 10,000+ lies?
Nothing burgers like the rest of the world laughing at us?
Nothing burgers like Iran and South Korea getting worse?
There's more. Could you specify which you meant?
1
Trump is thrilled with the recognition and coverage ad nauseam. He thrives on it. We are no longer "shocked" by his behavior. There is a race for the Democratic nomination to unseat trump. There are some really bad economic policies being promoted which are sure to get Democrats defeated if the wrong candidate is elected. For example, Medicare for all and making undocumented's legal. Those are more important and relevant than the escapades of a "Madman."
Although many understand a focus on protectionism is bad, the cumulative number of divisions sown by Trump is worse. If we cannot find ways to minimize all the current divisions that cause angers to flare in the open, then our problems with China will be much more problematic than just on trade issues: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-08-12/sources-chinese-conduct ("The Sources of Chinese Conduct," Oct/Nov 2019). From the concluding paragraph of that essay:
"...Will the competition with China focus, to use one of Kennan’s favored phrases, “the American mind” to the point that the United States abandons domestic discord in favor of consensus? If some unifying factor does not intervene, the decline in the United States’ ability to act purposefully will, sooner than most people imagine, mean not just a multipolar world but an unruly world—one in which fear, hatred, and ambition hold everyone hostage to the basest instincts of the human imagination."
2
Trump wants to get reelected at any cost so he can't be prosecuted yet for his crimes when he leaves office. He has to satisfy his xenophobic base and be seen as tough on China. Trump, the master of the "art of the deal" stepped in, hung tough, and expected China would give in. This absurd scenario was only based on his own delusions. All Trump's twisting and changing is a series of attempts to project the image of the "tough guy" by forcing the Chinese (or the Fed) to bend to his will while running scared of the recession which could bring him down. He didn't expect China to retaliate. So he wants Powell to cut him slack for his trade war, keep away recession before the 2020 election, and juice up the economy. He is also desperate to reach a deal, but can't look "soft" when China imposes tariffs on $75 billion of imports from America. Trump is caught on the horns of the dilemma he has created by being so foolish as to swallow his own lies. He will be gored.
4
"America had sull emplozment in the 1920's" ... Wasn't that the follow-up boom to WWI? Amd weren't continuing tariffs the prelude to the Great Depression? Nobody listened to John Maynard Keynes until it was almost too late. Mr Krigman himself never tires of telling us that tariffs are not the solution to but the cause of economic woe (in which he is dead right).
What is even more worrying than Trump himself is the rise of imitators in places like Brazil, or even in the UK (which is not really run by marionette Boris Johnson but by his string-puller, Dominic Cummings). Russia and China are also run by despots, although they would consider themselves of the benevolent variety. Trump of course has no idea of what benevolent means (after all, the word has 4 (!) syllables) and doubtless would have to ask an advisor abou "despot".
How can you expect world peace and stability when people like Macron Merkel and Obama are treated with contempt instead of respect, while Fox News tries to propel Trump towards sainthood?
6
@Bill George
On your last...There has never been 'world peace'. As goes rational expectations, that is where one must begin, with the end goal being, at best, 'what can we live it?' Even that is extremely wobbly given human nature and the looming certainty of unimaginable mayhem and extinction via climate change. Just my 2 cents, Bill.
If you or I had a mentally-disturbed relative who was acting bizarrely, we’d have stopped talking to him, advised him to see a doctor, kicked him out of our house, called the cops and cut him out of our will a long time ago. Or moved away to a different state without ever notifying him.
Unless we were Republicans.
In which case we would be abject cowards who looked the other way and betrayed our responsibility to him and to our family.
And so the man hangs in there, seemingly remote and aloof from any deep concerns that patriotism, love of this country, the results of the 2020 election or Mrs. Pelosi will ever succeed in driving him out of the White House.
7
Trump gets more like Kaiser Wilhelm every day. The Kaiser's ego, arrogance, bullying, interfering in every other country's foreign policy. conviction that he was right and everyone else was wrong, handing out unwanted advice, coupled with Germany's military build up due to his paranoia, led to WW1. I hope history is not going to repeat itself.
8
In addition to higher prices and a burning rain forest, our tax dollars are going to farmers. Why? They're capitalists. They risked and lost. They should be made to pay back every dime of federal welfare that they have received. Every dime. Just like the bank bailout and the auto industry bailout. Repay in full. Every dime.
6
Sadly, the economy will have to fall into a recession, possibly a depression for the Republicans to step up and pull the impeachment lever on Trump. When their Tea Party and MAGA constituents starting getting laid off and can’t afford to feed themselves, you’ll see their reps drop Trump like a rock
4
Trump is showman. Have you not been riveted? Please allow Donald to step into the spot light. Allow him to tip his top hat and drift into the darkness. If you have thought for a second this was anything more than a Trump production I am pained to inform you. He is clearly signaling that he is dying up there and needs an easy out. He is out of material. Please for god's sake someone step in front of the poor old man and take the mic. Mitch? This has been the worlds greatest medicine show. Give Trump a heartfelt applause and send him on his way.
2
Just looking at his antics in France, the lies, the grifting, the pompous strutting around like an empty windbag, the naked hucksterism of trying to sell Doral as the next G7 venue, was one tortuous embarrassment. How any of us can hold our heads up and proudly say "there goes the leader of the Free World" is a question we should all be asking ourselves.
10
“ An unstable leader with an insecure ego” Paul could also add that Trump is illiterate,incoherent and of limited intelligence. America is in a dangerous place with an economy at risk under the erratic Trump presidency.. Surely the majority of Americans will purge Trump in Novembrr2020?
3
Everyone knows he's good for nothing and destroying our democracy. Now, what are they going to do about it?
8
Living with Trump as president is akin to the way Forrest Gump described eating a box of chocolates. "You never know what you're gonna get."
That may be OK with confections, but when one is dealing with the economy and world order, it is like never knowing which of the cherry cordials will contain a pit that will crack your tooth, until it's too late.
4
I was just reading a story about John Gotti. What I found interesting is that Trump personality is very similar. Nothing sticks on Trump and so he should be called Teflon Don
2
Re-slap the metals tariff back on Canada and Mexico. That'll fix it... smile
1
Gee, if only someone had access to the Tweets in advance, they could sure make a killing with some leveraged trading.
3
Our President is unfit for the Presidency. He is flailing and failing. The question is, “When will this all end?.”
4
What the heck is the "National Security Emergency" that 45 is using as his false reason for tariffs on China? Please publish it. And when is Congress going to call his bluff?
3
Like a bull in a china shop trump keeps running from display case to display case threatening great chaos. Occasionally he hits one hard enough to knock some plates to the floor keeping the clerks on their toes trying to limit the damage and pull a clean up in aisle 7. All this because for some reason his handlers let him roam free. Now why would anyone let an insecure bull loose knowing how much damage he would do. This started out as a insecure bull looking for attention but has morphed into the bull being a distraction for his handlers. They are hoping to extract as many benefits from the chaos as possible. Even realizing the obvious that this bull is out of control and is capable of real and lasting damage his handlers still let him run loose. They care not what lasting damage this now berserk bull will do they care only about what benefits them. It's time, long past time, to cage this bull before he destroys the china shop and everything else on Market Street . Vote Blue!
3
If I am fully employed in a minimum wage job, (or two, just to get by), how does this trade war with China hit me personally? If all I can manage financially is Wal-Mart and Dollar-store purchases and these ‘Made in China’ items go up in price, am I now taking on a third job? It's great to have an economy that has good employment numbers but being low income earner just got harder under Trump.
As for Trump, he turned his back on the ‘forgotten men and women’ the moment he took occupancy of the oval office. After all, the ‘forgotten man’ has a job, what more does he want!?”
Watching him flailing around at the G7 meetings fully exposed him as someone who does not give a whit about the inhabitants of this fragile planet. He came across as a cheap, tin horn huckster, seeing our world as blocks of real estate he can buy and sell as he so deems, then develop in to his tawdry image.
The world may have to stand up to Trump if the United States does not, and exactly what would that look like? All I know is you cannot get far enough away from this man to prevent a daily dose of mental whiplash.
8
Let's be fair here. Before we make fun of Donald Trump for calling himself a “very stable genius” remember he WAS "Michigan Man Of The Year."
1
The country needs to know who is profiting from Trumps continuous stock market manipulation
5
I don't get it. Really. Am I missing the bigger picture? Is the GOP determination to roll back the New Deal and Brown v. Board so monomaniacal that those who bankroll the party are willing to take massive losses as the economy teeters and the stock market roils?
Apparently, Trump sees himself as a great manipulator. Years of scripted television have convinced him that he can hire and fire, cause economic pain and revive the markets at a word. Always at hand is the ultimate straw man, the black former President, and if you think that the years of pounding on the man by Fox hasn't softened up Trump's intended audience, I give you Hillary Clinton.
Tariff Man, who it appears hasn't a clue who pays the ultimate price for a Federal tax (which I guess the Republicans are OK with even though they rushed to Ross Perot like rotten trash down a chute after Bush Senior imposed new taxes), in reality
TV fashion continues to threaten and cajole. Often today seems like a rerun of yesterday. When's the new season start?
And yet the spinners continually find coherence and even wisdom in his "Dick and Jane" lexicon.
Recall Grover Norquist, the GOP mad scientist who once said, "An armed people are a free people. If our forefathers were not armed before the American Revolution we would all be speaking English today."
He also said that all the GOP needed was a President whose tiny hands could hold a pen and sign what he was told to sign.
Sadly, we can't change the channel.
3
How does the president have "second thoughts?"
Doesn't he have to have a "first thought" before he can have a "second thought?"
5
If the president is not mentally ill, he acts mentally ill. If he is not a racist, his acts are racist & racists claim him.
We do not call a person mentally ill absent a personal exam by a professional. So we act by default as if he is sane & accept wildly aberrant behavior. Dangerous. A drunk driver is dangerous and drunk regardless of whether his alcohol content has been measured.
I assume many Republican voters are decent but victims of a con by their party and Trump akin to his con of the victims of Trump U. Republican office holders follow Trump's actions constantly. They are oathbreakers. They do not defend the constitution by backing the candidate Russia correctly believed would do the most harm to America.
Trump's economic "advisers are game show host actors (Kudlow) or absurd dogmatists (Navarro) whose careers depend on adherence to long held disproven theories.
The Press is somewhat to blame for their success with the Repub electorate. It forms questions poorly. "Is the economy improving?" or "How much does the average taxpayer receive from Trump's tax cut" without noting how much it cost the average income tax payer to create the temporary "sugar high" is misleading.
Better to ask if thethe tax break to the Don Jr.'s of America & slightly improved trend for a few quarters was worth the average cost to joint filers of $30,000.
Ignorance does not extenuate any Republican voter's support of racism, science denial & their duty as citizens.
3
Dr. Krugman,
It looks like you're headed in the same direction I am. Remember "Peace is at hand"? A tantalizing prospect released just weeks before the Presidential Election.
So, as a campaign strategy, the Emperor leads the World into a Tariff-fueled recession, then declares victory against China by negotiating the same trade relationship we had before he imposed the tariffs. Maybe a trade pact that puts the U.S. in an even worse position than before the tariffs. It doesn't matter what the agreement says, he just has to declare victory...In late September/early October 2020.
Just weeks before the election.
1
Hard to argue against Paul and insist that erratic behavior is a good bargaining strategy, although that’s what Trump claims: “It’s the way I do things!”
A different question is whether the extremist billionaires behind Trump are going to continue to support him in the face of economic disruption. The answer seems to be “Yes”. In fact, the installation of chaos appears to be their strategy: a hope that strong-arm tactics to restore sanity also will install themselves as tyrannical Oligarchs.
3
Let's not forget that Trump is willing to abuse/invoke the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to get his way. I claim no expertise, but it appears to be a modern version of Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 that was enacted during World War I. But hey, Trump has already referred to President Xi and Jerome Powell enemies.
2
Like Nafta, Trump was hoping for a quick pre-election meaningless status quo resolution. Premier Xi will not give him any bragging rights that come with it because they do not trust him. A lame-duck Trump after 2020 will be very dangerous to them as he can go back on this deal.
They will just sit tight.
4
Yet, people are wanting four more years of everything Trump. It seems that quite a few people are not only happy with his attacks on the aspirational ideal of America, but are happy with its actual destruction.
6
It seems that Trump makes up lies about negotiations with China to steal the spotlight or receive instant gratification during press conferences because it is all he knows to do. He essentially lies to get attention, like a child that acts out to steal attention from a sibling. It's automatic for him. His words mean nothing.
7
Speaking as a former long-time Republican, I don't just blame Trump---- I blame all his Republican enablers in the U.S. Senate and House. We should vote out each and every one of them who are running in the 2020 election.
McConnell is making a last gasp effort to preserve white control (supremecy) over our politics in this country for as long as possible. In the end, he and his ill-conceived tactics will ultimately cause the end of the Republican party.
23
I wonder if Republicans are tired of all Trump’s lies and contradictions, bungling and buffoonery. I know Democrats are weary of it, that’s to be expected. But at what point do intelligent Republicans say, this has got to stop, and actually do something about it.
11
The company I work for has had to release and re-release price sheets every time our buffoon of a leader decides to change his mind or double down. As a business, without cost stability you can't have price stability and without price stability you can't have consumer stability. Do we change our prices to reflect the 10% tariffs? Oh wait now it's 15%? What if he wakes up tomorrow and decides to make it 50%! How can you plan for the upcoming year when things can change at the drop of a tweet? It's madness!
9
I keep hearing the phrase "The emperor has no clothes" with regard to Trump.
Could we please just state the obvious? Trump has no idea what he's doing.
We've put Gilligan at the helm of an aircraft carrier.
11
Just wondering how on earth U.S. retailers ordered for the upcoming holiday season amidst the tariff war with China. On the one hand everything could be settled by then, and on the other hand one Tweet from Trump could nullify any tentative agreement.
As a retailer do you just cross your fingers and hope for the best, or do you hedge that bet and order less in anticipation of consumers tightening their belts if prices are adjusted upwards to offset any tariffs on goods?
Trump's grand idea that tariffs would increase revenue for government coffers failed to take into consideration that consumers would buy less because of higher prices. A zero sum gain in this volatile economy.
With Trump's erratic decision making based on whims, ego, and his ill-thought out precipitous behavior, the stock market right now is like a roller coaster ride....Cannot imagine what it's like for a retailer.
2
@Diana - It will not be settled by then.
@DR
I do not think so either.
I like the way Xi Jinping is playing the long game. I am hoping he has seen enough of trump and makes sure nothing is done until after the election.
7
I think someone, probably Mr. Krugman, warned us that electing a guy with multiple bankruptcies, multiple scam businesses (University, Steaks, Vodka, Airlines, to name a few) who lost over $1 Billion in 10 years, and who could not get a loan from an American bank, would not turn out well.
34
I disagree. Erratic tariffs are preferable to stable and predictable theft.
China should not be allowed to continue with their patent infringement, copyright violation, dumping, currency manipulation, technological expropriation, systematic espionage, and massive subsidized surpluses so that economists who follow this stuff professionally don't have such a hard time keeping up.
Krugman may profess concern for the "business leader trying to make decisions," but the long-term health of our country is more important.
No one is forced to do business in China. If your parents and copyrights and trade secrets are too important to risk in China, you can manufacture domestically. Improvements in the area you cite would only make Chinese production more secure and more profitable.
If we want to make China a better actor in international trade — however defined — we have better tools than tariffs, erratic or no. We have the WTO. We have other trading partners with presumably similar complaints, with whom together we can force Chinas hand. Better policy, and more effective, except for Trump’s purpose of political attention and gain.
6
@CLA, let me guess: you don't apply the same logic to climate chaos, actions to slow/mitigate which would be positive for the economy in all time frames.
An analogy to your reasoning would be to say “let’s take care first of the long term effects of this patient’s cancer... who has been sent to the ER for a heart attack.” I disagree with this sense of priorities but I am just a liberal.
China placed a retaliatory tariff on lobsters, an industry based in Maine. As a result, the industry is collapsing with Chinese importers buying lobsters elsewhere - a great increase in sales from Canada in recent reports. There is no compensation to the US industry nor any tariff protection that would help. Senator Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, has done nothing to prevent this abuse. It's time for changes in Congress as well as in the presidency.
24
Well, I can understand this on a macro and micro scale. That said, some of these ideologies are unbearable--and I am not speaking about a person's weight because there are many factors that hinder health and wellness. This morning I will reread Chapter 6 in your book, "End This Depression Now!" and think about activists work being done in India. I will attempt to read follow-up readings by experts in this field, one being, Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth.
Has anyone considered that Trump and his agents may be profiting from Trump's ability to raise or lower the markets by tweets?
19
Latest news from Brazil. The farmers are actually clearing the land with fire in order to be able to increase output of soy beans to meet China's new orders. So, Trump's trade war is risking the environment and bankrupting the US farmers.
I like John Mulaney's analogy: "There is a horse loose in the hospital." And: "He is using the elevator, I didn't know he could do that".
And 40% of the US population loves Trump. Where did we go wrong?
25
@Harold It isn't that Trump is Trump, it's that some many Americans support him.
10
Trump isn't belligerent. I see him much as I saw my Mother when she was frustrated over her dementia. He seems to be showing obvious signs of "sundown syndrome"
It's time that the cabinet and Vice President face up to the obvious and invoke the 25th amendment.
We went through this in Reagan's second term. Fortunately Reagan had competent people around him and his wife was up to the task of protecting both him and the country.
20
On NPR last night I heard that sales of capital goods were down the past quarter. This is not a good sign, particularly if American business anxiety continues much longer. That Trump and his advisors are oblivious to plain facts is kind of scary because it shows the administration is painfully unaware that inconsistent messages are already having a negative affect on the economy.
3
Here is what is crucial in our president's "maneuvering" with China over trade:
Chinese culture is biased toward the long view. Their long view being 50 to 100 years into the future. While the tariffs that the US has invoked on Chinese imports into the US will be economically painful for the Chinese in the near term, and may even cause a global recession (or worse), the Chinese view this as a very short-term problem. In their view, Trump will be gone in, at worst, 64 months, more likely much sooner than that. They will just wait him out.
So here we are. Trump has no where to go with his trade war. When it proceeds to collapse the world's economy, to where will he retreat, or will he "double down" as he has always one in the past?
This presidency seems to us like a never ending nightmare, but he'll be gone shortly, the Democrats will revoke the tariffs and the Chinese will demand concessions from the US to "normalize" relations.
Mark my words.
16
That’s just cultural prejudice.
What long view? The long view that resulted in the communist revolution? The cultural revolution that decimated China’s intelligencia? Deng’s opening to the west, keeping communism in name only?
Or what about the long view on electrical generation, relying on coal to make the air palpably unbreathable? Or the long view that imprisons journalists and “re-educates” minorities.
China is best understood as a fascist power: autocratic, militant, with state-controlled production. It’s efficiency comes at the price of suppression, witness Hong Kong. It has no long view. It’s doesn’t even have good long term prospects.
@James K. Lowden:
I was referring to the Chinese perspective, not my perspective nor yours. If you've ever traveled to China, or established a business there, you may have had the opportunity to be informed by a Chinese cultural expert who would convey this.
That, was the "long view" I was talking about.
I do not understand why the 25th Amendment is not being put in place. If a relative of mine was this erratic I would make sure they seek help if only for their own sake.
Is Congress and the 'chicken' enabling Senate who is apparently in denial just waiting for this to unravel really, really badly?
9
In a sense, it was cruel to let Trump be president.
