Vanity Fair - STEVE MNUCHIN ADMITS WHITE HOUSE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT'S DOING ON TRADE

[Algernon Moncrieff]

Link

During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told angry lawmakers that the administration has no strategy to resolve things with Beijing. Saying trade talks with China had “broken down,” Mnuchin basically admitted that the U.S. was out of ideas, and that it’s up to China to offer concessions—otherwise, the tariffs will continue. “Is there a master plan?” asked Representative Mia Love, to which we imagine Mnuchin became the human embodiment of the shrug emoji. Representative Jeb Hensarling, a supporter of the president, was unimpressed by Mnuchin’s claims that the Treasury is “monitoring the impact on the economy of all these trade issues,” telling the secretary, “I appreciate the words; I am concerned about the deeds.” Meanwhile, lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee didn’t get much more out of Trump official Manisha Singh, who heads the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs:

“The administration needs to explain to Congress where this is all headed,” Senator Bob Corker told Singh. “To my knowledge, not a single person is able to articulate where this is headed, nor what the plans are, nor what the strategy is,” Corker said.

The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, told Singh at another point that “I don’t understand what the pathway is here, at the end of the day.”

Singh . . . defended the administration’s moves. “Our endgame is for China to change its behavior,” she said.

After Singh tried to explain the administration’s approach, Corker replied, “That enlightened us in no way.”

For its part, China reportedly can’t even tell whom it’s supposed to be negotiating with, after tentative agreements with Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross fell through. “I think they’re coming to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter whether Mnuchin or Ross or anybody is in the front of the line, that it’s really going to be figuring out what Trump wants,” Claire Reade, an attorney at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, told The New York Times. On Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued a statement saying, “For the purpose of meeting domestic political needs and suppressing China’s development, the U.S. has fabricated a set of policy arguments that distort the truth about Sino-U.S. economic and trade relations.” Things, in other words, are going swimmingly.

Remember when Donald Trump told U.K. right-wing rag The Sun that British Prime Minister Theresa May had screwed up Brexit by trying to negotiate a “soft“ deal, and that if she went through with it it he’d likely cancel a previously planned bilateral trade deal between Britain and the U.S., and that her political rival, Boris Johnson, would make a great prime minister, at a time when May is facing a vote of no confidence? You should, because it happened just yesterday. But according to Trump, none of those things ever happened.

[HipChick]

1. Does Steve have another job lined up?

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. LOL, I didn't need Mnuchin to tell me that.

[Elwood P Dowd]

3. President Clusterfuck is taking us towards another republican recession.

With inflation close to 3% and rising, the economy will eventually crash. It's not going to take 5 years of fuck-ups like Bush Jr before the crash.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. The housing bubble is about to break

Maybe not as bad as the great recession, but prices are likely to begin to fall. Baby boomers are cashing out family homes to go off to retirement while interest is rising.

[eleny]

4. Now a warning?

As if his cult followers give a damn as they cling ever more tightly to their racist vote.

[greymattermom]

5. Actually I think they do know.

They are churning the stock market, buying on down days, selling on up days, all for short term personal gain.

[Beartracks]

6. They have no idea on anything. Except: "The rich need more money." And, well...

... also this: "Democracy interrupts the flow of money to the rich."

==============

[Guilded Lilly]

7. The Administration is brain dead about everything.