Blaming China is dead end for Trump election hopes

First posted in Asia Times

In April, the US Republican Party issued a playbook for the November election. Put simply: Blame the Covid-19 pandemic and everything else on China and do not bother to defend President Donald Trump. As matters have unraveled since then, it’s becoming obvious the strategy will not work.

Trump and his faithful henchman Mike Pompeo continue to hammer home the message that China did not tell the world about Covid-19 in a timely manner, did not share its knowledge about the virus, and may even have created it in one of its own labs. 

But the narrative lacks authenticity and rings more hollow with repetition. To bolster a tenuous accusation, Pompeo has to exaggerate when the virus first struck in China and the length of time the authorities kept silent. 

While the two sides will never agree between what Pompeo said and China said, it has become obvious that regardless of when the Trump administration knew about the virus, it let weeks if not months go by before taking action.

Trump is betting his re-election on a healthy economy. He is desperately wishing for a normal recovery without paying the price of a nationwide lockdown, testing, mandating wearing facial masks and maintaining social distance. 

Unemployment remains over 11% and nearly 50 million Americans have filed unemployment claims for their first time. To inject liquidity and keep businesses afloat and wage earners from drowning in debt, Congress authorized the sending of checks on a massive scale.

Unemployment remains over 11% and nearly 50 million Americans have filed unemployment claims for their first time. To inject liquidity and keep businesses afloat and wage earners from drowning in debt, Congress authorized the sending of checks on a massive scale. 

The federal budget deficit for June was well over $800 billion, more than a tenfold increase from the same month last year.

The June World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund projected that the US economy will shrink by roughly 8% for the year. Canada is slightly worse and Germany slightly better, while most European economies will experience the pain of negative 10% growth or more. 

Only China is expected to show a 1% gain in gross domestic product. The country bit the bullet, clamped down hard and brought the virus under control quickly, measures the Western countries were reluctant to take.

History may well credit Trump’s stupidity for facilitating China’s economic rise and surge past the US. His administration and some poorly informed Republican senators seem to think that the US is the fountainhead of all advanced technology and the Chinese only come to America to steal.

As The New York Times reported, the artificial-intelligence project contracted to Google by the Defense Department was powered by brilliant Chinese citizens on the staff. This was OK with the DoD because it wanted the most qualified minds on the job.

Eric Schmidt, former Google chief executive officer and current adviser to the DoD, said restricting entry of Chinese students is against America’s own self-interest. Some of the best minds are Chinese and they contribute to our national security, he said.

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have launched a joint legal suit against the government to allow foreign students to enter the US even for online classes. More than 40% of their international students are from China.

But many students admitted from China are hesitating. They fear the whiplash of abrupt changes in the Trump policy and being caught by surprise in the blanket “whole of society” arrest for spying by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If some of these students decide to continue their work at home, they will further China’s advances in 5G, AI, wireless applications, quantum computing and advanced weapon development. By recently completing the Beidou satellite navigation system to compete with the US Global Positioning System, China has severed another dependence on American technology. So far 130 countries have adopted the Chinese system.

Trump’s aversion to reality

Trump did not want to face the reality of the virus and the need to confront the contagion. He thought the virus was a hoax. A 30-year-old man who believed Trump recently attended a “Covid party” in Texas and died from the disease. The chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio said his dying words were, “I thought it was a hoax.”

Trump sneered at those wearing a mask as unmanly and wearing a mask became not a matter of public health but was politicized and became a sign of disloyalty to Trump.

Trump does not understand science and does not care. On various occasions he suggested treatments for the disease without any basis in science. He also thought the virus would go away in the summer months. 

His scientific advisers such as Dr Anthony Fauci, whose advice could make a difference in guiding the American public to a healthier lifestyle, have been relegated to the back stage simply because what they have to say contradicts Trump’s public positions.

Trump is a president who does not care about the welfare of the American people. Regardless of the deadly consequences of the outbreak, he does not want social distancing, he does not want shelter-in-place and he wants businesses operating as usual.

