Trump has 4 years if he survives that long. He's an old man. The trade war can't possibly last long enough for manufacturing to be forced to restart domestically. Even if this was his first term and he got a second, by the time the second rolls around everyone would just hope to wait it out until the Democrats retook the White House and they could import everything from China again. But now no one can even make the argument and be taken seriously that we need this, because if Trump's doing trade wars then it must be a bad idea.
Besides, all the "I'm tariffing! Maybe not. I'm tariffing! I'm super serious this time! Maybe not" leading up to this destroyed confidence that these'll even be fully implemented—the tariffs are still rolling out, and will be until early next month. And if implemented, will he keep them going? Month after month? I don't think most people with capital believe it.
Proof of the uncertainty is that Wall Street clearly thinks there's a good chance he'll back off. That's why the market still has room to keep falling, rather than having already fallen as far as it will for a while. It's got a lot of room left. All that room is people betting he's not going to keep this up.
It's not even necessarily 4 years. If the economy crashes hard there's a very real possibility of a Democratic congress that takes control of tariffing away from the President and removes all of this nonsense. That election is only 18 months away.
IMO if Trump is serious about bringing manufacturing back to US, his No.1 job is to remove all middle-high managers from all government agencies.
The whole government has been bathing in the globalization alcohol for so many years that there is a huge interest group rooted for it to go forever. You can't do much without removing this group.
There is no "legal", "orderly" retreat from the current situation IMHO. It's going to be messy. The issue is whether Trump is doing the job or he is just faking it for whatever the reasons.
Why do you assume it’s governmental middle management that is the driving force of globalization? That project has been a mainstream private industry prerogative for 40+ years.
Right now it seems to be pretty disorderly, not sure about illegal but aren't a lot of things Trump did seem to zero challenge from Congress? I could be wrong definitely.
The "retreat" (in which direction) from the "current situation" (US richest country in the world, as they keep reminding us "Europoors"). What's the US supposed to look like after this purge?
(just a disclaimer that I do not agree or disagree with this bringing back manufacturing to the US, the discussion is solely based on the supposition that Trump wants to bring it back)
Once the purge is done in the public and private sectors (yeah you can imagine that such interest groups exist everywhere), Trump and his allies need to install competitive people to create and execute policies to "bring manufacturing back".
Failing either of the two (purging and reinstalling competitive policy makers) fails the job.
Rich in what, exactly? Inflated stock prices? Inflated home prices? Empty processed-food calories? Are we the richest in recently-built public infrastructure or intellectual property (or both!!)? Maybe we're the richest in collateralized debt obligations?
No one in the United States feels rich, when we look around, we don't see wealth or prosperity. We suspect, though we'd feel silly to say it out loud, that if anyone ever busted into Fort Knox and looked in the vaults, those would be empty of the gold that it was once famous for.
>What's the US supposed to look like after this purge?
I imagine we'll look like what we really have been for a long while, instead of this illusion that everyone has of us.
Come on, US is rich, even compared to Europe. Sure, its just pure money and not happiness, health, safety, high quality education or healthcare availability but raw numbers are there.
It will get poorer economically in upcoming years thanks to gov moves, the wheels have been set in motion. Maybe dollar will tank so that my first sentence won't be valid anymore. Not sure it will be balanced with rest above though.
Trump has 4 years if he survives that long. He's an old man. The trade war can't possibly last long enough for manufacturing to be forced to restart domestically. Even if this was his first term and he got a second, by the time the second rolls around everyone would just hope to wait it out until the Democrats retook the White House and they could import everything from China again. But now no one can even make the argument and be taken seriously that we need this, because if Trump's doing trade wars then it must be a bad idea.