KW: ‘Rope a Dope’ was a famous quote courtesy Muhammad Ali uttered just before he re took the heavyweight boxing crown back from George Foreman. It seems according to this explanatory video this is exactly what Trump is doing to himself and the U.S. economy. Roping the Dope. This is a good explanation about the effects of Trumps tarrifs on Chinese goods. Of course he doesn’t seem to understand that China is not paying the tarrifs but it is the American consumer who pays the higher prices. They are the losers!! Self inflicted wounds and assured economic death! Worse, trade wars that attempt strangulation of an opposing economy and country leads to real shooting wars and Trump having weaponsed the U.S.$ has with sanctions and tarrifs on so many countries has attacked the rights of those countries the world over to earn a living by imposing these tarrifs. Trump boasts openly that he is a great negotiator and that the Chinese are desperate for deal. Well you don’t go boasting about beating the opposition in negotiating if you want  a deal and  to get a deal there has to be a win/win and what happened China struck back. Trump is deluded.

Mike Maloney as he examines the latest moves in the US/China trade war, and visits some compelling arguments from the Foundation for Economic Education. To quote their article by Mark J Perry: “It’s a scientifically and mathematically provable fact that all tariffs, at any time and in any country, will harm economic growth, eliminate net jobs, destroy prosperity, and lower the standard of living of the protectionist country because tariffs are guaranteed by the ironclad laws of economics to generate costs to consumers that outweigh the benefits to producers, i.e. tariffs will always impose deadweight losses on the protectionist country (see diagram below, and “An economic analysis of protectionism clearly shows that Trump’s tariffs would make us poorer, not greater“). That is, the reality that tariffs always inflict great economic damage and leave society worse off is not a debatable outcome, rather it’s a provable fact, like the law of gravity.”