It turns out, just when President Trump wrote his epic “The Art Of The Deal” fiction novel. He was losing billions of dollars to bilk the US Government/IRS and private banks out of revenues. He called this behavior a “sport.” Although the arch-conservative Washington Inquirer newspaper notes that his “sport” cost tens of thousands of honest Americans dearly. 

He may be following a similar script in his trade negotiations with China. On less than a week’s notice, increased tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25% tariff (I wonder what that will do the iPhone…). The WSJ reports that the first round of Trump tariffs cost US consumers $69 billion, this new round will be substantially more expensive. Now Trump threatens virtually all Chinese imports with tariffs. The Chinese will retaliate.

One interest group is being taken care of, however, Trump tweeted that US government would “buy agricultural products from our Great Farmers, in larger amounts than China ever did.” That’s in addition to the $12billion handout farmers already received in January 2019 to compensate them for earlier tariff-related trade losses.