View original postWhere Trump really fucked up here was with his idiotic attacks on other trade partners, threatening tariffs on Canada, Mexico, the EU, and others whilst finally doing something about the undeclared trade war China has been waging against America for a good 10-plus years. Picking fights with multiple trade partners all at the same time is self-defeating and just plain dumb. Plenty of other countries, US allies and otherwise, have serious trade issues with China. A wise leader would have tried to rally them into tackling China together. In both nominal and PPP terms the US GDP is about $29.2T, but the Chinese one goes from $18.3T to $37.1T, in rough numbers. China is big; it, like America, has critical mass economically. It’ll be tough to force change on them without the help and coordination of others. Once some sort of meaningful change has been effected - and it needs to be after the fact because fuck taking any more empty Chinese promises - then would be the time to take up problems with other countries’ trade practices. Alas, he’s on rinse and repeat.