It's like asking him to play a Bach violin sonata at Carnegie Hall: something he's just not qualified to do.
137
Unfortunately too many outside of the immediate NY/NJ/CT area (who knew better) fell for the fantasy portrayed on “The Apprentice” and voted accordingly. This behavior is exactly why Trump’s financial history is peppered with so many failures and bankruptcies.
9
@Alex Cody Is Trump the Florence Foster Jenkins of the Executive Branch?
2
@Alex Cody
What on EARTH are you talking about? Trump's the BEST violinist in the world!
2
An interesting project would be to investigate a coordinated list of supply chains and manufacturing lines in China and a select places to show how interconnected such systems are now. It would be enlightening for many people. (Trump wouldn't read it though)
With high productivity, manufacturing components need only occur in a few places on the planet. Example: Everyone can't be making flat screens since markets would be flooded making profit impossible. The key is to find the right niche.
The supply chain interconnections make protectionism a very dangerous endeavor....the damage could be long-term and difficult to correct.
7
For sake of argument let's say Trump is right to impose high tariffs on China. How can he stop China from doing the same to us? Does he really think a trade war is a long term win for our economy? The problem is that Trump is convinced that he's the expert on everything from our economy to our military to our diplomacy while the plain truth is that he is an expert on nothing that can do this country any good.
656
@nzierler The difference is we have the largest middle class economy in the world(now). We can destroy China with Tariffs.
they are a communist dictatorship that survives if their people don't revolt. The people will revolt against totalitarianism if their standard of living falls
@Paul Adler
The people will revolt agains totalitarianism if their standard of living falls?
Then why hasn’t that happened in North Korea, Iran, Cuba or even successfully in Venezuela? These are all much smaller and easier to isolate and economically blockade than China. Yet totalitarianism continues.
103
@Paul Adler
Why destroy when it is so much better to build?
Our middle class is rapidly shrinking and their's is rapidly expanding.
Add to that they have a population 5x the size of our's.
And in light of the cultural differences, I fail to see how such logic wins.
We likely destroy ourselves before we destroy them. Fool's errand.
97
I disagree with Mr. Krugman's statements about high job losses from high tariffs being offset by job gains in competing businesses. Then he cites periods of decades ago as evidence.
The world has changed from those times. China is a primary global supplier of many industrial goods and components. We don't make that stuff here anymore, and in fact, many of those items are not made anywhere else. These Chinese goods feed our industries. This goes for things like plywood, sheet metal, chemicals, and most all electronic component parts. The list is huge and effects hundreds of industries.
If these input costs to domestic producers go up, they go up for all of them. All must must raise their prices. The producers that do experience job gains are foreign producers who can get these materials without those high tariffs. This gives overseas competitors a tremendous price advantage.
Now add in that virtually all US producers sell overseas, and they will lose sales due to higher US production costs which is then compounded by the strong dollar making our goods more expensive to export.
With regard to electronics, China is retaliating by increasing tariffs of US made goods. So our input costs go up and then our finished goods costs go up in the Chinese market. We are doubly priced out of the market. Our competitors, again, have no such penalty.
No, this tariff thing is a double edged sword and it is cutting US industries in both directions.
574
@Bruce Rozenblit
I am selling stainless steel straws and the only source I can find is from China. So, yes it is true, that some things can only be found produced in China.
66
@Bruce Rozenblit
Yes, and that’s just the purpose of Trump’s behavior— to cut off US industries from their supply chain and separate the US from its traditional trading partners. There can be no other interpretation. “Make America Great Again” is no more truthful than “I am not a racist” or “I am the least anti-Semitic person”. In fact the truth is exactly the opposite— to open the world to the hegemony of those that hold Trump’s debt. Wake up, America
97
Hon Hai (Foxconn) is already looking at Vietnam and India. Others are following. Change takes time and may pose temporary challenges, but demand will be filled.
We can’t keep turning a blind eye to where predatory China is headed just because it’s temporarily bad for our stocks or the economy.
8
Dr. K. Will you please dedicate a column to how you, as Treasury Secretary or better yet President, would proceed to fix America’s problems in particular the seemingly intractable problem of increasing inequality, produced in no small part by the giving away of our manufacturing base and the destruction of our unions.
5
@Ted: Business investment is discouraged by unpredictability.
2
@Steve Bolger I don’t disagree Steve but I don’t believe that has anything to do with this comment, it does have everything to do with another comment I made today though and Paul said as much it’s more the unpredictability than the tariffs that does the damage, there can be a benefit from properly applied tariffs, that however has not been the case with our current President, unless there’s is something of “ the art of the deal” in erraticism, that I and other mere mortals are missing.
2
Can we finally put to rest the myth of Trump the great deal maker? Consider that, as a Republican President with Republicans holding both the House and the Senate, he wasn't able to make any deals with Congress. The tax cuts don't count -- I could have made that deal. (and I'm no deal maker.)
One further observation. I believe that the main reason Trump eschews coalitions is due to his view of everything as being a zero sum game. Any "win" for Trump must be his win alone. Any loss can be blamed on the other party. He simply will not share any credit with any partner.
1069
@Rick Green - actually, Trump didn't make the tax cut deal either. That was Mitch McConnell. You'll recall that Mitch sent Trump down to Mara Lago to get him out of the way while he hammered out the deal, then summoned him back to sign it.
76
@Rick Green
Trump as deal maker is a lie; it always was one. Ask any New Yorker; trump is a joke. A walking bankruptcty. No one took him seriously, he's as ignorant and inarticulate as he appears, and has zero perspective on anything.
His "brand" - whatever that is - was dead, after bankrupting casinos and many other buisnesses. (really; the only business where the house always wins trump managed to ruin. And he's no billionarie; why else does he resist tax return release.) Trump was resurrected in reality TV; and make no mistake. He made some money by running a theatre of the absurd. He's not a serious person and everyone knows it.
Except for the dupes in flyover country, lacking the basic curiosity to do any background on trump didn't care. They went for the bombast; the racism; the carnival barker. And here we are.
We can only hope that the economic disaster unfolding, the lack of global stability, the utter incompetence of this man and his entire white house ... hits moderate republicans. And farmers. And manufacturers. And small business owners. And then they say enough is enough.
61
@Rick Green
the myth is exactly what it has always been
12
So now the Great Wall is not only a physical thing. It's isolationism and protectionism such as we haven't seen in most of our lifetimes. Whether China changes its laws to allow US companies to compete isn't the issue. China is a dictatorship so its laws don't matter much. The same is becoming true of our country as Trump dictatorially decides that China is our "enemy" and has to be punished. While US consumers, workers and farmers end up being punished as well.
4
@Richard
Who decided China is not an enemy anymore? Communist countries were always enemies of capitalist countries. Why is Cuba an enemy? Why is Russia an enemy? Why did the US moved industrial production to a enemy, Communist country to be dependent on China. China can limit production of key products and cause serious economical damage to America? Why is China not an enemy and Russia is?
"Tariffs are taxes on consumers, and they tend to make the economy poorer and less efficient."
Is anyone telling this to MAGA nation? Who in the Trump conflagration is easing the fears of his base? Who is telling the folks who voted for him that they must keep blaming Obama for the turmoil in the "great" economy that is solely due to the machinations of the "very stable genius?" I mean, who has the courage to tell these folks that they bet all their money on a bad horse and they stand to lose everything?
The president has been riding the Obama gravy train for a while now. His adoring masses don't see a disconnect between the China back-and-forth and are rigidly in his corner as he strains to find ways to blame the coming financial catastrophe on anyone but himself. The sad thing is that they'll believe him. Ask the farmers who have lost their lucrative cattle and hog and grain markets to Australia or New Zealand or Canada if they're feeling a bite.
By blowtorching Jerome Powell as an "enemy," on a par with the Chinese president Xi Jinping, the president has gone a long way toward blowing up consumer confidence in the Fed. He's like a spinning top; it's easy to make out the various markings on the thing while it's standing still but when it's going around without a check, it becomes a blur and when was one of those ever easy to read?
When the bottom falls out of this soggy grocery bag, MAGA is going to want answers.
Their president has none. Not one. Never had any.
1485
@Frank
The minimal interest rate rise followed an inflation uptick, due in part to the manner in which Trump has juiced the economy with borrowed money.
Whether that move was the right one at the right time is debatable. Krugman has said it was wrong. Other have disagreed.
What is not debatable is the complexity of trade and so many other national and international issues.
That complexity creates two problems for Trump and his approach to governance. First, the only thing he knows how to do is bully and bullying only works if your victim is willing to be bullied. I suspect China is not. Even Mexico and Canada don't much like it either, which is why NAFTA II is a whole lot like NAFTA I.
The second problem is bigger. Like it or not, nternational trade is the way the world economy works, and Trump's big money supporters rely on it to generate more millions for themselves. They also rely on the cheap labor they have found available in other countries like China. Without it Walmart would have empty shelves.
You make me wonder if you purchase only products "made in America."
Outside of trade, most of the world's big problems respect no borders, whether we build a Wall or not.
We cannot deal with climate issues, the dislocation of millions due to climate disruptions and wars one nation at a time or even as Trump likes to say "bi-laterally."
It will take real expertise, cooperation across borders and mutual respect, three characteristics
Trump clearly lacks.
356
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18: Frank gives you your answer right below: Trump's devoted followers will never question him. There is always someone else to blame, and the dynamics of the global economy are complex enough for a million misunderstandings to flourish.
186
@Bascom Hill
And Richard Nixon and businessmen of his day started it. They saw the vast Chinese market and thought they were going to sell their wares there. How did that work out?
38
The problem is that the "president" is mentally compromised. We have no profiles in courage in the GOP. Not only does Trump need to go, but the entire GOP needs to go. They have betrayed every one of us.
22
Corporate America is complicit with Trump. And they're finally paying the price for their greed and cynicism.
No doubt Trump has been on the phone telling captains of industry he's just ducking and bobbing and about to throw a haymaker. Keeping the Chinese off-balance with his tweet jabs and impromptu press scrum uppercuts may look like so much winning to his base but to the China it just says the smart money is on rope-a-dope until America acts like a grown up again.
That means we're going the full 12 rounds for a split decision. The record shows the stock market and corporate earnings do best with Democrats in office. But Corporate America prefers their own kind, Republicans.
It's Obama's economy that boomed and Trump is now crashing. Cosmic revenge on Corporate America.
My doctor told me today that Propecia (Finasteride) has pronounced and serious side effects, particularly if taken for any length of time. That's the drug developed for prostate problems in older men but also used to promote hair growth. Trump has been on Finasteride forever. The side effects -- sexual dysfunction, mood swings, deep psychological issues -- remain even after stopping use.
You don't have to be a doctor to see how unstable Trump is, says my doctor. No corporate board would keep someone so erratic and unstable as CEO.
This is your country. And Trump is your country on Finasteride.
He moves fast and breaks things. He can't stop himself. But we can come 11/23/2020.
19
Mnuchin should quit. He can go back to wall st. and make a lot of money and not have to deal with Trump's tantrums. Any cabinet secretaries who are not as dumb as Trump should join him.
4
@steve, the problem with that is that Trump would probably replace him with someone even worse.
1
Aww, lighten up, Krugman.
Americans will elect a Democrat President in 2020 to whip the American economy back into shape, contain deficits, and restore global alliances—just as Democrat Presidents have been doing since the 90s.
Cleaning up after the GOP has become a generation rite of passage.
14
It appears that trump made up the calls from China. Flailing and lying - often tied together, never a good outcome.
5
We clearly have entered 25th amendment territory with a mentally disabled president. In other words, Trump has "lost it" or whatever remained of it. Congressional Republicans, of course, lack the integrity, courage and patriotism to act on our nation's behalf.
7
It's likely that at this point someone has alerted him to the consequences of his words, and he's been gaming his stock ales and purchases on this information.
He is profiting from everyone elses' misery and misfortune, as he has done his entire life.
4
But the bungalows are incredible.
1
Interestingly, we haven’t heard any Democrats from Obama on down to Krugman offer any ideas on how to stop China from stealing our intellectual property, stealing our manufacturing jobs, and preventing them from shipping us deadly fentanyl.
If tariffs are not the answer then what is?
3
1)Instead of making it a bilateral fight-US China-and bilateral with every other countries for that matter, bring the debate to the WTO, reform the system to reflect fair trade. At the WTO everybody would save face and the US can count on 12 Asia-Pacific nations, the European Union, the other two NAFTA countries. 2) Do what Canada and Japan were able to do,last year in the case of Canada, this year in the case of Japan, negotiate a fair trade with the European Union, removing 98% of all the tariffs. Was there a trade war between the two countries and the EU? NO, just long, hardeous negotiations. In International affairs bullying doesn't work. However, multilateralism works. Trump is incapable of not bullying and hates multilateralism. So, I guess the solution is going to have to wait for Trump to be out of office.@Tuco
2
@Tuco
The TPP trade deal would have accomplished everything you asked about, but PresentDunce Pumpkinhead blew it up without even understanding what it would do. If 'stupid' was money, Trump would be a millionaire...
2
@Tuco
US corporations gave the manufacturing jobs (including mine) to China. And US citizens chose the "China price" products over US manufactured products. Tariffs are giving us products from Vietnam. If we can't protect our intellectual property, then it will be stolen. Apparently its pretty easy to steal. Fentanyl is the last stop for addicts who have been made addicts by US drug companies.
1
Does anyone really think, at this late date, that Trump cares about economic (or any other) policy?
This kleptocrat grifter is solely interested in enriching himself and his family by any means possible. Period.
His actions as president, unexplainable by a Nobel laureate economist such as Dr. Krugman, are clear to anyone who understands that Trump is simply a thief. He hopes to not get caught, I imagine, but the republicans have given him the superpower of their complete and slavish obeisance. He probably would like to extend his crime spree by getting re-elected if possible but again, if he doesn't, I imagine he will get over it.
Stop analyzing and look.
3
This guy is in so far over his head and clearly dangerously unstable. The republicans needed to step up a long time ago, but the oligarchs don’t want a democracy, and the republicans carry their water. It’s devastating to watch a very sick man as well as our democracy crumble before us. They really want disruption, even globally, and something is afoot. Climate change is coming, is here, and something is surely afoot. And let’s not talk about the democrats and impeachment for the moment. The Committees are doing their work. We need to focus on the silent, obstructionist republicans, every one of them, and shake them out of their drunken, greedy stupor.
9
A psychologist analyzing Mr. Paul’s constant rants would probably conclude he’s showing his own insecurity. Economic rational analysis can be done without showing personal animosity.
1
We've all heard or read the story of the emperor who has no clothes as kids, but did we ever think we would see it in real life, not in some remote dictatorship, but in the United States?
It has taken a couple of years of trial and error, but Trump now has himself surrounded by a mix of the worst of the worst. Incapable family members (Javanka). Those promoting extreme policies (Bolton, Miller). And those who give meaning to the word sycophant (Pence, Barr, Pompeo).
And despite all this, Trump has a strong chance of getting re-elected!
5
A man with 4 BK's to his name. A man with a mediocre record of success in the business world. A man basically considered a pariah among his peer group in NYC circles for so blatantly stiffing his financiers, his creditors, his contractors, his employees and even his customers prior to this elevation in job stature.
And now people stand surprised by his unending display of incompetence in trying to do a job for which he has no prior training? Really? My only surprise is everyone else's surprise.
No insults or criticisms meant of my fellow Americans but doesn't it seem, and the sheer fact of this mans ascension to such a supreme role confirm, that the collective IQ's in this country must have dropped significantly over the last couple of decades?
Do you think the leadership ranks of prior decades would have tolerated his antics for even a second, much less the last 2 years? Really?
But so it goes I suppose.
John~
American Net'Zen
8
Another terrific column, thank you Mr. Krugman. Question for the Trump voters out there: Tired of winning yet?
5
Politicians like Trump are constantly lying about China being our Enemy. China supplies America with thousands of products. Products that Americans love and depend on. The Propaganda against China has infected the Media. Talking heads endlessly spew the same garbage about China being our Adversary. Trump peddles the lies that the Chinese are ripping us off. The truth is it is the 1% class in America that is ripping off the American Public. Not the Chinese.
4
Trump, in his feverish and maniacal drive to assert himself and his megalomaniac belief in his abilities, engages in progressively self destructive behaviors. The problems is that in the past such behaviors could get him a bailout from his father or he resorted to bankruptcies. Unfortunately, now his behavior is not only self-destructive, but destructive to us all and to our country. His cabinet and the republicans by their silence are becoming his partners and will be held eventually responsible.
243
@Stefan
As it gets closer to election day and as Trump continues to fall in the polls, his vulnerability regarding the statute of limitations for his crimes will lead to his increased desperation. He will turn from an unresolved trade war and seek real war.
He is not only willing to"wag the dog", he is willing to shake it to death.
30
@Stefan
Donald J Trump is stark raving mad!
And this is our Prez - how appallingly sad.
Countries can’t trust he’ll do as he says,
It’s time to be rid of this chaotic Prez.
Congress, I plead with you - please do your part,
And rein this guy in before any wars start!
4
One would think that the Republican Senate leadership had seen enough at this point. I'm amazed they haven't tossed Trump out on his ear and rallied behind Pence. It's amazing to me that Trump's "base" holds so much sway.
Call me crazy but I think the GOP is in for a rude awakening in 2020. The "base" alone is enough to carry a statewide election in only the reddest of states and some of those that have been getting bluer (Arizona, Nevada, Texas, N.Carolina, Georgia) may get there sooner than expected.
2
After seeing him in office, I understand why he had so many failures as a private businessman. Someone should have asking him before he took office "are you sure you want to do this? There's no bankruptcy in government". Of course he would probably have replied "Oh yeah? Hold my beer".
3
One thing that may be missing from Mr. Krugman’s analysis is trump’s manipulation of the stock market. Who is getting inside tips from the trump administration about what is going to happen tomorrow, what trump is going to say tomorrow, what to look for in what is not said tomorrow? Who among trump’s maralago club members is getting richer tomorrow? Who among them is getting inside information on government regulations, regulations being proposed and deregulation? Who really is telling trump which regulations to change or propose? When will we see trump’s tax returns to see how much richer he is getting through all his machinations?
11
As it gets closer to election day and as Trump continues to fall in the polls, his vulnerability regarding the statute of limitations for his crimes will lead to his increased desperation. He will turn from an unresolved trade war and seek real war.
He is not only willing to"wag the dog", he is willing to shake it to death.
1
I can give you an answer to EVERY question you posed.
The simple (and only) reason to the unpredictability of this President, his policies, and his crushing new republican taxes (tariffs) is that he (a ''businessman'') is running the country as a business. (albeit as is usual putting into bankruptcy)
He is doing so for the enrichment of himself, his family and his backers. (whether they be in or out of the administration, or in particular out of the country)
They (and he) have the ultimate inside knowledge of who, what and where to ''short'' stocks, businesses, and whole sectors of the economy they are demolishing. (or at the very least crippling)
ON TOP of all of that, the President gets to turn around and use ''Socialism'' (WITH TAX PAYER MONEY) to prop up certain sectors. (mainly farmers - as they are devastated)
We (including world class economists) look at it all, and write column after column, or muse aloud as to what the objectives are, but it is AS CLEAR AS DAY.
This President and his backers are stealing the cupboard of the nation bare (on top of flaunting the Emoluments clause of the Constitution), and there will be nothing left when there is a massive Democratic landslide next year.
In fact, there will be less than nothing, for we are going to have to be paying the bill for generations !