Appallingly, he thinks too much testing is the reason for too many cases. Data from testing gives him the bad news that he doesn’t want to know, and facts merely confuse him.

He has managed the epidemic so badly already more than 135,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, nearly one-quarter of the world’s total, coming from just 5% of the world’s population. 

Virtually all developing countries with threadbare health-care systems have handled the pandemic better than the US. Yet Trump has shamelessly given himself credit for a superb job because actual death count “could have been higher.” 

Being a totally ignorant, incompetent, and irresponsible president fits Trump to a T. He cares only about himself and other than his core base he has no empathy for anyone else.

Having seen him in action for nearly four years, what does the rest of the world think of him? Apparently very little.

Trump’s top diplomat, the pompous Pompeo with a perpetual smirk, prances around the world urging and sometimes threatening countries to adopt the US anti-China line, or else. But action speaks louder than words. The world has come to understand that “America first” means everybody else last.

When he first heard a rumor that a German company was near a breakthrough in developing a vaccine for Covid-19, Pompeo’s instinct was to try to acquire the company and relocate it to the US. The German government objected, so his idea of monopolizing the vaccine fell through. 

Of course, typical of anyone ignorant of science, Pompeo did not understand that developing an effective and proven-safe vaccine takes time and is fraught with uncertainty. Buying the German company could have turned out to be a foolish bet.

Today, many vaccine candidates are in the running. Some of the leading potential vaccines in final stages of clinical testing are being developed in China, and China has announced its intention to share its research with the world. 

This is in contrast to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company whose mere announcement of a possible approach to a vaccine was good enough for Wall Street to get excited and the founders to cash out and take millions to the bank. 

China has shown to the world that it took strict and draconian measures to bring the coronavirus under control and now is actively supplying personal protective equipment to other countries in need. China also continue to work within the World Health Organization to help quell the worldwide pandemic.

194 nations in WHO vs one US

The 194 nations that are members of the WHO have the common goal of collaboration to detect and contain outbreaks because contagious diseases know no national boundaries. They were aghast that Trump would withdraw the US membership because the WHO has made him look bad by contradicting some of his hyperbole and misstatements.

What to make of Trump’s pettiness? German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation any more than you fight it with hate or incitement to hatred.” So much for the Trump/Pompeo perception that the US continues to enjoy the world’s respect.

Domestically, the Trump administration has fared even worse. The brutal murder of George Floyd triggered nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Instead of reaching out to the black communities with words of sympathy and support to cool things down, Trump used the pulpit to castigate the protesters and threaten to shoot them. 

His act that passes for empathy was to order the National Guard to clear away the protesters near the White House so that Trump could walk to St John’s Church for a souvenir photo of him holding a Bible. Since he’s not known to be a reader of the Bible or for that matter any book, it was a strikingly strange and awkward photo with not one scintilla of sincerity.

Black lives don’t matter to Trump

His distaste and racial bias for all people of color is palpable. He openly praised the glory of the Confederacy, condemned the destruction of statues of Confederate generals and accused the BLM protests as acts of terrorism. 

He has not acknowledged the centuries of racial injustice and made no attempt to heal the wounds white supremacy has imposed on the black communities for centuries.

Naval showdown in South China Sea

Asia Times reported the simultaneous naval exercises in the South China Sea by two US aircraft-carrier strike groups and a comparable Chinese flotilla that took place around July 4. The article expressed concern over possible conflict at sea.

Another observer worried that the Trump administration could be orchestrating another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Readers may remember the alleged firefight that did not take place on Tonkin Gulf but which gave Washington the pretense to start the Vietnam War.

Observers from China noted that the American fleet was east of the Philippines while the People’s Liberation Army Navy was near the Paracel Islands, well inside the South China Sea and a safe social distance apart. The Chinese test-fired their full array of advanced weapons including missiles that they claim are carrier killers for the benefit of the American observers.

