The Dumbest of Trade Wars
The idea of running a government like a business has a lot of inherent flaws. Especially in a representative government, where the leaders are supposed to do the will of the people in hopes of improving society for all. As opposed to a business where the leaders do the will of the owners and the one and only end goal is profit. Profit for those at the top.
Even if you wanted to run a government like a business (don't)... the least you should do is find the best business person possible for the CEO. Not someone who inherited the majority of their wealth. Not someone with multiple bankruptcies, including casinos with Russian mob ties. Or someone with multiple businesses closed due to fraud, including a charity. Or someone with 34 felonies involving financial crimes, multiple lawsuits for defrauding and not paying contractors, with some sexual assault and libel as well. Or someone who still can't spell parade six months into planning a multimillion dollar birthday parade for themselves. Definitely not someone who would tick all those boxes.
But here we are, and one of the biggest pieces of evidence this is all a bad idea is the dumbest trade war in history. It will take historians years to really parse out all the obvious horrible missteps and poor planning on behalf of the Trump administration. And just boneheaded moves. But I'll try to simplify and highlight the dumbest of the dumb.
Something to chew on real quick first, to really show how incredibly dumb and full of bs the Trump administration and their trade war is. Their main excuse is to bring factory jobs back to the US. At the same time, they want the tariff profits (and other tax monies) to go towards AI and automation development. So the real goal isn't bringing factory jobs, it's to bring the factories. So that US tech companies have more clients to sell their robot workers to. All things working to "plan" means the people of the US will pay for the government to help tech companies replace workers and have fewer high paid skilled labor jobs. Because even the jobs that already exist will be transitioned to automation as it improves.
First, before starting any kind of conflict, don't spit in your friends faces. Knowing that the main goal is China, why go so hard against Mexico and Canada? Not much reported in the US media, but when Trump announced the first round of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, both countries reached out to China and Japan to to secure resources they were buying from the US and sell them things they were selling us. Because at this time they are still fulfilling pre-existing contracts, those new deals haven't affected the US too much yet, but over the next year it will become more and more apparent as prices continue to rise on products and resources we used to get cheaply from our neighbors. Because the US cannot replace what we've already lost from Canada and Mexico, and those aren't the only countries who turned to China for new deals since all the tariff bs started.
So that puts the US in a weaker position. And China's position is strengthened by all the new deals they are making with our other major trade partners. If you wanted to take an adversarial approach to trade with China, start by developing stronger ties with your own allies, and finding ways to undermine their trade with others. For example only Brazil is capable of making up the loss of soy the US sells to China. Make a deal with Brazil that ensures they wont increase soy sales to China. Now the US is the only one capable of supplying soy in the quantity China needs, and that's a huge bargaining chip. Instead we put tariffs on Brazilian goods with no negotiations in place, making them not trust the US as a trade partner and pretty much forcing them to turn to China to try and make up for lost sales to the US. Removing one of the US's biggest potential leverages, and helping China in the process instead.
What do you think the blanket tariffs against every county did? There was no 90 deals in 90 days. Not for the US anyways. China however is now certain to push US auto sales out of Canada and Mexico with cheaper and better product, while also getting resources at a lower price that would have come to the US.
The other really major boneheaded moronic error the Trump administration is making is, xenophobic underestimating the Chinese. Some of the moves the Trump admin made could have made sense, if this were the 1980s. They really don't get how much China has changed. While yes, they still have some factories that make cheap products they sell to US companies who resell them for 100x the value... that's not what drives their economy anymore. After nearly three decades of that kind of industry, they rebuilt their entire infrastructure and now primarily have highly skilled labor. Highly skilled labor and highly advanced infrastructure that allows them to produce better cars and better electronics than any competitors.
Beyond that, they didn't just transition away from making cheap goods. They worked with neighboring countries to move those jobs to them, and are helping to develop their economies the way they did their own. Only in warp speed mode, having China's assistance. China now trades more with their immediate neighbors than the US. They are also repeating this model in Africa, guaranteeing future economic growth for both. They are the #1 trading partner with Brazil, South America's largest economy. And now new deals with the US's two neighbors which are starting to be enacted... The idea that China relies on the US market like it did even 10 years ago is ridiculously uninformed. Hell, China no longer relies on the Us market nearly as much as it did in January of 2025, directly because of the missteps of Trump.
Well, I say missteps, and a lot of it is, but not entirely. Along with the stupidity comes maliciousness and corruption. Part of what is happening is intentional, an attempt to punish perceived enemies, but doing so in such a cartoonishly stupid way they keep shooting themselves in the foot. And, which I hope to get into later, US companies are bribing both parties (but especially easily bribable Trump) to turn the US into a company town. Where a few investment firms, who are heavily invested in each other making it really one investment conglomerate, owns everything. Everything. Just three of those firms are majority owners of stock in most us industries, controlling all major competing companies. They are also buying up houses and rental properties across the country. As well as farmland. All the real assets people need to survive, and the jobs they have to work to buy them.
But yeah... dumbest trade war in history. Absolutely unnecessary too.
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