20
@FunkyIrishman Don't forget the millions he and his backers will make when the G7 summit is held at Maralago next year.
1
Trump explained himself yesterday: "Sorry, it's the way I negotiate." Prof. Chaos just does things at random and self-kudos at whatever results. He has no capacity for anything more sophisticated.
12
What is this? Groundhog day? Didn’t I just read the same story three pages back? And then two pages before that? And yesterday as well?
3
This column list only a few instances of how Trump's uninformed, irresponsible, unstable extremism sabotages the citizens' right to govern themselves competently.
Another example was Ronald Reagan. We should learn from the history. In the 1970s, popular support developed to deal with challenges on energy and the environment. Chrysler did the right thing and invested in the improved energy efficiency of its cars.
Then came Reagan, and Chrysler was hurt. Reagan was an ignorant, extreme ideologue. He rolled back the regulations that promoted energy efficiency. That defeated Chrysler's investment.
Business leaders know they cannot trust Trump. They fear his instability.
15
Trump's flailing is actually making the U.S. look weak and even somewhat pathetic to the rest of the world. That’s going to have long term consequences for future administrations. Our future leaders may find it difficult to negotiate us back to where we were before Trump let alone improving our position. I’m not sure we can ever fully regain the respect of our adversaries and the trust of our allies.
12
@Robert O. I agree with you. Former allies would be crazy to ever trust us again, knowing that we could vote in another Trump any election and we'd be just as unreliable and nutty as we are now. Maybe a sensible, steady Democrat could repair some of this, but the suspicion will remain in the background if not right up front. And the US has the firepower to destroy the world, so the world is captive to our insanity. Shame on Trump, and shame on us.
Tariffs are not necessarily bad in themselves, but trump's tariffs have not been passed into law by congress - so nobody knows how long they'll last. Any business investment under these circumstances would be foolish.
6
Trump is who he is, Congress is responsible for this mess
Republicans are sitting on their hands collecting something in exchange for not doing their sworn duties to govern.
So, besides allowing Republicans to continue getting away with it, what can the average Joe do about this mess, created and owned by the Republican party?
7
@John Mullowney
Vote them out! Simple as that. It won't be soon enough but it is the only viable solution.
In answer to your question, one word:
Vote.
(especially in your case being an Ohio-an)
Throughout his business career Trump engaged in lies, double-dealings, refusals to pay workers and contractors, bankruptcies after creaming off the profits and every other kind of underhanded manipulations. As president, he thinks the same tactics will work just fine. It's his way of doing business.
15
During the election, about the only thing trump said that rang true to people like us who read Krugman, was that "the system is rigged", then we found out about the Russians but the real rigging was with the electorial college, gerrymandering and dark money that allowed the Koch brothers, et al put trump in office and all the incompetents whom he appointed as temps so they didn't have to face real vetting.
Yesterday, trump defended his negotiation style saying, 'this is my negotiation style and it works for me". Like the former, now what he's talking about is not on the face of it what he's talking about. The question is what is he negotiating? It's not a trade war for the country, it's for his benefit. He is getting something personal out of it that we're not looking out for while wringing our hands about the on the face of it level trade war.
Wake up everybody. The answer is an impeachable offence.
8
Trump walk around with just two economic memes in his head: 1) free trade is bad; 2) the art of the deal is the art of chaos. Of course both of these memes run counter to fundamental principles of economics. Who knows where these memes were baked into that stable genius mind, but they are truly baked in.
3
Now I really worry.
It was pre-ordained that our open democracy would lose a public game of chicken with an authoritarian China.
Now, Trump is getting ready to declare victory with great pomp and ceremony because he would have negotiated the single largest huge ever in the history of the world purchase of soybeans by China from our great farmers. (That Obama couldn't do.)
The Chinese would laugh all the way to the bank. Having kept alive their theft of our intellectual property, the coercive terms they impose on our companies wishing to do business there, their designation as an emerging market, etc.
What a wasted opportunity.
1
The narrative that many borderline Trump supporters allowed themselves to have to put Trump into office in 2016 was sloppy and lacking in rigor, and all else follows from the original sin. They thought a businessman would be just fine on the international stage, that he would make great deals, that he would shake up the international order in good ways, and that he would be a "wrecking ball" of the system to create positive action. He said, "America will get tired of winning." It was truly magical thinking. The public was "bored", too, and wanted a "non-politician" who would be unorthodox and more exciting through his inexperience.
It was also misogynistic, racial, and nostalgic thinking for many. It was also "The WH belongs to us" thinking of the Republican party, and "SCOTUS is ours" that empowered his victory. All else follows the original sin. It was a most vindictive, angry and vicious act of one set of voters upon another.
7
@Srose. A lot of voters have come to believe in reality shows. They think those things are somehow real as well as entertaining. They wanted the entertainment part without admitting to themselves that the reality part isn't real, and is ugly to boot.
The problem is that the Republicans won't go against Trump. They are all afraid of him due to his bullying. If they ever got together and told Trump all of this is over, If you don't like what we're doing, we'll just override your veto. We'll get what we want with, or without you. The problem we have is with the spine of the Republican party. McConnell should have stepped up in the beginning, but he is afraid to loose his power in the Senate. With that, so goes the country.
7
@Dan O. Amen, except I'm not sure they are afraid of it. I'm afraid they agree with him, think he'll get them what they want, and that's why they don't buck him. The GOP is hopelessly corrupt, caring far more about their agenda than the welfare of the country and its people. The GOP just wants to stay in power, like the Communists - big surprise.
Trump was enraged when China retaliated with tariffs of its own. What did the fool expect them to do? Trump operates from his own imagined set of facts and can't deal with the simplest of concepts. Trump is causing artificially high product prices that will probably lead to inflation. The country might recover from a one-term Trump presidency in a generation or so. Two would cause long lasting damage to the country.
10
Trump's mishandling of the the tariffs issue will come back to haunt him in 2020. Meanwhile no media attention is being paid to any of the serious issues the US faces. An ongoing, endless war, children in cages on the border, Guantanamo, Republican plans to end women's access to reproductive care, Social Security etc. These issues need attention in the media NOW.
9
If Trump wants someone to blame he should start by firing his trade advisers who, like everyone else, have figured out how to manipulate him by playing to his ego.
1
I can't understand anyone thinking that these erratic and crazy sayings have any advantage in negotiation with China now. Everything there that seems erratic and crazy was just erratic and crazy and damaged the credibility of this administration's own threat to China. The world saw a US that had no firm plan, appeared to lose the gut to carry it out, trapped itself into a dead end, now appeared confused with its direction and being alone in world stage also being disrespected by its allies.
There was nothing about "negotiation" here, it was all a chaotic response from a chaotic individual that didn't know what he wanted.
2
Donald Trump’s recent erratic behavior and silly lies are nothing new for him, although the inane thoughts fly into his head and out from his mouth so rapidly now, serious people are seriously thinking about the 25th Amendment.
There are only three categories of information which stay in Donald Trump’s mind, do not mutate in that hyper-active chamber and can be recited by him with consistency on a moment’s notice. The first category is that bundle of racial and religious prejudices Trump learned at his father’s knee.
The second category of immutable thoughts in the Trump brain is the group of remarks or promises made at rallies which regularly draw the biggest applause. The most familiar, of course, is the promise to build a wall along our southern border.
The third type of thought which sticks with Donald Trump and guides him is the memory of where money given to him came from and, more importantly, the source from which he hopes additional money will come. This third category brings us to the completed G-7 meeting in France and Donald Trump’s lobbying the attendees to make it the G-8 again by welcoming Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Everything President Donald Trump says and does is all about him. External considerations like improving international trade or avoiding a shooting war or taking steps to abate global warming exist only to the extent they affect people’s love for Donald Trump.
5
The scariest part of the stupendously stupid Trump trade war is that the full harmful effects will not be felt for a while. US companies engage in trade using contracts which are planned out over a designated period, weeks, months and years. Some of the effects are already being felt by our farmers, a very large part of our economy. Other companies may be absorbing a portion of the tariff cost, but will be unable to do so indefinitely. It may take many months or a year for the harmful effects to be fully absorbed. Our next presidential election is only a little over a year away, I hope these effects are seen sooner than later. Millions of true American patriots already know Trump is a failure in all he does. Even some of his fervent supporters may turn on him if these effects are evident.
Blue wave 2020 !
3
Most of the time all I want is for Trump to just shut up. No tweets, no talking.
But then I worry about what would happen if he was not spewing every single thought out loud to the world.
I've decided that it's better to know what an irrational man is thinking about doing than having him keep silent and only find out after he has made irrevocable decisions.
2
The issue with China is overblown. Decades ago, US based businesses move production to China where, it was alleged, that the government was selling prison/slave labor. Then the Chinese economy started to grow and develop a middle income sector and US based businesses wanted a piece of the action. The cost: agreements that required the transfer of intellectual property. So greedy, the US companies signed on the dotted line - after all China was a good deal and the market was going to be huge. For the record: the US government did not force US companies to move production to China.
Then it all went south, China based companies started using US based company property to make exactly the same products for their domestic market as well as exports. The US based companies go to US elected officials to fix their problems with China. Why? Because they can find sympathy and the US elected officials get donations from the US based companies.
Now the PR campaign: China is a bad actor. Yeah, but when their bad actions like selling prison/slave labor was in your favor it was just fine. China is graduating more college educated people than the US that makes them bad while we make sure that a college education leaves you destitute. We give China the formula for fentanyl and they ship it back to us for our drug addicts. Meanwhile, US company executives incomes grow exponentially while workers wages stagnate. Look in the mirror America - we are our own worst enemy.
6
Trump is on his way, his impulsive and irrational one, to do to the American economy what he did to his New Jersey casinos. Bankruptcy. But with his Republican trickle down tax cuts for the corporate
state, his exuberant military spending and now his erratically applied tariffs with its bellicose trade wars, he will achieve just that. Not only will the modest economic expansion end but with the impending recession he will have limited the tools available to handle an economic crisis. The harm he has done to the global economy and to American leadership in the world will place him in history as the abysmal President and his Republican appeasers as fools on the Titanic.
Can we impeach him and send his craven Republican Party to the political wilderness they so richly deserve?
3
He has no idea what he's doing. Bully tactics that worked for him in the casino business don't work in politics and international deals. He has surrounded himself with yes men who don't dare introduce rational thought.
3
The big reason we are where we are is that trump hasn't the slightest idea of reality. He's still living The Apprentice where his abruptness was a plus and there were no real consequences. He's a small time grifter who sold his (racist) name and was able to amass some money by letting others use him and insulate him and his businesses from his very poor business sense (bankrupt casinos??). But we are where we are because prosecutors have, so far, refused to prosecute him and I'm talking about at all levels, federal, state and city. If even one of them did their job, he'd be gone.
6
trump's flailings are the result of a supine Republican party afraid of being primaried and unable to do their jobs. As the supposed adults in the party, the republican leaders are required to haul the president back from his lunacy before the rubes notice. Well the rubes are getting hurt and starting to notice.
Meanwhile, Tom Cotton wants to buy Greenlanders and McConnell sees no legislation worthy of debate in the Senate.
We will all flail along until we either remove republicans from power or trump and the republicans finally snuff out our government.
2
Everything is worst when it's erratic and unpredictable. I've seen marriages break up because one partner is erratic and unpredictable. I worked for a boss who was erratic and unpredictable. I left and so did everybody else. You can't live with erratic and unpredictable
5
Sadly, trump has the intelligence of a three-year-old in the middle of a temper tantrum. This precisely is this man, the leader of the largest economy in the world. So the world is very off-kilter, there is no gravity everything soars and falls from minute to minute with no anchor. But what you can guarantee is that this house of cards will fall.
4
It will get worse. Trump has cleaned his house of any advisor or cabinet official willing to speak truth. He has spent over two and a half years getting comfortable as president, and now, more and more, he is operating as he did with his own business; winging it and taking big chances, secure in his wildly misplaced self-confidence. The lies are getting bigger and more frequent, the press availability is ramping up, the decisions are being made off the cuff. Trump has an uncontrollable compulsion to make news. As his fantasy of being a bold and brilliant president grows, tumor-like, he is becoming further unmoored from objective reality. Ask yourself, why does Trump speak so freely to the media? It's because he doesn't grasp, cannot grasp, that his rambling, incoherent, simplistic answers make him sound like a fool. He really thinks he's killing it out there. That's a level of detachment from reality that is extremely disturbing. The odds of him facing a situation requiring nuanced thinking and plenty of input from experienced aides grow every day. Who has confidence he is capable of, or even interested in, understanding the full situation and acting rationally?
9
@Rob I used to joke that he was Chauncy Gardner. Now it's no joke.
Despite all the inconsistencies and erratic behavior of the president, he may still end up winning in 2020. That's my greatest fear, politically.
The just released poll numbers showing Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in par with Joe Biden show that the Democratic party is moving too far to the left, wrecking the chance of beating Trump. They are intoxicated with the huge win in the House in 2018, though they lost in the Senate races badly enough.
When you are collectively in the mood of ridiculing your adversary, you fail to notice your own blemishes. Sad.
5
Does the US really need to import plastic shower curtains from China? Trump may be inexperienced in trade policy but he's good on the art of the protest. Who else is willing to stand up and object to the ridiculous amount of tat exported from China? Forget tariffs and Stop The Lot!
1
It never ceases to amaze that we have as President someone who is so extremely ignorant, insecure, egotistical, arrogant and truth-challenged. True, these characteristics are present in many a powerful politician, but are usually mitigated by some measure of intelligence, pride, and reason. And by other people in the room. The current situation is quite frightening, although it is also comical and fascinating.
2
Trump is literally the worst negotiator I have ever seen. They should use him as an example in classes -- of what not to do.
5
Anyone who thinks that the US is in good shape economically, just go to any city or non-affluent suburb or rural area. Homeless people, street people, opiod dependent people, and people who cannot or will not get treatment for severe mental illness are visible all over the country. The infrastructure is crumbling around us, including schools in poor and non-white districts. Our environment is being trashed. Minimum wage is still an impossibly low $7.25 in many states.
If your name is Koch, Walton, or Trump, you are rolling in cash. If you are poor, you are falling ever farther behind. An economy that works only for the most affluent is a failure.
7
"Europe may be next". Maybe. Maybe not. Does anyone who watches Trump not think that he is obsessed with China in part because they are, well, Chinese? To say that racism isn't playing a role in his trade policy requires that we ignore Trumps well documented, shall we say, race-based world view.
2
Good Stuff, Dr. K. The true villain in this mess is the GOP. They created this godzilla because there were "cities" they wanted destroyed, like social security, welfare, anything that the GOP deems as government helping you.
They created this godzilla so the rich would get richer, so the corporations can pollute, gouge, and steal their way to even greater riches. So the GOP would keep power and their members get richer.
The GOP, especially the Senate, created godzilla in their comic-book, fever dream insane drive to get richer than god.
Now godzilla flails his tiny arms left and right, up and down, while stomping on our Constitution and destroying the planet. The GOP needs to go away.
5
I assume that many of the CEO's of the American companies who do global business are Republicans, and hope they will start doing what they can to check their Party's selfdestructive support of DJT.
The problem is not the "very stable genius," the problem is, specifically the Republicans in Congress and in general, all Republicans.
Trump would have long ago been impeached or at least reigned in and chastised by a responsible and patriotic Congress, but Republicans in Congress are neither.
Republicans put America on this rollercoaster and they have been playing with their belly buttons as the ride speeds up and the wheels rise off the tracks on every turn.
Americans who want the nightmare to end must bring attention and pressure on Republicans in Congress. We must throw them out in 2020. Out of the country would be appropriate if we could, because they have proved to be, not just irresponsible and unpatriotic, but truly unAmerican.
13
"It’s just a straightforward description of his behavior." I've had a long career as a state licensed clinical psychologist, and I'll give credit to the intelligence of lay people for observing the obvious about Trump, as Mr. Krugman states. We in the majority must go out and vote Trump and his Republican ilk out, out, out.
10
I just want to say that while I am happily married with two kids, I love you, Paul Krugman!
It is refreshing to FINALLY hear a straight-forward, intelligent reminder that the issue is not just that trade wars and tariffs have a negative, inefficient impact on the economy. The core issue with Trumpist Economics (if you can even call what the Administration does economic policy) is that uncertainty is the antipathy of a healthy, growing economy. The leading indicators are there - durable goods orders, futures markets, commodities, 9 large global economies either in or near recession - but the biggest problem is that we cannot predict anything from a leader who announces dictatorial policies like ceasing all corporate relationships with China via Twitter.
Please, let this be a nightmare that we can all wake up from in 18 months.
18
I would submit to you that Donald J. Trump has a very big problem with listening. His body language suggests that he hardly ever listens to anyone as he is constantly thinking about his next utterance. The only exception is twitter where people compose their thought in writing giving him the opportunity to actually have to digest others thoughts.
The United States has weathered poor executives before however DJ Trump is a game changer and we cannot possibly survive a second four years of this guy.
8
I’m glad to see Krugman has slowly started to make his U-turn on the dogma that all trade barriers are bad, which is an outdated vision of a world with unlimited resources, that heavily favors combined GDP over where manufacturing takes place and in which making trade partners more powerful doesn’t have bad consequences (e.g. predatory China).
It would be good to look into TTIP (US-EU trade) again, whilst continuing to wean off cheap Chinese goods.
Or at the very least we should spread manufacturing over smaller, harmless countries like Vietnam and Mexico.
4
The thing you need to recognize is that everything he does everything, benefits his personal business or his children's business in some way.
The man has never done anything for anyone just to help them unless he made something out of it ever.
12
Memo to Americans: It's not a 'trade war.' It's much bigger than that. It's actually a contest of systems: democracy vs authoritarian; freedom of speech, press and religion vs tyranny; free markets vs state capitalism; rule of law vs state-sanctioned theft and corruption.
The thing is, China will never change voluntarily. After Tiananmen (1989), Tibet (2008), Xinjiang and now Hong Kong, that should be glaringly obvious to everyone.
Honestly, has PK anything - anything - to recommend that will actually cause the CCP to change - even if someone other than Trump were in charge of US policy? No.
So go ahead and criticize Trump all you want and the way he is conducting this challenge to the way the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) runs China. But keep the big picture in mind.
In addition, we should prepare ourselves for sacrifices. Trump won't tell us, but they will be necessary, nevertheless. This is a time for all Americans to get behind Congress and get on with it.
@VCR You seem to be missing the point. There is no discernible strategy involved in Trump's rantings. There is no defined goal. There is only chaos, and that is unlikely to achieve anything other than more chaos.
4
@VCR, so you're suggesting that isolating China from an economic relationship with the US is somehow a weapon that would bring about change in Chinese government? Trump certainly has no interest in human rights, and to suggest that this is his motivation is just nonsense.
3
@VCR Trump is making no challenge to the way that the CCP runs China, actually he's trying to mimic the way that near dictator Zi runs the place. Nor is Congress behind Trump on his erratic and ignorant trade and foreign policy efforts, they're just trying to wait out the incompetence and ignorance hoping the exchange for conservative judges and tax cuts will be worth the damage done.
1
Excellent point regarding the value of stability and predictability in economics, given that Trumo supporters have believed that his unpredictability is one reason he is so great - they love him for being a disruptor (assuming of course that he actually knows what he is doing).
Let’s see if they continue to do so as he succeeds in doing just that.
3
As if Trump cared an iota about reforming the internal behavior of the CCP. His embrace of Kim, Putin and MBS are all the exhibit needed to put that fallacious thought to rest.