Letting the Americans see is consistent with China’s past practices. Acording to Physics Today, it once invited an American intelligence officer to visit and learn about China’s nuclear weapon test and development. They want to make sure the Pentagon is fully informed and does not miscalculate.

The author of the Physics Today article was Thomas Reed, former US secretary of the Air Force. His concluding statement was, “Over a period of 15 years, an intellectually talented China achieved parity with the West and preeminence over its Asian peers in the design of nuclear weapons and in understanding underground nuclear testing. China now stands in the first rank of nuclear powers.”

Whether members of the Trump administration are smart enough to get the message from the South China Sea remains to be seen.

Dissident movement against Trump

There is growing disenchantment with the Trump government within the ranks of the Republican Party and among the rank and file of the military. They see that Trump has no regard for the sanctity of the US constitution and his henchmen can break the law at will and count on the president to issue them “get out of jail free” cards. 

The dissidents see that under the Trump administration, the US has completely lost the respect and admiration of the international community of nations.

They see that Trump will only divide the American people according to black and colored vs the white supremacists, and between the states that want to contain the epidemic and the states that blindly follow him for the sake of economic activity.

They see no hope of stopping the pandemic and bringing about economic recovery under Trump’s management and they see that his re-election would only destroy the Republican Party, begin a death spiral for America and cause a disastrous ripple across the world.

Eric Schmidt, former Google chief executive officer and current adviser to the DoD, said restricting entry of Chinese students is against America’s own self-interest. Some of the best minds are Chinese and they contribute to our national security, he said.

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have launched a joint legal suit against the government to allow foreign students to enter the US even for online classes. More than 40% of their international students are from China.

But many students admitted from China are hesitating. They fear the whiplash of abrupt changes in the Trump policy and being caught by surprise in the blanket “whole of society” arrest for spying by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If some of these students decide to continue their work at home, they will further China’s advances in 5G, AI, wireless applications, quantum computing and advanced weapon development. By recently completing the Beidou satellite navigation system to compete with the US Global Positioning System, China has severed another dependence on American technology. So far 130 countries have adopted the Chinese system.

Trump’s aversion to reality

Trump did not want to face the reality of the virus and the need to confront the contagion. He thought the virus was a hoax. A 30-year-old man who believed Trump recently attended a “Covid party” in Texas and died from the disease. The chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio said his dying words were, “I thought it was a hoax.”

Trump sneered at those wearing a mask as unmanly and wearing a mask became not a matter of public health but was politicized and became a sign of disloyalty to Trump.

Trump does not understand science and does not care. On various occasions he suggested treatments for the disease without any basis in science. He also thought the virus would go away in the summer months. 

His scientific advisers such as Dr Anthony Fauci, whose advice could make a difference in guiding the American public to a healthier lifestyle, have been relegated to the back stage simply because what they have to say contradicts Trump’s public positions.

Trump is a president who does not care about the welfare of the American people. Regardless of the deadly consequences of the outbreak, he does not want social distancing, he does not want shelter-in-place and he wants businesses operating as usual.

Appallingly, he thinks too much testing is the reason for too many cases. Data from testing gives him the bad news that he doesn’t want to know, and facts merely confuse him.

He has managed the epidemic so badly already more than 135,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, nearly one-quarter of the world’s total, coming from just 5% of the world’s population. 

Virtually all developing countries with threadbare health-care systems have handled the pandemic better than the US. Yet Trump has shamelessly given himself credit for a superb job because actual death count “could have been higher.” 

Being a totally ignorant, incompetent, and irresponsible president fits Trump to a T. He cares only about himself and other than his core base he has no empathy for anyone else.

Having seen him in action for nearly four years, what does the rest of the world think of him? Apparently very little.

Trump’s top diplomat, the pompous Pompeo with a perpetual smirk, prances around the world urging and sometimes threatening countries to adopt the US anti-China line, or else. But action speaks louder than words. The world has come to understand that “America first” means everybody else last.

