Fareed Zacharia on Trump EU trade newsconference:
"SNIP......
President Trump’s “Fixes” Are Starting to Sound Familiar
President Trump’s joint statement Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declaring victory on trade had a familiar ring to it, writes Aaron Blake for The Washington Post. That’s not a good thing.
“From a political standpoint, the strategy makes sense. Diplomacy is complicated and extremely difficult for your average American to understand, as is trade. Trump has also shown he’s not particularly worried about the media and experts parsing his comments and casting doubt on his victories, as long as he can sell them to a base that has stood by Trump through thick and thin and almost always seen his exploits in the best possible light,” Blake writes.
“If your only goal is to appeal to voters who already mistrust what the media and experts are telling them and you have little regard for specifics, it becomes easier to manufacture crises and then claim you have used them to obtain concessions. As long as the EU imports more soybeans, Trump has something specific he can point to as a deliverable from his trade war strategy. And people who want to believe Trump will believe he just stuck it to the EU and bent it to his will.”
.....SNIP"
= new reply since forum marked as read
Auto and manufacturing companies were reporting lower numbers as a result of steel and aluminum tariffs already, and the Dotard needed an out before he crashed the market - "We'll buy some soybeans" looks good. 