2
"I think, is that until fairly recently most analysts expected the U.S.-China trade conflict to be resolved with minimal disruption."
Anyone who thought that was mistaken. China was never going to grant meaningful concessions without some pain first. Why should they? They successfully took over low- and medium-end manufacturing, and were moving up the value chain to the only space left for developed countries.
It just might be that Trump is being consciously erratic, to confuse and confound his adversaries, but I doubt it. If he was that good, he would not have failed at so many things before. It seems like the only thing he is good at is promoting his brand and manipulating failures to protect his assets.
We need a plan to reverse our decline in the world's marketplace. That requires allies, concentrated effort, time, and the patience to take some hits, which are inevitable. It also might include the occasional subterfuge and head fake, but not the chaos that we have now.
10
I agree with this and have to conclude that Trump and his advisors are operating on information about China they recall from thirty years ago. Also, it doesn't take any smarts to see that Trump (like most wealthy people), is more than willing to play whack-a-mole or roulette with others livelihood. How savvy could he possibly be.
As to a coming recession, in my experience, when unemployment becomes rampant among the non-stars and supporting trades of the entertainment industries a recession is in the works.
5
@Edmond Trump reminds me of Doug in the movie Up! - who in the midst of a conversation stops and points, "Squirrel!" Teenagers doing chores have a better attention span than Trump.
Maybe if we gave Mulvaney a squeaky ball to focus Trump on actually running the business of our country?
1
It's certainly no surprise by now that everything Donald Trump does is erratic and unpredictable, because he is.
His recent performance at the G-6 + 1 meeting in Biarritz and his back and forth moves on trade with China are excellent examples of just that.
Under normal conditions, tariffs can be sometimes be useful as a means to an end -- but under Trump, tariffs are the end in itself.
That's why he announces it as "protectionism", waves it about in the American flag while hoping to disguise the fact that he's clueless about what he's doing, doesn't have a plan.
And doesn't care.
14
Again: SEC, if you're listening, I hope you are tracking trump and his associates trades.
41
Trump, very much like Reagan, is playing a role. One learned his craft in Hollywood and the other on reality TV. The only real difference is that Reagan seemed to know that's what he was doing and Trump doesn't. Politics is largely theater and the participants can really create havoc if they confuse what they're doing with reality.
14
@James F Traynor
In an article about Scaramucci, the writer said the white House didn't hire people experienced in government or policy, but they had lots of experience with drama.
If American "full employment" with tariffs in the 1920s was so good, how come we had the Great Recession in 1929? Could Trump's "full employment" with tariffs lead to a similar outcome? From what I have read about those days, financial inequality was also at a peak then. "Deja vu all over again?"
15
@Susan in Maine This is an issue I attempt to discuss with the Trump supporters who bleat "bring those jobs back"-the full employment claim of Trump.
If we are at "full employment" then who will be found that can perform the tasks of manufacturing?
What could conceivably happen is a contraction of demand thus causing management to "right size" their employment numbers which will cascade into even lower demand as people no longer have the discretionary income to buy "nice to have" goods.
Then the recession comes into play.
But, remember what Trump stated-"I alone can fix it". Yup. Still waiting...
1
Has anyone made the connection yet between cancellation of the TPP and the Amazon fires?
Where do you think China went to replace the soybeans etc. they no longer buy from American farmers?
Is the Amazon is being cleared to grow food for China? I heard that China was making deals all around the Pacific rim, with a particular focus on South America.
28
@Terro O’Brien.... Actually the connection is with the tariffs, which I pointed out yesterday. China went to Brazil to buy Soybeans.
10
@Terro O’Brien while the TPP was viewed negatively by many on the protectionist left, it’s real value was as a tool to confront China by assembling the largest Asian economies as a unit to counteract China’s economic strength. The Dotard, bring unable to focus on any complex problem and committed to undoing anything Obama, unilaterally disarmed the US of our strongest weapon as he stumbled into a trade war nobody can win.
9
@A reader
yes, he replaced the strategically-sound TPP with a tariff war, greatly speeding up China's progress in dominating the Pacific Rim.
Xi is smiling...
3
Protectionism isn't bad, erratic is. There is nothing wrong with self sufficiency. I resent having no choice but to buy clothing made by slave wage labor in third world countries. We used to make that clothing in America. In New York City. I will pay the higher prices. We used to raise our own children. A recent article talked about people's fears dealing with where they would get nannies after Brexit. We protect jobs which are unnecessary and export job which are. We buy disposable clothing. Is Krugman proud of what America has become?
5
@Michael Green
We still make clothing in America. But people seem to prefer the cheap use-and-throw-away stuff that comes from China.
10
@Michael Green.:
" I will pay the higher prices."
But most people in America don't want to pay higher prices or can't because their respective incomes are just too low.
Jobs started moving overseas in earnest 40 years ago; the time to protect jobs was lost a long time ago in the name of higher profits. The genie is way out of the bottle. Depending on the complexity of the product, moving manufacturing lines around now would be very difficult as the supply chains have been established over decades. It would take decades to undo them at great cost.
3
@Michael Green clothes are still made in america. You just have look for them. Btw Krugman is an economist not a clothier.
Mr. Krugman applies the wrong analysis, and, therefore, reaches the wrong result. Trade wars are wars. They’re not designed to produce positive outcomes for anyone at least during the conflict. Just the opposite. All wars involve imposing a certain amount of pain on your adversary with the expectation they will attempt to impose pain on you in kind but with the hope that you ultimately prevail with a more favorable way forward when your adversary “taps out.”
Here Mr. Krugman talks about the erratic nature of Mr. Trump’s behavior and notes that erratic trade policy creates an uncertain investment climate and causes delays in value adding investments. Now of course that’s true and in fact quite obvious. So if the goal were to minimize disruption associated with waging a trade war, Mr. Trump is going about it all wrong. But the goal is most definitely not to minimize disruption, in fact it’s just the opposite. The goal in war is to beat your adversary into submission a necessary precondition to which is that you accept as much disruption as you can while imposing as much as possible on your adversary. The question here is whether Trump’s plan will work. I don’t know if it will or if it won’t, and neither does anyone. China obviously acts like its economy can withstand anything, and in the short term maybe it can, but dramatic reduction in foreign investment (largely because of Trump’s erratic behavior) has down range effects that must be deeply concerning to Chinese leaders.
10
The negative effects on the US also concern most rational Americans. We came unscathed out of WWII because we were so far from the fighting. However, our allies economies were decimated almost as much as Germany & Japan. We will not be unscathed by this ‘war’.
33
@Bob
Hmmm? You do know that WWII was started by very similar behaviors? China doesn't need the U.S. they have the rest of the world to trade with. Did you read that Canada's wheat exports have sky rocketed?
20
@Bob War is the continuation of policy by other means, according to Clausewitz. The ultimate goal of a war is not just winning, but what you can do after you win. This is where the US position is very unclear. Just winning is the attitude perhaps suitable for a sports game or a real estate deal, but what exactly are the long-term goals for this 'war'?
12
It's not a "quirk of U.S. trade law" that allows President Trump to impose tariffs on the Chinese. It's Congress having ceded to the president powers that the Constitution explicitly delegates to Congress on the naive (to put it politely) assumption that the president would declare an emergency only when there actually was an emergency.
58
I'm suspicious...who's benefiting from Trump's behavior? Would people in the know of his next move be able to invest or sell stocks based on his erratic shifts? Just asking...
49
@EA: The action is in stock options, not stocks themselves.
11
Can Krugman, or anybody else, explain why the Trump tax cuts of 2017 were a short-lived "sugar high?" The tax cuts were permanent, so people and companies that got extra money from them in 2018 will go on getting it in 2019, and 2020, and so on.
I think the tax cuts have been boosting the stock market artificially: rich people (as I've learned from Krugman) will likely invest any extra money they get, so we have more money chasing about the same amount of stock, and the law of supply and demand does its thing. So Mr, Krugman, can you explain the tax cuts to me, please?
4
@Philip Holt
Tax cuts like Trump’s, which increase deficit spending, lead to slower economic growth in subsequent years, which blunts the stimulus effects of the tax cut in subsequent years. For more info, go to the website of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
13
@Philip Holt: Stock buybacks reduce the amount of stock. Much market activity is in options and derivatives, not stocks directly.
8
@Philip Holt Corporate tax cuts are permanent. Tax cuts for individuals end in 2025.
11
To find out how much the U.S. is winning take a look at the Dow on August 23, 2019 and compare it with August 23 ,2018.
That says it all. Counting from December 2018 until now is a false measure.
4
The stock market is not the economy. For one thing, it is awash in tax cut savings. That’s exactly the result Trump wanted, and still brags about. It’s illusory.
19
@Marshall I can explain it for you. The expressed goal was to stimulate growth. Instead the bonuses companies got was used to further enrich those at the top, not to give raises or hire more. There. Is a limit to how many yachts and gold plated toilets one tycoon needs.
Tariffs are meant to protect your home industries. If you don’t have a home industry you are trying to protect, why have a tariff when the only thing you are doing is raising the cost of the product to the consumer? Why don’t we come up with a plan where we foster industries that have left the country to return?
One way would be to increase the number of immigrants we allow in, give companies tax breaks to build factories , and let them employe the new immigrants at a rate a little lower than minimum wage while simultaneously having the employer be responsible for teaching them English,civics and basic home finance. After 5 or 6 years, the new immigrants can apply for permanent residency and get higher paying jobs.
3
@Scott Your proposal sounds like a modern version of indentured servitude. Why if we give them a tax incentive should we allow a company to employee anyone for less than minimum wage?
25
@Duffy
The lower wage is there for two reasons. One is that nativeAmericansdon’tcomplain that they are stealing their jobs. Two, the hiring companies would also be responsible for teaching them how to be a good citizen, which would cost the companies time and money. The idea is also to help jump start industries that have left our shores for other countries.
Trump doesn't understand anything in this article. All he knows is that real estate investing is typically done with borrowed money and thus he wants low interest rates.
46
@ron
Yes. And that's exactly why he's on the Fed Chairman's case. Lower interest rates, for his own debts.
31
There is a reason the 25th amendment was adopted. Only question is will the religious right and conservatives ever decide that Pence is their salvation from the impending disaster that is unfolding daily?
28
@LVG
So increased right wing religion control under Pence would be an improvement? In my humble opinion, just further down the slippery slope of female subjugation!
"Of course, Trump’s trade belligerence is itself contributing to the economic slowdown. So there’s an obvious possibility for a vicious circle. The economy weakens; a flailing Trump lashes out at China, and possibly others (Europe may be next); this further weakens the economy; and so on."
The US economic expansion, unlike Trump, has momentum and stability. Maybe just enough to give Trump a four-year encore.
2
@OldBoatMan
The volatility has visible impacts. If continued, his antics will be his downfall, no matter what statistics indicate about expansion.
9
I guess the question is: if Trump is just impulsively lashing out and has no real plan here, who actually is benefiting? And if he knows what he is doing and is intentionally manipulating the markets and is getting the fed to do his bidding, who is benefiting from that? I know one guy who would, and bringing the American people into his winner's circle would certainly not be in Trump's financial interest.
13
It's heartening to see Krugman finally fess up to something he has know all along but seldom mentions: the positive side of imposing tariffs & and the only real reason for doing so--that they protect, even add, jobs to the domestic economy. I'm not a Trump supporter but I am in favor of anything that reverses the 30-plus years of employment dumping (manufacturing jobs being outsourced to low-wage countries) that has been going on in the United States. If I have to pay a "tax" in the form of higher prices on goods in exchange for more employment at home, this is a burden I'll gladly accept because it has such a positive benefit (although it would be nice also to see some form of compensatory corporate tax that would be cycled back to American citizens too).
3
@Lotzapappa Krugman did NOT say that tariffs add jobs. He noted that they can, at best, move jobs from an industry hurt by the tariffs to an industry that competes with imports. For example, steel tariffs hurt automakers and other industries that buy steel so they shed jobs as a result, while steelmakers add some jobs. The net result is usually at best a wash from an employment perspective.
41
@Lotzapappa You’re right, he did say there could be a positive side to tariffs, it’s Trumps erratic application of them that’s the problem: I too would be willing to pay higher prices in order to give my fellow Americans a leg up, unfortunately from the number of “ recommends” opposition to that got we are in the minority and their in lies the real problem, most people will do what they think is best for themselves even if it’s saving a buck or two in a t shirt they don’t really need, they are either ignorant of the cumulative effect of millions of such decisions on the labor market or they just don’t care, that’s why Americans for the most part are all the “ me” generation: they are as short term in their thinking as the Government they support, the Chinese are just the opposite they take the long view and if that must be accomplished by force so be it. Unfortunately that seems to be working and reinforces the notion that Democracy is the least efficient way to govern: although I doubt we would like the alternative. So what’s the answer to our trade and resultant inequality issues, I wish I knew, I wish Krugman knew for that matter, the idea that you’re going to turn unemployed machinists into computer scientists(what makes you think they want to be) or factory workers into Nobel Laureates (in numbers) is pure fantasy, strong unions for Amazon box stuffers and Starbucks baristas looks about as good as it’s going to get. .
1
Why would a heavily indebted president do everything he can to cool down the economy and stop the FED from raising interest...
35
@Mark Tonino
Why does Trump want lower interest rates? Look at his businesses. They run on debt. Every time the interest rate drops, he puts money in his pocket.
The buck stops there.
5
@Mark Tonino
You have more respect for Trump's intelligence than anyone I've heard of. You mean he really is a genius.
Trump was able to turbo charge the stock market with his tax cut and regulation rollbacks. When he got the market high enough, he started playing with the house money, i.e. his obsession with tariffs. (He got this from Pat Buchanan who got it from Louis XIV and his minister Colbert.) If the market goes down hard enough when tariffs are threatened or imposed, Trump eases up on his maximum pressure tactics, lies about getting back to the table, and the market goes up again, replenishing the house money. Then Trump restarts his tariff threats, sinking the market, and so on. This seemingly will go on til Trump is forced out of office. (Do you think he'll go quietly if he loses re-election?) The market will not go any higher than it already has as long as Trump plays Tariff Man. After all, as Trump remarked last week, what's a 600 point drop? Just pocket money.
34
@Steve3212a
Those big drops are when the deep pocket people buy in and increase their wealth.
1
It seems like we need another recession to slow the consumption/growth cycle down. There will be a financial crisis but it's nothing the poor and middle class haven't dealt with before. Maybe the pain will be so great that people will remember November next and vote accordingly.
10
Well the good new is that compared the 100 years ago, it is a only a trade war. No bullets are flying.
It is good to see someone focus on the problem that Trump poses for businesses and something I wish the Democrats would raise as a major campaign issue. "China" may be a part of Trump's authoritarian playbook: Demonize an enemy to mobilize nationalist resentment. In a world of "government by publicity stunt," it sure feels like it, especially since it is so difficult to understand what a win consists of. (What I hear, in these comments sections among other places, is access to markets and an end to pirating intellectual property. What I don't hear is Trump actually saying that.)
But ultimately, even if there is a consensus that there is a trade problem with China that places American manufacturing at a truly unfair disadvantage, an erratic trade policy that makes planning impossible and simply assigns costs to business (paying or charging for tariffs, moving manufacturing, disrupting supply chains) is ultimately going to hurt American business as much as anyone. Whether this will sink in to the "send them back" crowd is uncertain and whether any democrat can express sympathies with businesses struggling with this and make it a valid campaign issue is less certain.
Also, I don't hear anyone talking about moving manufacturing to the US, only to Vietnam or India. How is that a win?
19
he knows what he's doing.
trump's war in against rational behavior....and the goal is to completely undermine confidence in democracy, thereby increasing the likelihood of an entrenched autocracy... or rule by the super-rich.
and that, my friends, is a recipe for disaster; a real war, fought by the poor... and a restoration of feudalism, scraped together from the rubble and the ashes.
48
@EEE
"Recipe for disaster", yes, great description!
And I believe trump and followers have more recipes including war in the middle east.
Even with all of this we will win, it just seems it is going to take longer.
3
DJT’s genius is the ability to call bluff! I do think it is a weird strategy and totally frowned upon. The reasons have to do with the potency of the strategy. Sun Tsu and Machiavelli have expounded on it and I think we are seeing the success of the strategy in North Korea so far. Nobody would have dared question China, but Xi is under pressure now.
Our jurisprudence, social and religious norms have evolved over millennia to malign and punish this behaviour. But human beings always use the strategy regardless.
Politics is well known for it as most political leaders engage in exaggeration and deception. I think the strategy is a perfect match for other international leaders like North Korea and Iran. They used to have the unfair advantage,
@Alex Abraham
You may be right, who knows? But if you are, we should be starting to see positive results soon. Can't wait for that to happen.
7
@Alex Abraham. “Success of the strategy in North Korea?” tRump abandons some joint military exercises with South Korea. tRump gives Kim photo-ops together as they appear to the world to be equal powers. In response Kim shoots short range misses and has not indicated that he would denuclearize. Perhaps he is expecting that great relationship Kim and Melania have to move things forward. Imagine the great strides that will happen when the two actually have direct contact.
Some sort of confrontation with China has been needed. Imagine two things: We had a clear goal. We had the rest of the world alongside us. What we have now are policies that change by the tweet.
This is not leadership, this is lunacy.
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@Alex Abraham
Having a US president who once in a while unilaterally signs some executive orders in the Oval Office, slapping tariffs on a country like China, isn't exactly comparable to TRULY taking the problem with China seriously AT ALL ...
Now compare this to Obama's TTP: THAT would have fundamentally changed the dynamic in the region, AND have given us REAL leverage over China.
As to North Korea and Iran: the US is the biggest nuclear power in the world BY FAR, and the wealthiest country on earth, and has by far the largest military. So in what sense were those two, poor dictatorships "having the unfair advantage" ... ?
And Obama got Iran to STOP building a nuclear weapon, whereas Trump made them start building nukes again. Not exactly comparable to "Sun Tsu" either, imho ...
1
Despite the doom and gloom predicted by most economists, including PK, economy remains remarkably strong and resilient. Unemployment is low, GDP growth is solid, stock market is doing well and even wages are growing. The president does not get all the credit for strong economy, but he is certainly doing something very well. It is possible that this is exactly what we need in this country. Unless there is severe recession, which seems unlikely, i would want him to continue delivering on his promises.
@Alice As of last weekend, the S&P was down over the last 12 months. (Psst - That is not "doing well"). The economy is growing at a slower rated than it did during Obama's time in office. The trade deficit is higher than it has ever been. The annual deficit is going parabolic.
The only things he is doing well are taking credit for the work of the administration that came before him and conning people into believing that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended.
155
@Alice
Maybe in your world things are fine. But many working people are taking on 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. Recent College Graduates are not doing well even with a four year degree. Retires are now back in the work force, not because they are bored, but because they cannot afford their medical costs, the co-pays, the medications, the Doctor visits. Maybe you should look beyond your small world.
52
@Alice
This history describes the Obama recovery following the crash caused by GOP policy. (Bush/Cheney blocked states from responding to the subprime bank fraud early on).
Trump and the GOP have spent a decade lying about the Obama recovery. For 18 months, most of the jobs they claimed were Trump jobs were Obama jobs. Obama inherited Bush's trillion dollar deficit and brought it way down. Now Trump and the GOP have exploded the deficit again.
What they always do. Our federal debt was just under $1 T at the end of Carter's term. The Reagan and Bush presidencies ran it up to $10 T.