When he first heard a rumor that a German company was near a breakthrough in developing a vaccine for Covid-19, Pompeo’s instinct was to try to acquire the company and relocate it to the US. The German government objected, so his idea of monopolizing the vaccine fell through. 

Of course, typical of anyone ignorant of science, Pompeo did not understand that developing an effective and proven-safe vaccine takes time and is fraught with uncertainty. Buying the German company could have turned out to be a foolish bet.

Today, many vaccine candidates are in the running. Some of the leading potential vaccines in final stages of clinical testing are being developed in China, and China has announced its intention to share its research with the world. 

This is in contrast to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company whose mere announcement of a possible approach to a vaccine was good enough for Wall Street to get excited and the founders to cash out and take millions to the bank. 

China has shown to the world that it took strict and draconian measures to bring the coronavirus under control and now is actively supplying personal protective equipment to other countries in need. China also continue to work within the World Health Organization to help quell the worldwide pandemic.

194 nations in WHO vs one US

The 194 nations that are members of the WHO have the common goal of collaboration to detect and contain outbreaks because contagious diseases know no national boundaries. They were aghast that Trump would withdraw the US membership because the WHO has made him look bad by contradicting some of his hyperbole and misstatements.

What to make of Trump’s pettiness? German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation any more than you fight it with hate or incitement to hatred.” So much for the Trump/Pompeo perception that the US continues to enjoy the world’s respect.

Domestically, the Trump administration has fared even worse. The brutal murder of George Floyd triggered nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Instead of reaching out to the black communities with words of sympathy and support to cool things down, Trump used the pulpit to castigate the protesters and threaten to shoot them. 

His act that passes for empathy was to order the National Guard to clear away the protesters near the White House so that Trump could walk to St John’s Church for a souvenir photo of him holding a Bible. Since he’s not known to be a reader of the Bible or for that matter any book, it was a strikingly strange and awkward photo with not one scintilla of sincerity.

Black lives don’t matter to Trump

His distaste and racial bias for all people of color is palpable. He openly praised the glory of the Confederacy, condemned the destruction of statues of Confederate generals and accused the BLM protests as acts of terrorism. 

He has not acknowledged the centuries of racial injustice and made no attempt to heal the wounds white supremacy has imposed on the black communities for centuries.

Naval showdown in South China Sea

Asia Times reported the simultaneous naval exercises in the South China Sea by two US aircraft-carrier strike groups and a comparable Chinese flotilla that took place around July 4. The article expressed concern over possible conflict at sea.

Another observer worried that the Trump administration could be orchestrating another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Readers may remember the alleged firefight that did not take place on Tonkin Gulf but which gave Washington the pretense to start the Vietnam War.

Observers from China noted that the American fleet was east of the Philippines while the People’s Liberation Army Navy was near the Paracel Islands, well inside the South China Sea and a safe social distance apart. The Chinese test-fired their full array of advanced weapons including missiles that they claim are carrier killers for the benefit of the American observers.

Letting the Americans see is consistent with China’s past practices. Acording to Physics Today, it once invited an American intelligence officer to visit and learn about China’s nuclear weapon test and development. They want to make sure the Pentagon is fully informed and does not miscalculate.

The author of the Physics Today article was Thomas Reed, former US secretary of the Air Force. His concluding statement was, “Over a period of 15 years, an intellectually talented China achieved parity with the West and preeminence over its Asian peers in the design of nuclear weapons and in understanding underground nuclear testing. China now stands in the first rank of nuclear powers.”

Whether members of the Trump administration are smart enough to get the message from the South China Sea remains to be seen.

Dissident movement against Trump

There is growing disenchantment with the Trump government within the ranks of the Republican Party and among the rank and file of the military. They see that Trump has no regard for the sanctity of the US constitution and his henchmen can break the law at will and count on the president to issue them “get out of jail free” cards. 

The dissidents see that under the Trump administration, the US has completely lost the respect and admiration of the international community of nations.

They see that Trump will only divide the American people according to black and colored vs the white supremacists, and between the states that want to contain the epidemic and the states that blindly follow him for the sake of economic activity.

