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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNot the Onion: EU Chief Used Bright, Simple Flash Cards to Explain Trade War to Trump
As a result of the meeting, Trump said that he would not increase tariffs on European cars and that the European Union would buy more soybeans and liquified natural gas from the United States. During joint remarks in the White House Rose Garden, it was announced that the leaders would "work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods."
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The senior EU official said that Trump was in a good mood and ready to negotiate, and responded well to the cards Juncker had prepared. Juncker reportedly explained to Trump that a war of increasing tariffs was a lose-lose situation. If you want to be stupid, he told Trump, I can be stupid, as well.
We knew this wasnt an academic seminar, the EU official told The Wall Street Journal. It had to be very simple.
https://www.newsweek.com/eu-chief-trump-flash-cards-1044433
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,659 posts)"OK, Mr. President, here's how tariffs work. See this card? This is Jimmy. Jimmy lives in America and he builds cars. This card here is a picture of the cars Jimmy builds. Jimmy would like to sell more cars, but some mean people in Germany send their hoity-toity cars, like the BMW on this next card, to America and sometimes people buy them instead of Jimmy's cars. Isn't that terrible?
So what you do, Mr. President, to make Jimmy happy, is put a tariff on those nasty German cars when those nasty Germans send them to America! Do you know what a tariff is? It's a kind of a tax that makes those cars more expensive, and then people would buy Jimmy's cars instead. Isn't that nice? Here's a picture of Angela Merkel. You know Angela; she's that mean German lady who wasn't nice to you. She looks sad in this picture because your tariffs will make Americans buy fewer German cars.
What is mean, sad Angela going to do? Why, she gets together with her mean friends at the EU who weren't nice to you, and they do tariffs on things they import from America! Here's a picture of a soybean. And here's a picture of natural gas. There's nothing on the card because you can't see natural gas. But now, because of these tariffs, America's soy beans and natural gas are more expensive and the Europe people won't buy them. Farmers in America - here is a picture of a farmer - will be sad even though Jimmy the car maker is happy."
What are you going to do now? Here is a quiz. You have 10 minutes to answer the questions.
1. If there are more car manufacturers than farmers in America, will you lift the car tariffs? What if there are more farmers than car manufacturers?
2. If the car tariffs make Angela Merkel sad, will you keep them even if Ivanka wants to buy an Audi?
3. Do you think Russian cars should be included in the tariffs? Why or why not?
4. Would you consider funding technology that would make it possible to make cars out of soy beans?
5. Beans cause gas. Should soy beans be used to make natural gas?
****
Time's up... Oh, didn't you answer any of them? Would you like to look at the cards again? No? How about if I give you a hamburger?"
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Buns_of_Fire
(17,173 posts)ehrnst
(32,640 posts)SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)FirstLight
(13,359 posts)Our "stable Genius" doesn't even try to understand nuance...so the only way to negotiate is to dumb it down to his level.
I feel sick.
When will we finally be RID of this poor excuse for a human, much less a leader...?