63
There is another implication of substantial tariffs. Real money can be made from obtaining exemption and from influencing or preventing enforcement. In countries with weak oversight of the agencies involved, some of the expected gains will likely be invested in trying to influence the tariff administration.
5
@Jens
Ivanka's foreign produced products are exempted from tariffs. Need one say more?
2
Speaking of telling businesses to disentangle themselves from China, where are Trump's ties and so on being made today?
I haven't heard anyone remark on whether he's disentangled his businesses from China or not yet.
32
@Tokyo Tea. His collection is still mostly made in China. And they coincidentally are exempt from higher tariffs. Must be a national security issue.
16
@Tokyo Tea
In response to your "where are Trump's ties" question, would not a logical answer be "Russia", based on his past and present actions?
1
Enough comments have been written on Trump's ignorance on trade and tariff issues, as well as his lack of civility. It is becoming rather redundant. But what it does illustrate is our problem is more than just him, but of Congress. On using Doral for the next G7 meeting would be an impeachable offense because it clearly shows Trump using his public office for private gain. How much clearly does it have to be? He is throwing it all into the faces of Congress, he is promoting Doral as a location to be used, a product he has substantial investments in. And just what is Congress going to do about it? Maybe if we follow the money we would see many in Congress have investments in Doral as well.
54
@Me Too McConnel, Graham, Cotton and all the other enablers will be falling all over themselves to get invited to functions of the G7 meeting at Trumps property. To them, it will just be another opportunity to show their love of the president.
4
@Me Too My thoughts exactly. I used to like Nancy Pelosi, but what does a man have to do to get impeached as president? Yeah, the Senate will try to derail the process, but let them explain to the American people why they are obstructing justice.
4
Mr. Krugman,
What changes are being made by both China and the US in response to the trade war tariffs? Are US companies canceling their purchasing contracts with China and vice versa? You are commenting on the political level, we need to know about the street level. If US citizens are losing their bonuses, or pay raises or worse their jobs as a result, we need to know that. Some concrete examples would be very helpful.
2
@joe parrott
This article, like most of PK articles is more about huffing and puffing than concrete examples. It is an opinion, not a fact based discussion, and it is labeled as such.
1
@joe parrott. Street level here. I export bulk chemicals to China. In the past year or so the orders have dropped by about half. Next largest importer would be India. Although it doesn’t make the headlines, there is a smaller tariff war going on with them. Sales have weakened in the past year. Mr.Krugman, amongst others, notes that manufacturers are sitting on the sidelines and are reluctant to invest in expansion. Will that next tweet render my export order worthless? How do I invest with confidence?
I realize that confrontation with China has been needed. The problem is that he has no stated goals...the word winning doesn’t qualify. Imagine if we were a part of the TPP, did not label Canada, Mexico and the EU as security risks and in unison confronted China.
But that would have taken leadership.
38
@Alice Nothing could be further from the truth. I would trust Krugman with my investments. I wouldn't trust you.
Daniel Kahneman describes two modes of thinking in his book "Thinking Fast and Slow". Simply put, fast thinking is responding automatically to the things going on around you, thinking slow is analyzing what's going on around you. Clearly Trump only thinks in the fast mode and never takes the time to think anything through.
16
@Glenn: I read the book as well. Trump doesn’t think. He is an impulsive narcissist. The rules of system 1 or system 2 do not apply to him, but the DSM-5
1
@Glenn
I don’t know. Thinking seems to be an awfully glorified way of referring to whatever is going on inside Trump’s head at any given time.
1
Trump's uncertainty is looming so much larger now because it IS so much larger now.
Everybody knows that Trump constantly lies, and that his words are merely hollow rhetoric designed to fire up his base and distract it from his abysmal record (when it comes to signing his key campaign promises into law).
So as long as he's merely talking, and no one (= no competent CEO) takes him seriously, there's no real threat to the economy at all.
Since less than a year now, however, he DID start, and now recently intensified, his trade war. Doing so isn't very difficult, and requires NO "art of the deal" at all. He just sits at his desk and signs an executive order, and that's it.
So basically, each time the attention of his base MIGHT drift off to "real facts" again, he slaps another tariff on China, or simply engages in contradictory and as a consequence controversial statements, and all of the world's media are once again talking about that, not the "real" news.
That means that it's only NOW that he starts doing what Dr. Krugman already on election night feared would plunge us into a recession.
It has always been clear - for those who paid attention - that Krugman wasn't saying that the minute Trump would enter the Oval Office, a global recession would hit the US. What he was saying was that IF Trump not only talks the talk but starts walking the walk, THEN the risk of a recession becomes much higher. And when it comes to tariffs, he's only walking the walk quite recently ...
19
Why do so many think Trump is erratic? Maybe it’s just his plan to increase profits.
He tweets he’ll raise tariffs and the markets tank. He tweets an imaginary call from the Chinese that they’ll negotiate, the markets rise.
He’s clearly manipulating the markets. But who is benefitting? His kids? His family?
Follow the money—-this isn’t about a 401k gaining or losing a few thousand dollars. Hundreds of millions are changing hands daily. Who knows these tweets and pronouncements are coming? And who is cashing in?
102
@Mickey Kronley
Thanks for this thoughtful analysis- it certainly makes as much sense as anything, as trump seems to only care for schemes that enrich him and his mobster family. The level of self-dealing and theft with this bunch is just phenomenal, and it is true that we have no idea who is cashing in.
1
What if it turns out that Donald and Eric and Ivanka went long the S&P 500 ETF on the overnight market, knowing Daddy was going to make up a phone call from China wants a deal, at 4 am before the Market opened Monday, when futures were strongly down?
Just thinking out loud, what if?
Trump clearly gets a thrill moving "my stock market" by hundreds of points suddenly on a tweet about China.
A total money-addiction thrill.
56
I once thought that Trump was goading congress to impeach him because he knew he’d be cleared by the senate and coast to re-election. Now I think the Dems need to impeach him as a sanity measure, and maybe the last one we have.
35
@Denis
Uh ... sanity?
Impeachment will have NO effect at all, concretely, as th GOP Senate will reject it.
So it will be a merely symbolical vote.
Knowing this, the question becomes: WHO will benefit most from such a publicity stunt, Trump, or America?
As it would give him a fantastic talking point, allowing him to divert his base's attention from his abysmal record even more, it would certainly benefit Trump, and as a consequence hurt America.
12
@Ana Luisa
There’s more to it than that. The impeachment trial will now have to be in election season, during the primaries. There are 22 GOP senators up for re-election and Trump can’t be removed from office without about half of them. Those senators who vote to acquit will have to face the voters soon after their votes. Some will survive but impeachment at this point will have the positive effect of turing over the senate and the White House. That’s the game we’re now playing.
9
@Denis the reason Trump wants Pelosi to impeach him is so that he can resign, and install Pence so he can get a “Ford pardon”. Unfortunately Pelosi isn’t biting - she much rather see him in SDNY-issued orange clothing in 2020
If the US and China each impose 100 billion worth of tariffs on the other's goods, that is not a battle that is easy to win. Each country pays its own trade war costs, in the form of higher prices on imported goods, and also on domestically made goods which compete with imports, which rise in price because they can, after imports become more expensive. China has 4 times the population of the US. So in China, each person pays one-quarter as much trade war cost as in the US.
Politically, it is a harder problem. China's exports to the US are spread across many types of goods. That makes it hard for the US to retaliate in a way that targets and undermines particular Chinese politicians—who don't run for office anyway. US exports to China are of fewer kinds, heavily weighted toward agricultural commodities. China can target for tariffs just a few agricultural commodities, and decisively undermine Trump's re-election chances, along with those of many of the farm state politicians who are Trump's political allies.
Trump is not going to win his trade war. Chinese leaders are plenty smart enough to understand and use the advantages which Trump has foolishly handed them.
26
@S.P.
In addition, due to Trump's belligerent incoherence, China probably has more friends than China does. Xi knows he cannot trust North Korea or Russia no matter how much they smile and bow.
But if you're anybody else, do you want to set up a longterm trade deal with China or with America? (That's also the reason America in the 1950s and other imperialistic nations prefer dealing with corrupt dictators instead of fickle democracies.)
1
You made me laugh with "an intervention from the grown-ups in the room". Just consider that Larry Kudlow is Director of the National Economic Council under President Donald Trump. Need I remind everyone about Kudlow's economic ideology and predictions...
42
Trump is stuck between a rock and a hard place of his own making.
His ill-advised trade war with China has both disrupted the bilateral supply chain between the two nations and diminished the vast Chinese market for American goods.
In America, farmers and the stock market are becoming increasingly alienated from Trump's trade policies. Farmers are forced to rely on federal subsidies while the NYSE experiences wild daily fluctuations, betraying a remarkable sensitivity to Trump's whimsical tweets.
Meanwhile, the devaluation of the yuan continues, partially offsetting the effects of tariffs on goods imported from China.
With one eye on the NYSE and the American electorate and the other focused on the public relations fallout from his management of the trade war with China, Trump has no way out of this impasse.
Except for more equivocation.
18
Trump's economic policy swings are pretty much like a random walk through a minefield. He does not know where he is going and is unlikely to return to where he started from, but he may very well make a disastrous move.
35
Trump's "America First" is a perversion of the Monroe Doctrine's bias towards multilateralism and non-intervention, unless it's in his interests (see "let's buy Greenland!") It willfully ignores fundamental economics, internationalization of supply chains, and the drivers of, and empathy for, human migration.
This G7 conference confirmed his inability to play well with others and the obstructiveness of his arms-crossed personal isolation. If Congress won't pursue impeachment and his Cabinet won't act on the powers of the 25th Amendment, we must move to close the gap caused by others nations deciding to move on.
Perhaps it's time for a "deep state" or shadow governance whereby state or federal agencies deploy representatives to participate with other nations in respective forums on trade, immigration, and climate change, to name but a few. Trump's autocracy is untenable. We may never regain primacy in the world arena, but we cannot afford to be outside looking in, detached from economic and diplomatic engagement.
41
It really is rather amazing. Conventional wisdom has long been that presidents, except in exceptional circumstances (Great Depression/GFC say) have very little influence on the economy. Turns out that is quite wrong - they’ve plenty of power to wreck it.
36
"... the jobs lost in industries that either rely on imported inputs or depend on access to foreign markets can be offset by job gains in industries that compete with imports."
This is how economists speak. Completely blind or uncaring of the fact- that- those jobs don't magically disburse themselves equitably around the nation to accommodate those needing the, And.."full employment" is not synonymous with jobs providing livable wages.
"The truth is that protectionism gets something of an excessively bad rap."
"Protectionism is bad..."
Which one is it?
Krugman doesn't seem to know the point of his own thoughts- except that Trump is an unstable- Non-Genius, which can be applied to everything.
2
@Candlewick
Try and read carefully. Protectionism bad for the economy, but it's effects are not always equally bad. That is, under certain conditions the effects can be modest, so modest that for a while it is possible to sustain "full employment".
What professor Krugman is warning against with "The truth is that protectionism gets something of an excessively bad rap." is to not equate protectionism with an economic meltdown.
17
This is what economists do, and Mr. Krugman does it well. It’s those in government, those elected by us such as this president, who make policies based on economic concepts and information. So who is really the “blind and uncaring” one?
6
@gerard.c.tromp
"Try and read carefully." I did- and I do. I truly do not require *your" guided interpretation. But thanks anyway.
Trump's unstable and bombastic approach to world trade is going to have damaging long term consequence for us.What he is really effecting are long term trade partnerships.He is breaking them apart.We are beginning to see the EU,Mexico,Brazil,Canada and many small Asian countries changing their trade alliances and practices..And China,seeing an enormous opening for them, is waiting to take a large chunk out of those markets.Trump acts as if the US is the only economic power in the world and many in his congregation have been taken in by this fiction.Yes..we were the worlds largest and most powerful economy at one time.We could continue to at least hold our own in the future if our trade policy was smart and not advertised over Twitter daily.Some think Trump's emotional volatility is a clever bargaining tactic.Would you buy a car from this man?Or for that matter, anything? The issue isn't really China or tariffs.The issue is how we move into a future which is certainly going to involve global competition.And Trump has shown with his business dealings,that he can't handle competition.Because he is a classic narcissist ,he has to imagine himself as all powerful.Without his daddy' money he would probably be selling hotdogs at Yankee Stadium and telling his captive audience how great they were....the very best!
42
When things look chaotic or self-destructive it's always good to ask yourself who might benefit from the current situation in our country. It is clearly not the United States. In the long run it will not serve trump despite what he might think.
The only possible benefactors would be enemies of the United States.
69
@Jenifer
Yo got the point! and now ask yourself: who put Trump in the presidency? right, not the best friend of the USA , Mr. Wladimir Putin.
3
@Hugo Ordonez
Yes. He's done the same thing to Britain with Brexit.
1
Agreed that Trump is erratic, but what are the dire economic consequences that Dr Krugman refers to? He doesn't say.
"The economy" could mean US GDP growth? Still a respectable positive number of 2% or more.
Employment? Still at a record low...hardly a disaster.
The stock markets? Connected to the economy, but not really the economy. Anyway, still pretty close to record highs.
Umm... Inflation? Benign. Wages? Increasing.
I agree that Trump is a flail, but please tell us what are the disastrous economic consequences? Or is this another "fake news" story?
2
@Unconventional Liberal
The net result so far is rise of twin deficits that is financed at temporarily low interest rates, and the shift of taxes from top 1% to the rest in the form of duties. Industrial employment is static and industrial production is not much better.
On the trade side, we will see shift from importing from China to Vietnam, Bangladesh etc. (cheap textiles are already made in Bangladesh), but the shift in more complex products will take more time. However, how it benefits American workers and consumers?
23
@Unconventional Liberal you are seeing this issue strictly through a domestic lens. Yes US GDP and unemployment are good indicators of a healthy economy at home, however things are not so simple on a global scale. What we are seeing is that central bankers have no confidence in the rosy local economy for anything even the short term. Trump's reckless trade war is undermining confidence in the US dollar as the benchmark for global trading. The British pound, German mark and Swiss franc once held this valued spot in the world economy. When China wins the trade war we will all be pegged to the yen...
3
@Unconventional Liberal the economy did as well or better during the last 30 months of Obama’s tenure. But since you ask: infrastructure continues to crumble, making us worse than third world countries; tax cut which squandered the ability for public investment while businesses that did get the benefits used them for share buybacks; no progress on improving health care coverage or reducing costs; inverted yield curve; systematic destruction of the institutions and pillars of democracy
2
On the trade dispute with China, try to see China's thought process.
If I were China, I'd take my lesson from TPP and JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka the deal with Iran).
And that lesson is, a deal with Trump is meaningless. There is no guarantee it would pass Congress. In fact the Democratic presidential candidate will likely rip on it. Even if it did pass Congress, there is no guarantee that Trump won't just rip it up when he feels like.
If I were China, I would drag my feet till the 2020 election. Coincidentally, Taiwan's election is also 2020 (January 11). Yes, the US economy is 32x bigger, but China sees Taiwan as a threat to its sovereignty. Given both administrations in Taiwan and the US are anti-China, things couldn't get worse. So why not just let the clock run.
29
Can’t we sue the stable genius for emotional distress and for playing havoc with our retirement plans and other finances? I hope that there is some lawyer out there who is thinking of doing something like this. If so please make sure to advertise it so that I can join in the lawsuit.
57
@M. Natália Clemente Vieira
In addition to worrying about the problems caused by this stable genius for Americans, I am also very worried for the family members that I still have in Portugal. The country has yet to recover from the 2008 global financial crisis and is still very vulnerable.
But what does he care that his madness will hurt countless people around the world? He is already counting the dollars his resort will make when the next G-7 summit is held there. I do hope that Nancy Pelosi is paying attention and goes full speed with impeachment proceedings soon!
38
@M. Natália Clemente Vieira
Exactly, isn't this illegal market manipulation or something? I'm sure everyone in the White House and his family shorts stocks just before they know Trump is about to send yet another brainless tweet.
1
trump's staff and advisers should encourage him to resign
to avoid unbelievable economic disaster for this country.
44
Encourage him to resign? Really? The first one to speak up will get fired. That'll dissuade the rest since there aren't any more vacancies at Fox News and Dancing With The Stars. Besides who'd be willing to give up a six-figure government job and the emotional gratification that they're serving both God and Country.
10
Most of the clothing and sandal purchases I made this summer were items made in China or Bangladesh or Vietnam, and a lot of them were purchases negotiated on line, using computers or tablets made in China, Malasia or Thailand. Do where are the manufacturing jobs that Trump promised he would bring back?
29
You probably know what is meant by Good Cop/ Bad Cop on police shows. That is the negotiating tactic being used by Trump, but he wants to play both roles. The result, of course, is that he appears to be floundering. The Bad Cop is not convincing, in the Good Cop becomes scary because you know he will turn bad again any minute.
19
Trump called himself the "chaos candidate" in 2016. In every way, he has brought nothing but chaos to the oval office. The world is headed for unending instability until Trump is forced off the stage.
57
Only when the devout senate trumpicans feel heat and discomfort from the economic fallout in their states of this overextended, melodramatic, public negotiation method will there be any change in the content of the daily tweets. In the meantime it is all terrific infotainment that neither the cult of the maga hat can't get enough of, nor the callers in to talk radio gabfests nor the guys down at the local joint grousing into their third beer. They just love the poking in the gut dear leader is doing to everyone they can't stand and don't trust at all. So the surround buzz is not all opposed to what he's been amusing himself with of late.
So, we are all stuck in this psychodrama until someone either
cancels the show, or cries uncle, or declares victory.
In the meantime, tell me more about how the preceding two
weeks have affected, if at all, dear leader's approval ratings...
32
@bl As far as approval ratings, his base doesn't care because most of them don't have stocks. Heck, they're probably happy that those Coastal Elites are losing money. Republican rich donors, however are NOT happy.
To see what I mean about Trump’s behavior, just consider his moves on China trade over the past month, which have been so erratic that even those of us who follow this stuff professionally have been having a hard time keeping track.
Recent history suggests the stable genius relies entirely on the think tank Me, Myself and I (and sometimes Wayne LaPierre) in his decision making.
29
As Mr. Krugman's column illustrates, Trump's unstable behaviors and capricious decision-making very much serve Trump's larger purpose, which is to keep the pundits dancing about on his daily "new" issues, as opposed to what they should be pounding on, i.e., the "old" issues that illustrate to voters his unfitness for the office he holds (e.g., machine gun lying, tax returns, emoluments clause problems, "relationship" issues, alienation of America's traditional friends, warmth toward America's enemies, need to surround himself with ego stroking toadies, inability to accept legitimate expertise, etc., etc.).
42
Trump's erratic economic "policy" will ultimately what dooms his Presidency. The oligarchy is fine with white nationalism, fascism, especially dismantling consumer protections and oversight, but when his twitterisms affect their pockets, well that's not something that will be condoned. I expect that we'll soon start seeing Republicans beginning to abandon him and make noises about maybe considering sanctions or even impeachment. If that doesn't stop him, they'll make sure he's removed from power.
13
People just need to watch the Caligula episodes from “I, Claudius.” It’s all there, trust me. It’s all there.
55
Sure, Trump is a great businessman who knows how to run everything. I'm reading about him in Trump Magazine while flying on Trump shuttle and eating Trump steak while drinking Trump vodka and enrolling in Trump University while traveling to Trump's Taj Mahal casino.
55
Amateur hour 24/7...happens when you only select the "best people" who surprisingly are not able to challenge Individual-1 on an intellectual, integrity or maturity basis.