They see no hope of stopping the pandemic and bringing about economic recovery under Trump’s management and they see that his re-election would only destroy the Republican Party, begin a death spiral for America and cause a disastrous ripple across the world.

Trump did not want to face the reality of the virus and the need to confront the contagion. He thought the virus was a hoax. A 30-year-old man who believed Trump recently attended a “Covid party” in Texas and died from the disease. The chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio said his dying words were, “I thought it was a hoax.”

Trump sneered at those wearing a mask as unmanly and wearing a mask became not a matter of public health but was politicized and became a sign of disloyalty to Trump.

Trump does not understand science and does not care. On various occasions he suggested treatments for the disease without any basis in science. He also thought the virus would go away in the summer months. 

His scientific advisers such as Dr Anthony Fauci, whose advice could make a difference in guiding the American public to a healthier lifestyle, have been relegated to the back stage simply because what they have to say contradicts Trump’s public positions.

Trump is a president who does not care about the welfare of the American people. Regardless of the deadly consequences of the outbreak, he does not want social distancing, he does not want shelter-in-place and he wants businesses operating as usual.

Appallingly, he thinks too much testing is the reason for too many cases. Data from testing gives him the bad news that he doesn’t want to know, and facts merely confuse him.

He has managed the epidemic so badly already more than 135,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, nearly one-quarter of the world’s total, coming from just 5% of the world’s population. 

Virtually all developing countries with threadbare health-care systems have handled the pandemic better than the US. Yet Trump has shamelessly given himself credit for a superb job because actual death count “could have been higher.” 

Being a totally ignorant, incompetent, and irresponsible president fits Trump to a T. He cares only about himself and other than his core base he has no empathy for anyone else.

Having seen him in action for nearly four years, what does the rest of the world think of him? Apparently very little.

Trump’s top diplomat, the pompous Pompeo with a perpetual smirk, prances around the world urging and sometimes threatening countries to adopt the US anti-China line, or else. But action speaks louder than words. The world has come to understand that “America first” means everybody else last.

When he first heard a rumor that a German company was near a breakthrough in developing a vaccine for Covid-19, Pompeo’s instinct was to try to acquire the company and relocate it to the US. The German government objected, so his idea of monopolizing the vaccine fell through. 

Of course, typical of anyone ignorant of science, Pompeo did not understand that developing an effective and proven-safe vaccine takes time and is fraught with uncertainty. Buying the German company could have turned out to be a foolish bet.

Today, many vaccine candidates are in the running. Some of the leading potential vaccines in final stages of clinical testing are being developed in China, and China has announced its intention to share its research with the world. 

This is in contrast to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company whose mere announcement of a possible approach to a vaccine was good enough for Wall Street to get excited and the founders to cash out and take millions to the bank. 

China has shown to the world that it took strict and draconian measures to bring the coronavirus under control and now is actively supplying personal protective equipment to other countries in need. China also continue to work within the World Health Organization to help quell the worldwide pandemic.

194 nations in WHO vs one US

The 194 nations that are members of the WHO have the common goal of collaboration to detect and contain outbreaks because contagious diseases know no national boundaries. They were aghast that Trump would withdraw the US membership because the WHO has made him look bad by contradicting some of his hyperbole and misstatements.

What to make of Trump’s pettiness? German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation any more than you fight it with hate or incitement to hatred.” So much for the Trump/Pompeo perception that the US continues to enjoy the world’s respect.

Domestically, the Trump administration has fared even worse. The brutal murder of George Floyd triggered nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Instead of reaching out to the black communities with words of sympathy and support to cool things down, Trump used the pulpit to castigate the protesters and threaten to shoot them. 

His act that passes for empathy was to order the National Guard to clear away the protesters near the White House so that Trump could walk to St John’s Church for a souvenir photo of him holding a Bible. Since he’s not known to be a reader of the Bible or for that matter any book, it was a strikingly strange and awkward photo with not one scintilla of sincerity.

