Lost in the delirious celebration by Trump supporters that the U.S. is on its way to being great again, is the fact that China is poised to be the 21st century's biggest winner once this irrational trade conflict subsides.
The way in which this will happen is straightforward for anyone who has ever made a passing grade in an economics class.
Let's look at it...
First, Canada and Mexico now hate us. The same goes for the European Union, central and South America, Asia, Africa and those remote islands off the coast of Australia that got hit with tariffs even though their only occupants are penguins.
We have now slapped punitive tariffs on all of those regions while threatening to take Greenland and force Canada to become the 51st state.
So let's ponder for a moment what the best strategy for China is in all of this mess.
Yep, it is to visit every country on Earth that thinks we are imbeciles and bullies, and offer those nations trade deals that come with no, or low, tariffs.
China already has invested billions in infrastructure all over South America and Africa in exchange for favorable trade terms. Now it can make similar deals in the EU, Canada, Mexico and other places where it has a smaller footprint. Recently, China eliminated tariffs on the 43 least developed nations on Earth, including 33 in Africa. This was not down out of love, but rather a superior understanding of Adam Smith.
With a GDP of around $20 trillion, China is the second largest economy in the world. That puts them in prime position to catch the U.S. as our population ages, our economy weakens, and our standing in the global community collapses.
Our national debt is now 120% of our GDP, which brings us much closer to the final currency debasing days of the Roman Empire.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out recently, we have a male labor force participation rate that is lower than ever. Young men who Trump thinks would flock to newly built factories are instead living with their parents, playing video games, living off of social welfare payments and have no interest in the type of work men typically did decades ago.
Women in this country are high-earning college graduates with dim marriage prospects and no plans to have children. This makes for an aging population that would be missing vital workers in Trump's delusional plans to take us back to 1956.
This is compounded by the fact that the only people you can find to actually work in back-breaking jobs - immigrants - are now being kicked out of a country filled with people who are too stupid to realize that their housing, food and health care bills are about to explode under the duel weight of deportations and dumb tariff policies.
China, with a far more educated, industrious and determined population, will very likely ride the next four years out while cozying up to the rest of the world seeking one adult in the room of international economics.
This may very well mean that as the U.S. continues to economically deteriorate, a new financial super power will emerge to take our place. One can only imagine the scene, years down the road, of some other American president traveling, hat in hand, around the globe looking for trading partners, new workers and financial support only to have the planet tell him, or her, "Sorry, your arrogant nation blew it and you are now on your own."
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