15
I believe Trump said this evening that these twists, turn and reversals are 'the way he negotiates'. Such unpredictable behavior may have worked in the real estate business to befuddle and wear out those with whom he was negotiating, but it won't work in the rough and tumble world of global politics. All that his flailing has accomplished is the loss of any credibility of anything that comes out of his mouth. More and more, Trump is turning into that crazy old uncle who comes to holiday dinners just to see how much havoc he can create.
30
The Trump administration is leaning into a theocracy, which is completely un-American, and full of delusion.
China, on the other hand, is pressing down hard on religion.
For these reasons, China will overtake the U.S. as a world leader.
9
We know we're in trouble when the words of the the largest authoritarian regime in the world are considered more truthful than the "leader of the free world"
28
Two alternative diagnoses can be cured by the same medicine. (a) the president is a weak minded amateur drowning in a job he is unqualified to perform or (b) he is a well-placed foreign asset who has executed three highly productive years systematically dismantling the American culture, her economy, and her vital international relationships. Rx: 25th Amendment (it's there for a good reason)
35
Yes, erratic protectionism is worse for business than a stable tariff regime, and yes, a stable regime of no-tariffs would be better still for business.
But, if Trump is to be believed (and that’s a big *if*), he doesn’t want a tariff regime in the long term. He wants to inflict enough pain on China right now to get them to back off their own protectionist policies. That it’s bad for business in the short term is kind of the point.
The real question is whether Kudlow was right yesterday when he said that China was bearing the brunt of the economic pain—and, additionally, whether that pain is enough to get China to change its behavior.
I’m not sure if I agree with Trump on trade, but if this is all his opponents have by way of response, then I guess I can see where he’s coming from
There may be a method to his madness. His family (and perhaps other cronies) may be forewarned about his pronouncements, allowing them to play the market with this insider information, taking advantage of the gyrations caused by his flailing.
14
Amazing is how Wall Street hangs on Trump's "words," when in fact he's a proven liar--10, 872 times over and counting. It's the obverse of the 'boy who cried wolf.' It's only a matter of time, tweets and tantrums before the reality sets in and current, vastly over-valued stock market corrects itself to where it belongs--at or below where it started on Jan 21, 2017.
3
Turns out there really is a "Confidence Fairy".
Not the imaginary one that Dr. Krugman has warned against for years, the one where we would all be rewarded for punishing fiscal austerity even in the face of economic downturns. The one who could protect us against the imaginary bond vigilantes.
The real Confidence Fairy one has been largely inconspicuous, always in the background. Until now. Until we elected a petulant child as a president and a Senate majority that let him run wild. Utterly corrupt. A slave to his unstable emotions. Manifestly unfit to handle the rigors of his job.
But this "Confidence Fairy" is real. The one where businesses, allies, and enemies could be confident that the U.S. President was at least marginally competent, in control of their emotions, capable of understanding simple concepts, and not driven by inner demons to destroy everything that came before him.
This Confidence Fairy had left the building unlikely to return until Mr. Trump leaves the White House for the last time. The only surprise is that it took this long.
6
There SHOULD be a diagnosis. If Trump was fainting, mumbling, shuffling, dropping things, stumbling, then someone would take him to an emergency room.
There should be no hesitation about having him evaluated medically. He is NOT right in his mind. It is clear from what we can see and hear on television. I’m sure it’s worse in the privacy of his living space and in his office. He has moments of something approaching clarity and then he makes no sense whatsoever. This is alarming. And, his condition is worsening.
There should be no stigma. If someone has diabetes we don’t make fun of them for that. The same standards should apply to mental illness. We have a President who is becoming more and more mentally infirm. He has tremendous responsibilities that he is clearly incapable of managing. He is the most powerful person in the world. He cannot carry out the duties of his job.
Are we waiting for the Fifth Avenue Shooting?
26
“Lego Batman” and many, many others are conspirators; one only hopes that justice trickles down as well as up. There is very, very little evidence that this is the case.
3
Of course Trump lied about having second thoughts. How is this possible when he ca't even truthfully boast to having first thoughts? For that matter, the erratic synaptic impulses storming inside his head cannot honestly be described as "thoughts" in the standard sense of the word. He operates mostly on instinct and is responsive only to his own gluttonous appetites.
Meanwhile he's making us crazy, or depressed, or shocked or stunned into a paralytic stupor. Anticipating him is impossible, yet ignoring him is not an option. He does, after all, control the nukes.
He will only be reined in, by speedy impeachment or the 25th amendment if he endangers financialed capitalism and the so-far impervious oligarchy itself. And absent any actual congressional oversight by our corrupt and complicit duopoly, we'll have to keep our seat belts fastened or better yet, get out of our seats and take to the streets long before Bernie or Liz serve the Trimps with their walking papers.
15
Ok, I know I'm going out on a limb here but I'm getting the the feeling that Trump, or his "friends", are playing the market. Tweet out that China is the enemy and raise tariffs (market tanks) and then say everything is great ( market takes off). If I was a player and knew when this was going to be "announced" I'd be making millions...... just saying.
24
ah, here you are assuming trump even knows what 'protectionism' even means...too generous, dr krugman.
6
In the first months of the Trump presidency former CIA officials were interviewed about Donald Trump in the Oval Office and they expressed concerns citing that his unpredictability could have serious diplomatic and economic repercussions for the United States. It’s now taken some of the most respected journalists 2 1/2 years to figure out what former and current CIA officials already knew.
Thank God somebody’s finally getting the message …
6
Maybe a real businessman could enter the Republican primary?
1
It is said that a monkey randomly pressing the keys of a laptop will in time reproduce all the works of Shakespeare. Our president seems intent on testing that hypothesis.
12
Trump’s admission of “second thoughts” on raising tariffs is a first. He always acts on instinct, and is finding that doesn’t work on China. Trump reduces the global economy to a one-dimensional zero-sum game—use tariffs to beat China into submission on trade, intellectual property, everything. He knows nothing of: Chinese investment in America or American investment in China; China’s role in supplying consumer goods and manufacturing parts for America; China’s economic expansion in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe as he withdraws from multi-lateral trade agreements; China’s ownership of U.S. Treasury notes and purchase of American microprocessors and aircraft; scientific competition and cooperation with China in development of A.I. and 5G. Trump doesn’t understand multi-causality, multiple results, or unexpected consequences—he’s dumb as a bag or rocks. That’s why he relies on his sharp political instincts for figuring people out to manipulate and dominate them, which won him the election and keeps him in power, but isn’t working on China. Even if Trump beats China on tariffs, which is unlikely, America loses.
13
"At that point you might expect an intervention from the grown-ups in the room — but there aren’t any."
And that is the truest, and saddest, fact of all. For a president like Trump to have no meaningful pushback is dangerous indeed.
Because Trump is above all a political animal, he can sniff out when he needs to curb his excesses. Not to be challenged just encourages his worse instincts, which are already at a pretty high level.
The only thing worse than an emboldened Trump is an enraged Trump. When he's in both states, look out world.
12
The "enemy" (me included) plans to vote him out. That's about all we can do other than join an Indivisible group and register voters or postcard or call or walk door-to-door for a preferred candidate.
The other "enemy", the press, I implore you to ask direct questions and then follow up - push hard - until you get an answer out of him. He may move on to the next "enemy", but push none-the-less! This manipulation by somebody who mistakenly became president is obscene. At times I feel as if we are living in a simulation, possibly designed by Russia, to see how far the public can survive in this mess.
And by the way, where is "anonymous"? Fired?
12
I'm far from an expert and could never play one on TV(reality show or otherwise) however, Trump's back and forth nonsense, good guy Xi/bad guy Xi, and tweet of the moment mean nothing to China as I try to follow along. Xi holds the cards, especially the Trump card(yes, ha-ha) because he can play the long game whereas Trump's lifespan as POTUS is ticking down. Xi showed up in Atlantic City and he is going to cash out on the trade tariff wars. Trump once again hits bankruptcy. This time we are all losers, whether or not we bought chips on November 8, 2016 with Trump.
7
I wish people would stop repeating that trump had "second thoughts" because having second thoughts presupposes he had first thoughts.
17
Trump is doing terrible things now.
If he is re-elected, the crisis goes from terrible to existentially bad. We all need to commit to ensuring that everyone we know votes.
6
Trump seems to have no limit to how absurdly out of control he has become. All the while, 40% of America is hooked on Faux News and continue to cheer him on. I fully expect that reality will soon catch up with all of them in a spectacular cataclysm, pulling the rest of us into the abyss with them. And as we sink into that deep mess and his evangelical supporters applaud that the Great Tribulation has arrived, they all will surely still cheer for him and chant "Lock her up!" all the way to the bottom.
Our last off-ramp away from this future comes in November 2020. Let's hope we can make it there.
13
Donald Trump never bothered to learn anything other than sustained aggression, consistent deceit, and relentless self-aggrandizement. We haven't seen a world leader so unfit since the fascists of last mid-century. It is up to other world leaders to handle damage control until the American voter brings about regime change. Until then, we have to prepare for the worst and hope the economy has enough momentum to get us through the next year.
10
One thing Trump is not flailing on is his continuing brown-nosing of Russia and Putin. As he recommended Russia be readmitted to the G7/8, he was stonewalled by the remaining members having to be reminded about the Crimea.
One has to wonder what Putin has over Trump considering Trump's constant praise despite Putin's despotic rule...unless one is a conservative unable or too cowardly to ask such.
Toss the flip-flops on everything else in Trump's agenda.
5
My bet is that Paul Krugman just gave future historians the heading for their first chapter on the Trump presidency: "an unstable leader with an insecure ego."
7
Has trump ever really been on the ground in China? I mean shaved, put his pants on in the morning and hit the door in the Middle Kingdom? Next time he’s being driven around perhaps he should look around in China, see just how much investment US companies have in China. Has he ever looked at a investment security with global holdings? Were he to actual require the divestiture of all Chinese assets by all US companies he would effectively be “nationalizing” more assets in inflation adjusted wealth than The Chinese government did in 1949.
This isn’t monopoly Trump. These are OUR capitalist assets in our IRAs and 401Ks. Not your negotiating tactics.
Jail is too good for Trump. 1793!
11
Should I be selling my stocks or get defensive ? No body knows what’s going on. He really is clueless and has no clothes.
6
So why don't we just buy China from, I don't know, the country store. In one swoop we will balance our trade deficit, acquire a cheap labor source (take that Mexico), repatriate a bunch of corporate money and eliminate tariffs thus lowering Christmas gift prices. Boo Yah, Tom Cotton. Economics, baby.
8
So why don't we just buy China from, I don't know, the country store. In one swoop we will balance our trade deficit, acquire a cheap labor source (take that Mexico), repatriate a bunch of corporate money and eliminate tariffs thus lowering Christmas gift prices. Boo Yah, Tom Cotton. Economics, baby.
1
I'm waiting for our oligarch overlords to get tired of the constant threats to their interests.
They don't need to sit Trump down and school him. They just need to sit McConnell and a bunch of his buddies down.
I'm still waiting.
4
The sad truth is that this amoral fool in the White House can push our economy over the proverbial cliff, yet his supporters will still think he walks on water. The farmer may wake up to barren land either through climate change or this China/US trade war or both, but he will still support his man, because apparently (?) Trump knows what he is doing. The mantra is: A little pain now, with lots of gain later. This is the hold that Mr. Trump has over his MAGA supporters. They see no evil, hear no evil, and only speak evil if it is about his critics. Even hoping for a New Old NATFTA type deal seems a waste of time when it comes to our Asian adversary. What can possibly occur, returning to the status quo? The status quo is what started this whole mess. And although Trump will declare himself the victor, you, me, and the nation still lose. Btw, Paul mentioned the 1920's when there was a marriage of high tariffs and satisfactory employment. But wasn't it 1929 when The Crash occurred? Beware, October is around the corner.
9
"And his instability is starting to have serious economic consequences.'
That is the good news, however. If he causes a downturn, and I hope he will, perhaps even his base, at least those who are not racists or White Nationalists, may even give him the boot.
2
Children usually learn by asserting their impulses and suffering consequences. If there are no consequences, the impulses continue to be asserted and you wind up with DT.
DT has no social skills because he never had to learn them. His morality is weak because he never suffered for his transgressions. He is poorly educated because he relies only on his impressions - which can be manipulated by people smarter than he.
As a result, Of Course he is erratic. Of Course he is incompetent. Of Course he says one thing and does something else. He lived his entire life that way and never had to pay any consequences.
Time for the farce to come to an end.
Vote Blue, No Matter Who!!
19
It's obvious the republican base will vote for anyone with a (R) after their name on a ballot. If you thought Bush/Cheney second term was catastrophic just wait for Donald Trump's second term.
2
I am gobsmacked that three years on in this "presidency" Dr. Krugman continues to report Trump's comments and actions as if he were any other president in our history. The fact is, Trump's comments are incoherent, his demands ridiculous at best and incomprehensible at worst. It is clear that he is no longer a sane man. Journalists continue to talk of Trump's "economic policies" as if he were a decent, sane, intelligent man. He is none of these things.
Trump has said that he and dictator Kim are in love. He has said that Denmark has agreed to sell Greenland to him. And reputable news outlets continue to publish columns like this one? Where the deranged statements of a mad man are parsed as if they were pearls of wisdom?
We have seen a number of instances in history, where insane, evil men went unchecked. Were treated as simply "political" figures. Were appeased. Until it was too late. And "too late" for us is already in the rearview mirror.
Even if we elect a new president in 2020, it will take us decades to repair the damage Trump has caused, both domestically and internationally.
We are so far into 25th Amendment territory that we can no longer see its borders. And this is because 45% of Americans love this insane man. They know he is delusional, but they just don't care. He gives them license to be as bigoted as he is, and this is all they want.
And our grandchildren here and throughout the world will be paying the price for their willful ignorance.
18
Trump has been nothing but a big bucket of chaos his entire life.
His mythical 'business' success was just a chaotic journey of carnival barking and vexatious lawsuits while alternating between using his daddy's money, bank loan money and then stiffing all creditors and workers on his jobs when the bankruptcy timing was right while making sure he skimmed plenty off the top for himself.
Now Donald has brought his 'business' skills to Washington, D.C.
Now instead of stiffing banks and workers, Donald is stiffing our allies, creating new enemies, skimming 0.1% tax cut money for himself and his family while bankrupting the treasury and leaving the invoice on the table for 300 million struggling Americans to pay.
Donald just hopes that if he keeps talking and tweeting nonstop, no one will notice that he tore apart the fabric of both America and the world economy while bankrupting the country with tax cuts, incompetence and performance art.
But eventually even the Trump cultists will wake up when Donald has finished destroying the economy.
Some folks have to learn the hard way about their false, fraudulent, deplorable idols.
Donald Trump and his voters need a BIG timeout.
195
@Socrates You are absolutely correct. The only thing Trump has every really been successful at is play-acting a successful businessman on The Apprentice. I blame Mark Burnett for this mess!
14
Physician here. Trump is seriously mentally ill with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this.
NPD has no cure. Meds don't work and talk therapy is useless in a person who thinks he has no faults.
Under stress, these folks can get narcissistic rage, striking out irrationally in all directions. We're seeing that now.
His behavior will only improve with less stress. Going into an election year, stress and instability will likely worsen.
The details of what he does are important to us in a practical sense but not to him. Remember that. Whether it's Greenland or a tax cut or China, it's all the same to a frantic man.
25
I want to read even one of dump45s environmental impact statements of which he says he has written more than anyone.
More to the point, he will say anything, anything, at any time, to create a haze of thought that appears to mean something. LIke a child, with a Crayola, filling in a large space. Blue for sky, blue for water, yellow for sun, brown for trees, green for grass. And on. And on.
5
What kills me is that in any other Western country where anyone with a brain would know how essential it is to replace current leadership A.S.A.P., that would surely happen with a no-confidence vote, or at worst citizens coming out in force to demonstrate their disapproval.
But as it happens, the U.S. seems to have no way to right its course even now, when that is desperately needed.
10
What if , (and that is a gigantic IF) the presidential pandemonium were designed with the purpose of being later resolved magically by the zauberer in chief himself ? After all ,once upon a not so distant past, president Xi was feted at Mar a Lago as a modern partner in "l'Entente Cordiale" of our time. Saturday he was the arch enemy (along with the head of the Central Bank)… Earlier today the greatest ,smartest head of state.
Mr Trump can easily dissolve any of the dark clouds he decides to invent in the first place,just like he did at long last with NAFTA., declaring victory as he surrenders.
Should he time the solution of an agreement with China close enough to next year presidential election,he could unleash a spectacular stock market celebration. All of sudden the prospect of a "left leaning" democrat winning the election would be seen as jeopardizing the economy .
Mr Trump has eliminated anyone in his circle with a minimum of qualifications.He takes his advice from an ex tv pundit of the Lou Dobbs church of thinking.He is free to spawn any scenario ,playing with the world economy as if it were his own playdough.
One shudders at the thought of professionals of mr Klugman's level of excellence having to muddle through daily in the Trumpian sewer system to report to the rest of us. A medal of Valor is in order.
3
Trump asked his aides why he has to go to these meetings with world leaders.
He really doesn't want to be there.
The other world leaders wouldn't miss him if Trump didn't show up.
It really should be the G6 until we get a president who knows how to act on the world stage. A president who does an infomercial for his property in front of the whole world is an embarrassment at the very least and might even be illegal if the Doral is used by Trump next year for the G6. Oh, G7! Maybe G8 if Trump has his way. Trump wants Russia to be back in. Russia should be rewarded for taking Crimea and meddling in our elections according to our president.
Another Trump show for all the world to see!
6
Trumps method of operation
The art of the steal....
I never met a dictator I didn’t like
The title of his memoir after the presidency.
The title of the trump kids memoir
What’s in it for me.
Mitch McConnells memoir
What do I know I’m from West Virginia.
6
Obviously, everything is on the table!
Every US president has used this mantra.
Remember Phaethon? Son of Apollo, the sun-god. He got to drive that flaming chariot across the sky.
Bad move.
The boy lost his nerve. And that chariot went careering everywhere--burning up cities, drying up oceans.
A thunderbolt from Jupiter put an end to the disaster. After that one horrific day.
Sounds like we've got our own "very stable" Phaethon. A man not given to self-doubt. A man who pronounces himself "like, very smart." Who "knows more than the generals." I expect he also knows more than the economists. More than anybody, I'm thinking.
Or maybe not.
Mr. Krugman, I don't follow this stuff very attentively. You do, I expect. But correct me if I'm wrong.
Our President is not a man who thinks things out. Or through. Is it not the case: he is ALWAYS playing for the short-term? Playing for a "win"--a "dazzling triumph"--a "diplomatic or economic coup" that can be touted as such to the gullible, the uninformed.
And the U.S. really IS a pretty big concern. The world's biggest economy--even nowadays, is that not so? Our plungings and veerings really DO scare the rest of the world.
I am hoping, Mr. Krugman, for a really BIG thunderbolt to come flaming from the skies, November of next year.
I am longing to SEE that flushed face--mouth open, eyes bugging out--
--as Mr. Donald J. Trump CONTEMPLATES a fiery bolt crackling and hissing his way.
We can but hope.
And I do.
So do you.
So does everyone.
6
Trump is laser focused on re-election. Its the only thing that matters. Speaking of enemies Xi and Powell, while Trump can't fire either...Xi or Powell can fire Trump. If Xi does not give Trump an off ramp, a way off the ledge he has climbed and taken the nation on an economic war, or if Powell does not bail Trump out with a flood of money to counter the negative impact of his trade war...then...Trump shows he cannot bend these to his will. Trump is shown to be weak, and he loses, because he cannot expand beyond his adoring base.