Black lives don’t matter to Trump

His distaste and racial bias for all people of color is palpable. He openly praised the glory of the Confederacy, condemned the destruction of statues of Confederate generals and accused the BLM protests as acts of terrorism. 

He has not acknowledged the centuries of racial injustice and made no attempt to heal the wounds white supremacy has imposed on the black communities for centuries.

Naval showdown in South China Sea

Asia Times reported the simultaneous naval exercises in the South China Sea by two US aircraft-carrier strike groups and a comparable Chinese flotilla that took place around July 4. The article expressed concern over possible conflict at sea.

Another observer worried that the Trump administration could be orchestrating another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Readers may remember the alleged firefight that did not take place on Tonkin Gulf but which gave Washington the pretense to start the Vietnam War.

Observers from China noted that the American fleet was east of the Philippines while the People’s Liberation Army Navy was near the Paracel Islands, well inside the South China Sea and a safe social distance apart. The Chinese test-fired their full array of advanced weapons including missiles that they claim are carrier killers for the benefit of the American observers.

Letting the Americans see is consistent with China’s past practices. Acording to Physics Today, it once invited an American intelligence officer to visit and learn about China’s nuclear weapon test and development. They want to make sure the Pentagon is fully informed and does not miscalculate.

The author of the Physics Today article was Thomas Reed, former US secretary of the Air Force. His concluding statement was, “Over a period of 15 years, an intellectually talented China achieved parity with the West and preeminence over its Asian peers in the design of nuclear weapons and in understanding underground nuclear testing. China now stands in the first rank of nuclear powers.”

Whether members of the Trump administration are smart enough to get the message from the South China Sea remains to be seen.

Dissident movement against Trump

There is growing disenchantment with the Trump government within the ranks of the Republican Party and among the rank and file of the military. They see that Trump has no regard for the sanctity of the US constitution and his henchmen can break the law at will and count on the president to issue them “get out of jail free” cards. 

The dissidents see that under the Trump administration, the US has completely lost the respect and admiration of the international community of nations.

They see that Trump will only divide the American people according to black and colored vs the white supremacists, and between the states that want to contain the epidemic and the states that blindly follow him for the sake of economic activity.

They see no hope of stopping the pandemic and bringing about economic recovery under Trump’s management and they see that his re-election would only destroy the Republican Party, begin a death spiral for America and cause a disastrous ripple across the world.

A skeptical view of phase one China trade deal

First posted on Asia Times.

US President Donald Trump loves to take victory laps, even tiny ones that go around a throw rug.

Take the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump suffers from severe autoimmune distress over anything that includes “free trade.”

Thus Trump tore up NAFTA and renegotiated a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that required 13 months of effort, after which he proclaimed it as the best and most important trade deal ever made by the US.

Though tweaked around the edges, CNN among many others thought the two deals “are far more alike than they are different.” In other words, not such a big deal.

The just-concluded “first phase” of the US-China trade agreement, which took more than two years to reach a signing ceremony, deserves an even more dubious victory lap. Based on the information dribbling out of Washington, the deal seemed more cobbled together than reflecting two years of intense negotiation.

The Chinese side has very politely expressed hope that the signing of the first phase will lead to the resumption of free and open trade that existed before the trade war was initiated by the Trump White House.

What has the new trade agreement accomplished? Trump proclaimed that the deal is a win for the American middle class. But at his White House celebration of the agreement, he was surrounded by his multibillionaire donors and supporters. They are the true beneficiaries.

When Trump levied tariffs on imports from China to start the trade war, China reciprocated with tariffs on American imports. The end result was that Trump did not get his trade deficit with China reduced. Instead, the trade deficit stayed about the same as before the trade war.

But during the two-year war, American farmers sat on soybeans they couldn’t sell and had to depend on US$25 billion in subsidies from the federal government to stay solvent. The subsidy support wasn’t enough and farm bankruptcies surged by 24% in 2019 anyway.

