Lex: On (trade) War

In his epic tome On War, Karl Von Clausewitz famously opined, “Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.”  Yeah, I know.  I think what he really meant to say is, “Everything war in is difficult.” But you will not be called a strategic military genius if you state the plain truth in plain language?

I guess it’s like the old saying, “Ten years in prison.  It’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do.” It’s like any project that starts with the famous words, “All we have to do is…” as if what follows will be as simple as watching the ballgame with a cold one and bag of chips while lounging on the couch.  It never works out that way.

So color me skeptical when PDJT announces that “trade wars are good and easy to win.”  I think the idea of a trade war is simple enough.  The Chinese are dumping cheap steel on you and ruining the domestic market so slap a tariff on the ChiCom steel so that the home team can compete.  Simple. 

But then the ChiComs slap a tariff on beef coming in from the US.  So the US slaps a tariff on everything sold at a WalMart store – and on, and on, and on…

Ahhh, now I get what KVC was getting at.  It looks simple on paper but even talk of tariffs drives the markets and industry nuts.

Well here are a few points about PDJT’s tariffs:

One, I’m pretty sure this is just one more campaign promise fulfilled. As he said during the campaign, the world has been “ripping us off” for decades.  He was going to put an end to it.  So, one more campaign promise fulfilled. 

Will it (tariffs) put an end to it (ripping us off)?  Idunno the American economy is humming.  Were he to have asked me, I’d have recommended waiting to possibly tank the economy until after the mid-terms.

Two, there is a national strategic aspect to all of this.  There are certain industries (steel is one) vital to our national defense.  Those industries cannot be allowed to atrophy under unfair trade practices even if it does mean paying a bit more for a new car or a six pack of beer.  (Really, unless you’re going out on a boat or into space, you should be buying your beer in bottles anyway.  Who drinks a great wine out of a can?)

Three, there are other strategic values at play here.  The ChiComs have been marginally helpful in getting Kim Jun Un under control.  Maybe the tariff is one more way to tighten the screws on the ChiComs.  The navy just sent an aircraft carrier on a port call in Vietnam.  I’m sure the ChiComs – like a bunch of Americans over the age of 60 - are thinking WTF with that move.  President for life Xi is like hopeless Demo-Dopes in one regard, I’m sure he’s wishing he had a Shrillda the Hutt presidency to deal with. 

But it may be more than the ChiComs.  The tariffs are now being used as a further bargaining chip in NAFTA negotiations.  A new more beneficial NAFTA will mean no more tariffs on Mexico and Canada.  Well, PDJT may need to levy some sort of tariff on Mexico to pay for the wall, but other than that…

Then there is Western Europe – the EU.  Is anyone else of the opinion that we’ve molly coddled that lazy bunch of socialist azzbags long enough?  If the EU retaliates in any way, PDJT ought to pull up military stakes and move everything east toward our real allies in Europe - Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bulgaria etc.  

The only thing the soft Western Europeans are going to be good for in a no sh*t shooting war will be to organize the terms of their own F-ing surrender and what kind of wine and cheese is best served at the occasion. We might as well side with people in Europe who will actually fight to defend themselves.

As has been the case since before WWII, America’s real economic interests lie to our west and south.  We should be cultivating trade in the Pacific and then all the way to India and in Central and South America.  To the extent that we do look east, it should be to the African continent.

Everything is simple in trade wars except that even the simplest thing then becomes difficult.  See when Lex puts it that way he sounds so sophisticated.  As opposed to his own way of putting it: This could turn out to be a real F-ing mess.