From Crashes to Capitalism: Trump’s Tariffs Reshape Trade

Eco­nom­ic ups and downs from the 1970s gas short­ages through the Clin­ton dot-com boom, 9/11, Bush-era volatil­i­ty, Obama’s stagfla­tion, and Trump’s 2016 push for true cap­i­tal­ism. Today’s stock mar­ket crash and tar­iffs are a reset toward fair trade, dis­miss­ing media fears of China’s retal­i­a­tion. Chi­na, depen­dent on U.S. mar­kets, will nego­ti­ate, as will Tai­wan and Thai­land, while Canada’s 25% tar­iff on U.S. vehi­cles is ques­tioned. Trump’s strategy—pairing tar­iffs with cuts to waste and fraud—aims to rebuild a sol­id eco­nom­ic foun­da­tion for future gen­er­a­tions, despite resis­tance from prof­it-dri­ven com­pa­nies and a dis­con­nect­ed D.C. elite.

• All you hear is about the tar­iffs, stock mar­ket crash, reces­sion. But many made it through the 70s when you could only get a tank of gas based on the num­ber of your license plate. The Bush years. The Clin­ton years, the dot com boom, that was not built on true cap­i­tal­ism. Then we had 9/11 and the stock mar­ket then, and George W we had anoth­er stock mar­ket go wild. Then we had a lot of bad mar­riages that were worth­less. Then the stock mar­ket col­lapsed again. Oba­ma came in and had stagfla­tion with­out any struc­ture of an econ­o­my. Then Trump comes in 2016 and we start to resem­ble an econ­o­my for true mar­ket cap­i­tal­ism. 
• It seems that no mat­ter who is in office we have the stock mar­ket rise and then it plunges and cer­tain peo­ple are able to ben­e­fit from the loss­es. You are watch­ing some­thing hap­pen that has no foun­da­tion. The foun­da­tion is propped up with mon­ey and it has been washed out. Here we are with the stock mar­ket is bot­tom­ing out yet again and when we come out the oth­er side it will be based on true mar­ket prin­ci­ples and fair trade mar­kets. You will con­tin­ue to hear that Chi­na is retal­i­at­ing. None of the net­works are hav­ing any­thing pos­i­tive that will come out of this. 
• It is high time for us to do things in this coun­try for the good of the coun­ty and not based on re-elec­tion and their num­bers. Most of them in DC don’t under­stand back home. Their finan­cial future is based on DC. 
• Chi­na is hurt­ing. They can not sell to their peo­ple only and hav­ing their cur­ren­cy turn their econ­o­my they need Amer­i­can mon­ey. The rest of the world has to have Amer­i­can cur­ren­cy. They can­not sus­tain with­out it. They will come to the table. 
• Cana­da put a 25% on Amer­i­can made vehi­cles, they have our fac­to­ries. It is high­ly unlike­ly we ship any­thing into their coun­try. 
• If Trump was going out on his own with tar­iffs and not look­ing at waste­ful spend­ing and find­ing fraud, those are the legs of the stool. We are going to get a tax pol­i­cy. It will stand. Trump is using tar­iffs to nego­ti­ate. 
• Tai­wan has no plans to retal­i­ate against Trump tar­iffs, they are ready to nego­ti­ate. Thai­land to boost US imports in response to Trump’s tar­iffs. Two weeks ago no one con­sid­ered putting US prod­ucts on their shelves at a reduced price. Japan is try­ing to work with Trump right now. Our allies are the ones that are real­ly upset. These coun­tries around the world are look­ing at open­ing up their mar­kets for Amer­i­can prod­ucts. We have to take hard steps now to turn it around for our chil­dren. 
• All over the south, there were tex­tile fac­to­ries. Now 97% of clothes and shoes are import­ed. Can it ever come back to this coun­try? They don’t want to come to the US because it cuts into the prof­it for the com­pa­ny.