Can American farmers sleep better at night now? Not really. The Phase 1 trade agreement is almost a version of one agreement, two countries, each according to its own interpretation.

Trump expects China to act as a command economy and commit to buying from the US to return to former levels of soybean import. China has established other suppliers now and insists that market forces will determine whom they will buy from and how much.

This means American farmers can no longer count on a predictable market for their harvest and without a stable and steady buyer, they can’t plant and avoid exposure to devastating financial losses due to “market forces.” Thanks to Trump’s trade war, gone are the good old days.

The first-phase trade agreement does not provide for a dispute-resolution mechanism involving a third impartial party. Basically, either party can walk away when they believe the other party is not living up to the agreement. It is in essence an agreement that can be canceled for cause or no cause.

China generally does not enter such loosey-goosey agreements, but I believe it has done so in this case because it is making allowances for having to deal with Trump.

The Chinese know from experience and seeing how Trump operates that his word is not worth much. At any point that Trump no longer sees any need for a trade agreement, he could walk.

He needs a deal with China now to buttress his re-election prospects. If and when he is re-elected, who knows how China will figure in his political calculator at that time?

Unlike any of his predecessors, Trump does not know China, nor does he bother. His closest adviser on China is a guy who made up the pseudonym Ron Vara rearranged from the letters of his surname, Navarro.

Whenever Peter Navarro has some especially ludicrous statements to make about China, possibly too embarrassing to attribute to himself, he quotes Ron Vara.

Despite declaring China President Xi Jinping as his great friend, Trump shares no trust or common ground with which to build a relationship with China.

As Trump goes around the world promoting his vision of “America first,” he is telling everybody that they come last.

He has told South Korea and Japan to start paying the US for the expenses of keeping American troops in their countries. Literally protection money.

He has badgered the prime minister of Iraq for half of the oil output to reimburse the US for the cost of rebuilding after the American invasion and destruction of that country. Sort of like charging the family of the executed for the bullet used in the execution.

Except for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump has no friends among world leaders. They snicker behind his back and wince at his fractured English. Donald J Trump even thinks J stands for genius.

And if you are perceived as an enemy of the US, look out, because President Trump has the divine right to send killer drones after you just to keep you from making nasty plans potentially harmful to Americans.

In the meantime, President Xi is going around the world promoting his vision of one world, one community, and making friends with the Belt and Road Initiative. This is the initiative to help trading nations improve their infrastructure and thus bring them closer to other trading nations.

The indefatigable US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been busy making the rounds bad-mouthing China’s BRI deals. When challenged as to what the US has to offer in China’s place, Pompeo’s empty-handed gesture is downright embarrassing.

A significant portion of the Chinese population is rooting for Trump to get re-elected. He has done such a terrific job of eroding America’s leadership and prestige around the world that he might as well finish the task in his second term.

Should Trump fail in his re-election bid and the Democrats take over, it will be well worth remembering that Trump’s approach to China was a total failure.

According to a Forbes article, 84% of the people in China trust their government. The US? Only 33%.

It will be useless and a waste of effort to try to convince the Chinese that they should be more like Americans. The democracy huggers in America had best direct their attention to fixing the dysfunction that is Washington.

Nathan Rich lambasts NYT coverage of Hong Kong

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMm_7jb3Cds for his critique of the NYT slanted and bias coverage of the HK protest.

In contrast, see how CGTN's review of timeline of incidents leading to the protests,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrZvlhizKb0 The program has also carefully document the work of National Endowment for Democracy.

Pick Trump apart before the mid term

This first appeared in Asia Times,https://www.asiatimes.com/2018/10/article/to-win-mid-term-elections-democrats-should-pick-trump-apart/ written before the mid term election. Asia Times also posted a translation of this piece in Chinese.https://www.asiatimes.com/2018/10/article/atc-to-win-mid-term-elections-democrats-should-pick-trump-apart/

As the United States goes into the much-anticipated mid-term election, candidates from the opposition party, the Democrats, need to define and distinguish their positions as a distinct contrast from the values and positions being promoted by Donald Trump.