3
"At the same time, the U.S. economy is slowing as the brief sugar high from the 2017 tax cut wears off. Another leader might engage in some self-reflection." You must be referring to Reagan who did raise taxes when he had to. So, I believe did George Bush. Unlike Trump, those two weren't fixated on themselves as the most important part of the universe and could reflect on what the best course of action might be even if it made some unhappy.
Trump has done nothing more than engage in one long huge irresponsible temper tantrum since he declared his candidacy for president. Time and again he pressed the send or post button and each time he was rewarded with news coverage. No matter how outrageous or idiotic his claims were the mainstream media published or aired them.
Has anyone bothered to tell the GOP that they are supporting a man whose temperament is costing us money, respect, and confidence? Have any of his fervent supporters paid attention to what the rest of the world is saying or how it's reacting to this churlish behavior?
Trump has done nothing for our economy or well being. He has accomplished nothing positive. He has given the most hateful groups in our country the okay to be openly anti-Semitic, bigoted and racist and misogynistic. He claims to be a stable genius. I remember the tv show "Mr. Ed" and I'd listen to the latter sooner than I would Trump on anything.
Trump is a danger to the country.
8/26/2019 7:33pm
11
Mr Ed is more of a stable genius.
8
Don't get me wrong, we do need to figure out how to handle China effectively. But team Trump won't get it done under any circumstances - they are too inept from top to bottom. Utterly clueless. All he's doing is undermining confidence in the world's economy.
2
This rolling nightmare will continue until Trump is, uhh, unelected, or we leave the country. Both will happen in lock step the day after the election.
The rest of the handwringing, OMG, etc., is just taking up space.
1
I used to wonder if one bad person could change the world. I wonder no longer. We have a living nightmare in The White House.
Why the GOP congressional reps and leaders haven't reined him in I have no idea. This unstable, malicious fool is destabilizing the global economy. He has weakened American security and power. He is threatening our alliances. He works on behalf of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and of course, himself. Literally - he goes to the G7, insults Barack Obama, then tries to sell his resort as a venue for the next G-7.
Meanwhile, Brazil is on fire, threatening all of us, cremating priceless wildlife and destroying entire ecosystems.
This is a nightmare. I keep hoping I'll wake up and the sun will be shining and the flag will be proudly flying over a lovely, peaceful and idealistic land.
9
er, doncha think there is a little more international trade now than in the 1920's and the 1950's? What is that word that people throw around?
Gettin too old for this. Hm-m-m-m-m. Aha! Got it!
Globalization.
Can we leave Lego Batman out of this?
“Protectionism is bad; erratic protectionism, imposed by an unstable leader with an insecure ego, is worse. But that’s what we’ll have as long as Trump remains in office.”
In a democracy the public has a right to know that election results are honest and accurate. We don’t have that when our vote-counting process is not transparent nor secure. Exit polls from 2016 indicate that Trump did not win the Electoral College.
Fitrakis and Wasserman: Why the U.S. State Department Would Not Certify Trump’s Election as Legitimate https://tinyurl.com/y8a7gqn9
Jimmy Carter and James Baker stated in their report for the Commission on Federal Election Reform in 2005 that “The greatest threats to secure voting are insiders with access to the machines.” They wrote “There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries.”
In 2009, Germany’s high court ruled that the public must be able to authenticate the vote count. As a result, Germany went back to counting votes by hand.
In 2012, Ireland's Environmental Minister sent their machines to the recycling center. He called computerized voting a “poorly conceived, scandalous waste of money.”
Norwegian Votes to Be Counted Manually in Fear of Election Hacking https://tinyurl.com/y7gcwbwl
“Security and trust are vital to the conduct of elections. We shall not be naïve, nor allow for any uncertainty around the security of elections. The voters will rest assured that the election results are accurate.”
2
retired federal attorney F/70
Find Marketwatch 8 26 2019 PhD economist Sven Heinrich's report on the last two weeks. Here's the header for the chart: US National Debt Jumps $363 Billion in Two Weeks & 1 Trillion in One Year.
Remember Mitch and Nancy and Mitch's puppet in TWH quietly agreeing last month to take the lid off our debt/borrowing to pay interest on our debt? And pay a few bills. Used to be called the set-by-statute "Debt Ceiling?" For two years!
Look again at the Two Weeks debt growth number and multiply by the 102 weeks remaining?
I continue to be amazed at how creative Mitch is in expanding his theft of all current and future wealth!
Before I leave this earth, I pay for scores of HS graduates to get free college in Merkel's Germany, taught in English. Monthly stipends and one-way airfares.
Offered a chance to fly "home" over Summer, all have chosen to stay and use airfare money for train passes to get to all of Europe. Seamlessly passing borders and welcomed everywhere. Brown. White. Black. Latina/o. Kids who, as Merkel predicted, are choosing to stay in Germany and work in communities that are now their home. All good.
3
It will be amazing to watch members of GOP claim they've always been concerned about Trump when the economy and markets start skiing down to the clubhouse.
3
"You may recall that after denouncing Nafta as the worst trade deal ever made, Trump essentially surrendered and declared victory, settling for a new deal almost indistinguishable from the old one. Most economic newsletters I get predicted a similar outcome for the U.S. and China."
Even if we end up with a deal between the US and China that is "almost indistinguishable from the old one," the damage to supply chains that have been incurred, for example the Chinese substituting Brazilian soy beans for American ones, may not be amenable to going back to those that existed before the trade war.
19
Good column. Given erratic US protectionism and Brexit, what do you see for Q4 and beyond? When I complained about materials tariffs last summer, Anthony Chan told me that manufacturing didn't materially matter to the US economy. Now, I see manufacturing slowing globally, and wonder about a world where manufacturing doesn't matter. Any thoughts on what matters; technology, service industries or something else because I haven't got a clue.
8
@Ronni
retired federal attorney F/70
I've been struck by Andrew Yang's unfiltered description of the future of all work. Yep, the Yang that is running on the D side for President.
Find and read his website ideas that come with compelling and troubling forecasts and his numero uno proposed policy response: $1000/mo. going from the federal government to each adult in a household.
I'd never heard from or about this man and have worked at the national level with Congress for 40+ years. What I read made me want to see him stay on-stage for September/October. I sent a little money and a marker on his essential minimum zip codes to add to millions of millenials doing the same.
2
The one guy we have not heard from in this last hair-raising month is Pence. He is usually quick to defend anything Trump does to anybody at any time. He could be on vacation or perhaps there is a tiny probablity that he is speaking quietly with his advisers and others and demanding secrecy. After all, he is the only person who can start the removal process under the 25th amendment. And, if he were successful, he would become the president.
7
@James Ricciardi,
The 25th assumes ratified members in the cabinet; right now, a relatively huge number of them are "acting" and, therefore, it's a good question whether there'd be a quorum. Don't count on the 25th.
7
@Harold (Mexico) I am not counting on anything. Certainly the drafters of the 25th amendment never envisioned a president too scared to present his cabinet picks to a Senate controlled by his party.
10
Trump should be throwing paper towels to China direction really really fast until trade balance improves.
6
The most accurate demonstration of Trump's internal life occurred early in his administration when he got behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler parked in front of the White House. His antics were identical to what parents experience when they put their 5 year-old behind the wheel of the family SUV while it sits in the driveway.
25
It always catches up with Trump. His Casino’s & Resorts where at one stage doing well, right up until they weren’t. Most of his wealth comes from his holdings in real estate, income would come from rentals and his status as a celebrity. However, any business that required a supply chain, such as his airline, or managing & monitoring risk, such as his casino’s - they all failed. There is a difference between being a business owner, and an asset owner. Trump is an asset owner. If Trump were announced as CEO of any fortune 500 company and had complete authority to manage operations and allocate capital – that stock would tank. He inherited a good economy, juiced that economy with a plan written by the heritage foundation and given Paul Ryan’s stamp of approval. But trade is where he is stamping his mark on the economy, and he is rocking it to the point of breaking it. Like I said, it all catches up with Trump. He cannot outrun his own incompetence forever.
127
@Adam, is Trump really an asset owner? For the worlds biggest braggart we know very, very little of what he is actually worth or what he actually earns or owns. For someone who states, whenever he can, how rich he is, I find it very suspicious that he will not release his returns. I think it likely that he simply has revolving lines of credit with a couple of legitimate financial institutions and the rest, if he has any, is financed by...shall we say 'comrades' of his.
33
@Adam
Unfortunately we in the rest of the world can not avoid the impact of it either
4
@Adam Sadly it's going to catch up with us as well. Who do you think will suffer more, doubt it'll be Trump.
1
Paul:
Thank you again for your insight.
Now, what will it take to convince you (I think you were born here, have to double check), that you, Nobel Prize for Economics on your resume, a scholar with credentials that shame even the lofty achievements of President Obama, who has devoted his life to educating both the world’s future leaders, and anyone with a basic interest in American politics and government, are the person best suited to spend 2020-2028 running the Executive Branch and serving as our Head of State.
Krugman for President!
6
"But even high tariffs don’t necessarily hurt employment, as long they’re stable and predictable: the jobs lost in industries that either rely on imported inputs or depend on access to foreign markets can be offset by job gains in industries that compete with imports."
This is only true if the industries are balanced and time is available to adjust business activities. In the case of steel, far more jobs have been lost or not created in downstream industries than can and will be created in the steel industry itself.
A previous Op-ed noted that other countries require the evaluation of economic effects of tariffs to include their effect on downstream industries. In the US the analysis only needs to consider the direct effect of the tariff.
As far as time, if the tariffs on China were kept in place long enough, and with knowledge that they are long term, companies would invest in the capital needed to move production out of China, although not necessarily to the US.
3
Beijing could curb its exports of pharmaceuticals as a countermeasure in the trade war with the US. By some estimates, America imports 96 per cent of its antibiotics from China. Everything Trump and his advisors think just became irrelevant.
16
The details of Chinese strategy in this trade war can't be known but their actions and responses to Trump are predictable. Trump's strategy can't be known because it doesn't seem to exist. That is unless the plan is to take us all on a roller coaster ride fueled by how he happens to be feeling on any particular day. If I were China I would sit this dance out, string things along and hope that time will remove the problem without too much economic damage.
The Chinese should be eternally grateful that it is Trump isolated and acting unilaterally attempting to change their trading practices. A coordinated multilateral effort of many nations targeting specific egregious practices is no longer possible under this president. Reviving the corpse of such a coalition will take time and much rebuilding of trust. Meanwhile the Chinese will continue to expand their influence while ours continues to be eroded.
36
What does it take for people to realize that Trump is not destroying America by accident, but on purpose. He's just trying to make it look like it's all an accident. All these steps were ironed out long ago in secret meetings with Putin.
44
@dad Ahhhh what price a Trump Hotel in Moscow? Surely he would not be doing this for so little??
1
Why do our journalists and columnists spend so much time talking about Trump?
They are attracted to him because they feel comfortable and on the same intellectual level.
If they weren’t, they would be talking about the important stuff because Trump cannot dictate them what to do or write about.
The pundits would be presenting their arguments and plans for the skyrocketing national debt, the chronic budget deficits, the reckless tax cuts and their repeal, balancing of the foreign trade, not being dependent on China for our everyday needs, the export and exodus of the US manufacturing base overseas, the frozen and stagnant wages of the middle class and the poor Americans, the state of constant war we have been in over the last century, the colossal defense budgets and burden on our economy, inability of our judicial system to make distinction between the corporations and the citizens, addiction of the elected officials during the campaigns on the cash donations from the global corporations, et cetera…
Tragedy is that all those problems predated Donald Trump but our free press has no courage to admit it and name the real culprits.
The voters were aware of those problems and elected Trump as “Hail Mary” pass into the end zone…
Anybody attempting it isn’t a racist but just trying to stay alive by sticking to a tiny straw. That’s considered hope.
Maybe the journalists aren’t even aware of the depth of the problems we are in and consider Trump to be the worst one…
14
@Kenan Porobic A long list of ailments. Unprecedented. But do not despair. American voters mostly use multiple sources to gain information and the vast majority of our free press is on the job giving us important data and facts. We have a wide variety of dedicated and honest journalists. Vary your sources, ignore FOX, Hannity and friends, and the Tea Party faction. Do your homework. Register, vote, no apathy, take our country back. Make America Great Again. We can do it -- voters have learned an important lesson.
19
@Kenan Porobic
Um, because he is the one who has the power. He holds the highest office in our country. He issues executive orders and un-presidential policy tweets. He creates the problems. He ignores the Constitution. He assumes authoritarian-style leadership. His decisions are pretty much always the wrong ones and do nothing to address the issues you mention, but he is the one who should be working to address them. He is the one who is increasing the national debt with his tax giveaways that have had no economic benefit. He allows Mitch McConnell to stifle legislation and do his own power grabs. He and Mitch promote the appointments of justices who serve their purposes and those of the corporations, not the citizens.
The culprits are the not the ones who cause all the problems you mentioned, but Trump and the GOP who know darn well what the problems are, but since it doesn't serve their interests who solve them, sit on their thumbs while they enrich themselves--party over country in the ultimate.
36
@Kenan Porobic He is the President of the US and has enormous power to influence events in the country and world. Is that not enough reason?
4
I agree with your assessment of the bizarre G-7 event. The President doesn't really seem to realize the economic consequences of his unstable behavior.
Your statement, "Now imagine yourself as a business leader trying to make decisions amid this Trumpian chaos." had a profound impact on my thinking.
The word which persists and can't seem to shake from my mind is "Meanwhile", I can sense that business leaders are contrasting the rhetoric of Biden, Warren, and Sanders as they think about the future. They are lying low and are quiet about the future of their businesses and wondering about how to survive in the future.
Biden seems to be livable but can he win the nomination? The latest polls show these 3 contenders in a a virtual tie and both Warren and Sanders are flailing the hide off of government "corruption" and the message that the economy is "rigged". So, it is quite likely that Democrats are driving industrial workers who care about their jobs to the Trump camp.
In my view, Democrats must change their rhetoric to give more emphasis to stability and predictability. They must address the issues that are more about achieving the American dream: a good paying job, a decent education for their children, access to affordable health insurance and housing. It is important that Democrats stay on message and demonstrate by our message that we understand how to form an effective government to stop the decline in the public's confidence in business and government.
20
@james jordan, I don't know if you read many of the 2,000+ comments to the article by the Business Round Table of prominent US execs, but many viewed it as propaganda so that voters would be less likely to vote for a socialist-sounding democrat. Then, back to business as usual. Employers--businesses in general--have shown they're not interested in their employees' American dream--that's why industry moved to lower-cost-of-living countries.
4
@james jordan Well I think the Democrats are on message. The debates are helpful and help to hone the upcoming Democratic Platform. We already know what the Trump platform will be - more of the same misguided chaos and insults. Dump Trump, Ditch Mitch, take our country back. Personally, I am leaning toward Biden/Warren -- think they would make an ideal team.
2
Mr Krugman is an educated man with knowledge of particular extent in the domain of economy.
He should spend his time and writing at sharing this knowledge and making it fruitful for the analysis of general problems in the field of economy.
He should not partake in false behaviorist psychology whose dangers he is obviously not able to measure the depth and the symbolic orientation.
I think I have written that several times.
1
@JPH, you misrepresent Mr. Krugman, who describes Donald Trump's behavior, not his psychological state. I think we can all agree that Trump's behavior is erratic and unpredictable, i.e., unstable.
64
@JPH When I was an employer, assessing the psychological behavior of employees who acted erratically was highly important. Occasionally, I consulted with psychologists. The basic question was whether bizarre behavior was harmful to the organization and ultimately to others.
Trump's behavior of constant lying and name calling is the behavior of a sociopath and a psychopath. He needs to be stopped. He is already doing damage, and his dissociation from reality is alarming.
7
Today Krugman says that, at this point you might, expect an intervention from the grown-ups in the room.
OK, you've piqued my interest. What would the grown-ups do? I am still waiting.
Krugman says that "protectionism is bad." OK, I am with you so far, but what does that mean for policy?
Do we (a) end our tariffs because they are protectionist (= bad)? Or do we strengthen our tariffs in order to pressure China to reduce its protectionism (= bad)?
If there is no deal, whose fault is that? Recall, that China rejected a trade deal that Krugman called a nothing-burger, a giveaway to China. And today he says that currency manipulation is one of the few economic sins of which the Chinese are innocent. That still leaves a lot of economic sins. So?
Krugman tells us that erratic protectionism is even worse than protectionism simpliciter. But isn't that a case of colossally missing the point? Krugman has made a category error. Let me spell it out -- protectionism isn't Trump's policy; it is Trump's bargaining tactic. And that is how it should be evaluated.
And isn't it in the nature of bargaining to be unpredictable and erratic?
Really, if Krugman wants to criticize Trump's handling of trade negotiations with China, shouldn't he at least pay the price of admission? That means giving us just a teeny weeny glimpse of what he would do if he were in Trump's shoes.
8
@Ian Maitland
Mr. Krugman, and many others, are pointing out that Trump's erratic behavior is damaging the economy. Trump doesn't know what he wants to do--he swivels with every gust of wind from those who have his ear--and that is hurting business and consumer decision-making. So I think he has indicated clearly what Trump should NOT be doing. He has also demonstrated, in previous writings, that Trump's decisions have increased, not decreased, the trade deficit and that tariffs are essentially taxes on US citizens. Mr. Krugman has given us not a teeny weeny glimpse, but huge insight into the solutions.
11
@lhbari
Are you seriously saying that Trump has been listening to his advisors? He is so indecisive that every gust of wind makes him change his mind? I don't recognize the man from your description.
@Ian Maitland Roll back the trade war completely and stop acting like a lunatic. Clear enough?
1
Is anyone investigating whether anyone within or representing Trump's family is moving investments with foreknowledge of his tweets?
86
@Carl If so, it would be masked via multiple intertwined organizations. Me, I want to see his tax returns - the past is a guide to the present.
18
@Carl
Computer programs at the SEC can pick up suspicious trading, but most likely if anyone in Trump's "info orbit" is profiting they are doing it in ways that cannot be detected.
Ad, if real humans were investigating, most likely they would find themselves demoted or fired. Kind of a history of that, in the Trump administration, right?
9
"But unstable, unpredictable trade policy is very different. ... So everything gets put on hold — and the economy suffers."
This, *this* is what "uncertainty" means - what the word used to mean, before it became co-opted by people who used it to mean "our taxes might get raised" or "our manufacturing processes might have to pollute less." This is the kind of uncertainty that is bad for business, not a government that might be willing to raise revenue to spend on public services, or regulate in the name of public health.
9
Yes, but... taxes are also painful for the country they are levied upon. Might as well include this complication. It helps us understand what people who argue that tariffs help America are focused on. We then get to ask, " but who is hurt worse?" and the debate takes a step forward. ...and we find out that we are hurt worse, except for the 0.1 percenters.
10
Trump is perceived by too many as a successful businessman. It’s all appearance of course but most of politics is what appears to be. Telling people about how unpredictable he is being really does not change people’s minds. Trump asserted that being predictable was a losing way to act. He’s trusted to be doing as he intends and knowing what is needed to get what he wants.
Really I hear this view from very intelligent and educated Republicans, still. They are buying his line of malarkey as if it is from Jesus himself.
The Democrats just better try to convince the citizens at the middle of the spectrum to vote and to vote for them, because Trump could win re-election.