Trump’s foreign policy of “America first, to hell with everybody else” has alienated even America’s strongest allies. Unilateral actions that have eroded the US position as the global leader offer much fertile ground to differentiate from Trump and the Republican Party.

His abrupt withdrawal from the Paris Accord, despite 195 signatories, is a clear indication that Trump does not care a whit what the community of nations thinks. Democrats should explain to the voters that reducing the emission of greenhouse gases is the most pressing universal challenge facing today’s world.

Abruptly breaking the nuclear weapons ban of 40 years with Russia without any replacement scheme is another dark side of unilateral action. In effect, by renewing the arms race, Trump has made the world a more dangerous place. At the same time, expenditures for a new arms race would add to the federal budget deficit.

Cold War footing

Trump has also deliberately placed China on a new Cold War footing; far from putting America first, his approach will end in self-inflicted losses. Vice-President Pence summarized the anti-China position in his speech early in October.

Just like his boss, Pence accused China of holding a huge trade surplus and forcing American companies to transfer their technology to China. Pence also accused China of having the audacity to “manipulate” the American election.

How? By using inserts in Iowa newspapers to explain that the consequences of Trump’s trade war would be harmful to the farmers’ livelihood.

Put Pence’s accusations together, even if cast in its worst light and without checking against reality, hardly seem to justify threatening to go to war with China.

Very simplistically and flying in the face of basic economic principles, Trump believes that China’s trade surplus is evidence of stealing from the US.  In other words, global free trade is actually a conspiracy against America first.

Trump believes imposing tariffs will solve the “unjust” trade balance. He has even declared that tariffs collected on imports from China would be new revenue to the US Treasury – a source of free money to Trump.

In reality, of course, the tariff would be paid by the importer and passed on to the end consumer in the form of a price increase. Far from free, the tariff represents a new tax for American consumers and taxpayers.

A large portion of imports from China is either made for American companies by contract manufacturing arrangements or by American corporations operating in China. The tariffs would raise the cost of the imports back to the US, but Trump believes that the tariff barrier would encourage American corporations to bring their manufacturing back to America from China.

A naive assumption

Trump’s assumption is naive. The US may no longer have the workers with the needed skills or workers willing to work under the comparably low wages paid in China. Furthermore, manufacturing in China enjoyed complementary supply chains of intermediate products that no longer exist in America.

Even for those operations that could be brought back to the US, it would take time to reestablish and a disruption in the market and to the American economy would be unavoidable.

Trump’s style of trade negotiation is to list demands coupled with the threat of tariffs. The approach may have intimidated Mexico and Canada, but it has not worked with China. He first imposed tariffs on a list of items and was offended that China did not immediately surrender but had the gall to retaliate with their own list of tariffs.

When the tariff war began, China’s stock market tumbled and Trump’s economic team immediately crowed that China was losing the trade war and victory for the US. Recently, it’s the American stock markets’ turn to tumble while China’s held steady. The reality is that short-term stock market fluctuations simply reflect that a long-term lose-lose scenario is in the making.

The Democrats need to explain to the American voters that imposing tariffs will cost everybody more money. American industries that depend on import of materials and intermediates will have to pay more even if the imports do not come from China simply because imports from other countries will raise their prices to match the Chinese competition with the newly added tariff.

Americans will have to pay more for their daily household items from China because of the added tariff. Even if there were competing imports from other countries, those imports would adjust their prices to reflect the new price from China including the added tariff. The net effect is that the tariff raises the cost of living for everybody.

The Democrats should simply ask: How is this going to help the US? There are plenty of domestic issues that need attention: repairing infrastructure, raising education standards, reducing gun violence and combating drug addiction, to mention a few. Why start a new Cold War to add to the list?

Of course, to become credible critics of Trump’s policy toward China, the Democrats would have to disclaim having been guilty of demonizing China, or at least explain that they see the error of their biases and that making China an enemy is not in America’s national interest.