20
@Casual Observer Keep in mind that his book - "The Art of the Deal" was ghost written. I think all his day to day actions are also ghost written - Steven Miller and company are calling the shots. Trump is simply their carnival barker.
4
I recently reread Krugman’s article, “Taking on China and its Currency”, March 14, 2010, NYT. The Professor advocated a 25% across the board tariff on China, linked directly to its trade surplus with the US, due to that countries’ manipulation of its currency.
In the piece he suggested the tariff could be adjusted as the trade becomes more equalized. He never mentions the millions of American jobs being exported and the devastating effect on the middle class. He also never mentions fentanyl, which in 2010 no one had ever heard of.
Perhaps if the President had taken up Krugmans’ suggestions, we wouldn’t be in this pickle and Trump would still be making television shows. And he could have saved the transfer of wealth from the American middle class to lift China out of poverty
As far as Krugman goes, he can’t remember what he wrote nine years ago, and apparently his theories depend on which way the wind is blowing
5
@hawk
Has it occurred to to you that things may change in nine years? One thing that has is China’s currency manipulation. Krugman outlined their policy change in an earlier article. As he said, it is one of the few trade sins they are innocent of.
49
@hawk
You took that out of context. Try again.
1
I keep wondering what his private holdings are. These ups and downs after each of Trumps tweets or rants are starting to look suspicious to this old lady.
With my stocks it’s a question of ten to a couple hundred dollars of bouncability. A friend of mine sees hundreds to low thousand jumps up or down. A friend of his can see several thousands at stake. After that we've left what ordinary to well-off Americans gain or lose.
And then there are the totally serious investors. That most likely includes that man in the White House: he who will reveal nothing to the rest of us.
So my question is just what really is going on with the man who used to stiff contractors or pay a fraction of what he owed on a building project?
408
@Joan In California
I can assure you Trump and his family are making money with the erratic market by selling short. I’m sure he gives them plenty of notice before sending out a tweet that will tumble the market. None of his actions are done in a vacuum.
248
@Letty Roerig
And that is precisely why he threatens to sue anyone who releases any information about his financial dealings.
That alone should send up red flags.
137
@Joan In California
retired AMA attorney F/70
Answer your question by asking "Could a two-year-old pull this off?" Nope. He is a paranoid malignant narcissist who is unhinged whenever challenged, when "winning" in his zero sum game world is threatened.
Somewhere I read tonight that his is an unnerving "top-down anarchy." Best helped by wine and decompress time without any news about any thing or body. Or old-girl walks in fresh CA air?
CA produces about 83% of U.S. GDP so your neighbors will be fine if they are in the right assets with this man in TWH. I moved cash from the sale of common stock last December into TIP (U.S. Treasuries) and more utilities (ED and XEL) and more preferred shares (Wells Fargo bank's like WFCPRL). Added gold (IAU) at $1372; now about $1500.
Same thing I did 2007, ahead of 2008, when I reacted to self-evident facts in SW FL that were proof of layers of fraudulent mortgage brokers and worldwide spin-offs that would and did crash.
To take due care of $11M invested for three generations of college friends and family--under my eight rules.
5
All I have to say is that the only ones profiting from Trump's roller coaster tariffs are those who are playing the stock market, buying low and selling high every other day. If only we could show that Trump was intentionally roiling the market for the benefit of his friends and himself, maybe then the Democrats would grow a spine and impeach him. But Trump isn't bright enough to pull off stock manipulation nor are the Democrats about to hold him accountable at this late date.
34
@Joseph Thomas It looks as if impeachment is inevitable. But Nancy Pelosi and other house members probably want to delay it until the new year. Than all the revelations will be fresh, and hearings will overlap with the 2020 election campaign.
10
@Joseph Thomas
Its not that he isn't bright enough. Its that he's so wrapped up in his internal world that anything that doesn't trigger the emotion (me win, you lose) in his imaginary world is overlooked. His need to be loved or hated overwhelms his judgment and blinds him to having real business acumen. That's why he's such a lousy businessman. I do imagine that his tweets go instantaneously into algorithms for computer trading.
3
@Joseph Thomas
"maybe then the Democrats would grow a spine and impeach him"
do you understand that "impeach" does not mean "remove from office"?
For that, you need the party-over-country Republican-controlled Senate. When Republican donors, counting their money from their deficit-exploding tax cut, get upset about what Trump is doing to the economy, then things may change
5
How much money does trump take in every time his tweets cause wild highs and lows in the stock market? Why is Congress or the FTC not looking into his private holdings to see how much his seemingly insane pronouncements are enriching trump and his family and friends?
667
@Ben The House Democrats are trying to get Trump's financial information, i.e. tax returns from the IRS and financial information from Deutsche Bank. Trump is fighting them in court.
On the Senate side, Mitch McConnell won’t lift a finger to control Trump's erratic and unconstitutional actions. In addition, it is clear the Republicans will not convict Trump in any impeachment trial. At this point facts don’t matter. Therefore, America's only recourse is to defeat Trump and as many Republicans as possible at the ballot box in 2020.
218
@Ben,
‘How much money does trump take in every time his tweets cause wild highs and lows in the stock market?’
There’s no way to know the answer to this question without an investigation, but I suspect most of Trump’s wealth is in his real estate holdings. My question would be how much his immediate family members and others in his inner circle are profiting. His business friends and counselors are also on the phone daily with Trump. Hannity and Carlson might deserve a look.
What might be worse is that Trump apparently uses a non-secure cell phone for private conversations, and numerous foreign intelligence services probably grab all those conversations from the ether. A closer look at all suspicious trading might be revealing.
13
@Ben
Presidents are supposed to put their assets into blind trusts -- and not be involved -- but who knows exactly what Trump has done besides acquire Mar al Lao and the building that houses the Trump Hotel in DC from the federal govmt at rock bottom? prices! Let's make a deal. Now he's turning over federal land to whomever (exchange for campaign contribution, membership at Mar al Lago?? who knows) -- that bothers me miucho. I don't know how many of his deals will be able to be undone nor if the Dem president to come will have the guts to do it... eg. Obama screwed up healthcare completely: Romneycare and guaranteed profits for drug companies..
1
Trump is TV man; he will say what the crowd wants to hear. He is in it completely for the applause. There is no point listening to today’s Trump message. It will change with tomorrow’s audience. Let’s change channels.
440
How can we change channels? He’s on every one!
18
@SC
He once tweeted that his tussle with the tax folks is "sport." Maybe he sees all of this as sport, keeping creditors and suppliers (and MAGA voters) at bay with false assurances they really want to believe, while bilking them for all they're worth. The G-7 leaders realized this and played along, flattering the guy and pretending he was a serious factor.
The problem is, he cheats.
8
@SC I wish we could change channels. But this madman playing reality TV prez keeps flipping back to the same show, a genre that is tragicomedy beyond Samuel Beckett's worst nightmares.
2
Folks and professionals caught in the throes of trading stocks and bonds are affected by the Random Artificial Intelligence algorithm sitting in the president's office.
It hurts the little people who attempt to make some retirement income in our current interest rate environment.
42
@Texan - thank you. We have so carefully saved for our retirement. We had enough money for my husband to retire a little early. Not any more. He’ll be working for a while yet. It is so stressful and scary to be so close to a new chapter, only to see our money go up and then WAY down on a daily basis, depending on what the Occupant feels like tweeting.
50
@Texan
"...the Random Artificial Intelligence algorithm sitting in the president's office."
Well done, sir or ma'am!
What makes it even worse is that advances in modern machine learning systems offer hope that AI will one day be able to understand human thought and behavior better.
We already have 40 years of evidence that the only human thoughts and behaviors Trump understands are those driven by fear, rage and manipulation.
I hope those cockeyed optimists who kept hoping Trump would learn how to be "presidential" understand just how naive and foolish they were.
8
My theory is that after Friday's Dow drop and new tariff announcement, Trump claimed the China phone call to ensure the dow went up today. If proved to be a lie, can't we impeach for stock market manipulation?
1010
@baltcate
We have a mountain on which to impeach Trump. But we have a mountain of obstruction of justice in the Senate Republicans that will block any conviction.
80
@baltcate He's craziness is not a coincidence. His ignorance is not a mistake.
What does it take for people to realize that Trump is not destroying America by accident, but on purpose. He's just trying to make it look like it's all an accident. All these steps were ironed out long ago in secret meetings with Putin.
63
@baltcate This has been a recurring comment about the "Trump-trade". But it is too credible to wave off as conspiracy theory. Trump family & pals must be making a killing with his tweets.
55
We were in northern Florida last week north of Jacksonville on the coast. At the port of Fernandina the local newspaper reported that the port director said activity has been cut back drastically from previous months and he blamed the battle over imports from China. Could we be in a recession right now?
For decades, people have said that government should be "run like a business", even though it isn't a profit making entity and it is bound by thousands of rules and regulations limiting what it can do. The big problem with the idea of putting business principles into government is that business people have a very narrow focus: anything that hurts their profits is bad, anything that helps is great.
Trump is an extreme and, from all appearances, a deranged version of the single minded businessman. His ego, his fun, his efforts at satisfaction for himself are the only things that matter.
Keep this in mind, too: Trump never ran a traditional business corporation with publicly traded stock save for one time, the casinos, and that business went bankrupt, losing almost one billion in market value. The Eastern Airline Shuttle: unloaded after one year. His purchase of the Plaza Hotel? Unloaded in a "pre-packaged bankruptcy". Then there is "Trump University" a naked scam that cost Trump 25 million to make it go away. On and on...
The voting public knew almost nothing of this checkered background and, as details came out, they were dismissed a mere political attacks. They weren't.
1000
@Doug Terry Anyone in the "voting public" that knows how to read had plenty of opportunity to learn about Trump's checkered background.
71
@Doug Terry Actually all these failures were detailed in such mags as Fortune and Vanity Fair and any number of newspaper columns. The problem is that Americans don't read anymore and Trump's play acting on TV carried more weight than factual reporting. His performance at G-7 should be enough to label him a second grader, but it won't.
129
@Doug Terry
Trump was elected by convincing the "base voters" that he views the world as they do, hates the same people they do and agrees with them that they are the "real Americans".
They truly believe he thinks just as they do. Of course Trump only thinks of himself and they are being duped.
People resist admitting they are wrong and tribalism is stronger than logic. These voters are lost and there is no use appealing to them. When Trump loses they won't admit ever voting for him.
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Dr. Krugman writes: "If your business depends on a smoothly functioning global economy, Trump’s tantrums suggest that you should postpone your investment plans."
All businesses need certainty to invest, function profitably, and succeed. The only certainty here is that nothing is for certain under Trump.
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My entire life the maxim “the market hates uncertainty” has been taken as a given. The past two and a half years have certainly disproven that assumption. I don’t see why the current uncertainty will have a greater impact than all the previous uncertainty in the Trump presidency.
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Hold your maxim. You may see uncertainty, but maybe the institutional or “Smart” Money feels some certainty still. Maybe they feel they can control or influence him enough to not feel uncertain. Wait until he wins again & they have no levers left. This myth of “Smart” Money fools us all into thinking we’re fools. There is no Smart Money. Only Big Money. And it’s just as stupid as anybody.
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Why don't we just buy Greenland instead?
As an economist and former financial analyst, there's no way I would trust anything Trump says about anything ever. If I have dollars to invest, I'm sitting on my hands. We're in a, hopefully, four year waiting pattern. All signs suggest the global economy won't last that long. Buy short and hedge, hedge, hedge. That's Trump's economic legacy.
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@Andy
You forgot another of Trump's methods. Borrow Borrow and Borrow. Worry about the ability to pay it back later, if ever.
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The simple fact of the matter is the US is going very well indeed and in all likelihood will continue to do so into the near future, that Trump is the leader of the country makes little difference. The economy is coasting from the work put in by Obama, with a little help from the Trump administration, the operative word being 'little'. Trump can claim all the credit he wants but you could have a plaid wearing bowl of clam chowder in the oval office and still have similar results for the economy, the clam chowder would probably garner a little more respect at the G7 and we wouldn't have to put up with its erratic tweets on a continual basis.
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I was looking at buying a business but the parts the business installs come from China. There is no USA based producer.
Chairman trump I’m not going to buy the business. Add capital and hire more workers based in a purple state.
Good job.
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Since we know the Republican President only looks out for himself, there will never be a logic to explain his erratic unpredictable self - unless we all someday find out that he's been selling the markets short before each nonsensical twittering, which he knows will cause market angina.
And wasn't this Republican President involved in some 1980s green-mailing ?
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@R. Law: He did a little stock manipulation in the 80's but it was easily figured out and counteracted by other traders. It's almost certain that if he and the family were trying anything like you describe it would be quickly exposed. Lots of very smart people would love to nail him for something like that, and it's not something that can be done totally secretly. Remember, nobody in the family has ever been super smart. I mean, sure, they graduated from business school, and they handle large amounts of money. They're probably smarter than me, but not smart as smart people go...
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@John - It was a comment made half in jest; but only half. Your scenario holds if things are working normally, but previously abnormal events now occur several times each (compressed) news cycle.
A system can be trusted only if the trust is being verified; since a Treasury Dept. whistle-blower has reportedly come forward to say the audit process of the sitting POTUS's tax returns is being tampered with while he's in office, and as it's now reported that there's a $100+ million$ discrepancy of Very Stable Genius 45*'s valuation of his Turnberry Course, depending on which entity he filed data with, verification is even more necessary.
If the Republican President had divested, none of this would be necessary.
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@R. Law: That's all true. And I certainly wouldn't put it past them on any ethical grounds. And now I'm thinking, even if it doesn't feel quite like something he and the family would be doing at this point, they say he's totally leaky, always on the phone to anybody who will listen, so I wouldn't be surprised if some sleazos at Fox News, or just somewhere in the orbit, weren't taking advantage. Look up his caddy's brother-in-law...
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Prof. Paul Krugman has given a complete summary of what is happening in the US economy ,with particular reference to the US - Trump Trade war with China. But the positive that happened at the GT in France is that all the major countries have also been talking to China quietly to create the eco- system for a Trade truce.
The Chinese also cannot continue to fight without a major long term fallout. The Chinese are facing a major political challenge with HongKong. The Chinese cannot continue a serious Trade War with the USA and expect to solve the HongKong challenge.
Both the USA and China need an intermediary or a White Knight to help them break the ice, without “ losing face”.
That White Knight is President E.Macron of France who managed to bring positive focus on 1. Burning Amazon and 2 .Iran nuclear issue. He also gently remembered President a Trump of the need to settle the China Trade issue. Macron found a very forceful ally in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson,who told Trump, that free trade is needed and that it did Britain good for 200 years.
The behind the scenes work down by President Macron has set in motion evens which will bring a settlement between the US and China or at least a truce, as President Trump showed great anxiety , by his saying “I always age second thoughts”.
Without a Trade truce, even countries like India will face recessionary winds. Trump has got relief fro President Macron ,which was totally un- expected. I think the Tariff war is over.
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@Dr.Pentapati Pullarao,
I follow French politics and, indeed, admire Pres Macron but my impression is that he is most concerned about France (including the overseas depts and territories and former colonies), then Europe (including, if at all possible, the UK) and, after those, other situations closely related to them.
Mr Macron is a remarkable politician in many ways but don't expect him to even try to be a magician. He will act when he thinks he can be successful. And he will let the chips fall where they may when that's all he can do successfully.
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@Dr.Pentapati Pullarao - From your keyboard to God's ear.
But I doubt it.
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Much information/misinformation has been predicated on two phone calls from the Chinese to Trump taken as facts. If not, then the US should feel excluded from the G7 by reason of China's not being there, even as Iran showed up unexpectedly.
If China is not guilty of manipulating the yuan, then it doesn't need tariffs to stimulate trade. Having heard from Russian oil over the weekend in Biarritz, we should look forward to finding out more about Trump's real-estate interests as he approaches New York, unlike likely deals with China, without getting into synch with his staff in Washington. Perhaps the Europeans can make more deals privately if the Russians go ahead and book Trump's golf course for next year's crash, either for the markets or the party.
9
If, as Thoreau said, "The government is best which governs least" then the present administration, headed up by the mercurial, indecisive Mr. Trump, is the ideal government, since it ultimately succeeds in doing almost nothing. Except for the fog of confusion and the economic noise coming from Washington, the world economy goes its merry way untroubled by interference from the U.S. government. This, minus the fog and the noise, is the longstanding basic Republican goal. Republicans and businessmen should be delighted and hope Mr. Trump is voted President for Life.
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@Ronald B. Duke: But, he said "governs least", not "governs least effectively". Something to do with the consistency versus chaos that PK discusses. But, yes, it's a curious version of top-down anarchy...
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@Ronald B. Duke, Trump's trade wars are the opposite of small government. Trump is concentrating all decision-making in his own hands, and McConnell has effectively rendered Congress irrelevant.
Trump does serve GOP interests (2017 tax cuts, based on libertarian claims), but he likes big government. He once said that he liked dictatorships, as long as he's the dictator.
Trump is trying to manipulate markets and control the Fed and U.S. corporations ("Our great American companies are hereby ordered to start looking for an alternative to China...)
He's an authoritarian, exactly what Thoreau was warning against.
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@Ronald B. Duke: If Thoreau wanted to show favor for a government run by the likes of Trump, he would have written, "The government is best which governs most incompetently" or "The government is best which governs more chaotically." But, alas, he did not.
I doubt that he would see the current administration--- one which pillages the wild places in our country and favors the wealthiest but least spiritually mature among us--- as the "ideal government."
Like many of us, he would almost certainly see this government as a farcical nightmare managed by corrupt and rapacious tycoons.
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the liberal democracies of the world have to realize that the effort to democratize china has failed. tiananmen square marked the turning point where it should have clear that the communist party was willing to massacre its citizens rather that give up power. the opening by nixon to china had a two fold purpose. first as a cold war strategy to isolate russia and move china away from its influence. as the first strategy seemed to be working the second, to move china away from its totalitarian communist political and economic system was implemented. by increasing the wealth of its citizens and creating a more capitalist oriented economy the theory was this would make china more democratic. this second strategy has completely failed and its failure has had the effect of reversing the success of the first as china and russia are renewing ties. the hold of the communist party in china has actually increased, and with the advent of modern surveillance technology is more intrusive than ever. while the political strategy failed the economic aspects did not. china is on a path to become the largest economy in the world. much of that new wealth is being used to increase the size and technological advantage of its military and to spread its influence world wide. the US economy can absorb and adapt to the cessation of trade with china. other democratic countries must follow suit. hopefully we can force the chinese economy to slow if not contract. we have until 2047 to tame china
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@allen
It was never about moving Chin towards democracy, it was always about getting cheap labor. If it were about democracy, we would have lifted the Cuba embargo decades ago.
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@allen: Nixon and Kissinger were never big fans of the free, democratic aspects of democracy. I always thought Nixon was as interested in picking up some tips on how to deal with unruly students, as anything else.
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@allen
Hong Kong wants democracy.
China does NOT democracy. The people want stability and prosperity. So does the CCP.
Trump has done more to get the Chinese to support a the CCP's one party system than anything the CCP has done. The CCP points out that in a one party system, everyone who competes for high office is carefully groomed and vetted. But in an open Democracy, China could elect someone like Trump.
4
Trump may have sealed his fate when he said that people had to vote for him, like him or not, because he was good for the economy. Well, if Trump equates his political future with something he keeps messing around...
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@NM
Unfortunately, people voted for racism and xenophobia; not for the economy. He's safe.
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@NM
But will they remember this statement in November 2020.
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