I hope that you are correct.
I didn't mean to imply that the masses will want to, but rather that they would be forced to. and even though they have been raised up a bit the masses are still living in poverty and have little choice but to comply.

The Chinese government copes with about 10,000 protests a year over the heavy-handed actions of clumsy bureaucrats abusing merchants and farmers. The idea of a mass of dedicated Chinese willing to die for their autocratic government is rubbish. The Chinese leadership made that mistake when they tried to move on a war-ravaged Vietnam, while the Vietnamese were busy with Pol Pot, and they got their ass handed to them when the Vietnamese sent their army packing.

The urban Chinese have tasted the fruits of peace and affluence; the rural Chinese resent the government; the young men and women in their military are there because it provides a paycheck; none of them wants to die for foolish, unnecessary ventures caused by stupid mistakes of blind autocracy.

That doesn't say that Chinese leadership won't impetuously do something self destructive, thinking the people will back them. It simply says that the results won't be as they expect. Hopefully, there will be a D'ung Zhao Ping voice to drag them back to the reality that they will be inviting the destruction of all they have accomplished (and it is incredible the technical achievements and affluence they have managed by rejecting much of collectivist thought).

The answer is simple, put a 200% tax on all American firms that import there goods made in China and other country's then give tax incentives to firms that want to make thire goods in America (new machines made in America to out produce the Chinese etc)

Ah, but another 400 year Grand Solar Minimum cycle is at hand inwhich every Chinese dynasty in history...Died Nasty...let's hope, for the sake of the people that they don't figure that out and use modern technology to avoid a total collapse of the current governmental mental cases.

yes, but Trump and the rest do not understand that you do not trade with evil...that only ends up supporting evil and turning you evil....embargo all trade with China until it is free of communism...

Trump states he wants zero tariffs, but something is odd in that he wants other countries to "give in" while he is raising tariffs. Doesnt make a lot of sense to me. If he wants zero tariffs, just DO it without making the others "give in". In the back of my mind, tariffs seem to be a swamp thing and a moneymaker for the government- both of which mean they will not go away.

I agree with you about the trade imbalance with china. I do think that the problem is lack of gold standard for currencies. China made their currency weak to make their prices low to gain trade. Given all their trade, the juan should have risen in value as they have so much foreign money there. But it hasnt. Somehow, this is the basic problem. Trump's argument is tht we have negative trade imbalances with a LOT of countries. meaning we buy more in total than we sell. This is like spending more than you make, and cant go on.

We give the chinese and other countries paper, but those IOU's are ones we will have to honor at some point, as they buy up USA companies and real estate (resulting in the inflation we deserve). We do get the stuff , and that is true.

As to your supermarket point, yes, I have a negative trade balance with the supermarket, but I have a positive balance at my job, so (hopefully) I have an overall positive balance in my bank account. I dont have the ability to print money if I run negative, although I can go into debt to a degree. The US government has just printed money to cover their imbalances, which it shouldnt be permitted to do.

An overall negative trade imbalance personally results in bankruptcy. On a state level, it also means bankruptcy. On the USA level, it means they print money- and kick the problem down the road.

Interestingly enough, we buy about $200k a year from china for our business. Tariffs will add $50k a year. We also SELL to other countries (not china) about $300k a year, so our company has a positive trade balance overall. Having to raise prices to cover the tariffs will make us less competitive and we will probably lose some of our export business, which will effect negatively our trade balance. This will mean that the US will have a slightly HIGHER trade imbalance nationally (by an infinitesimal amount), because of Trump's tariffs. So he shot himself in the foot-= except that the government now gets $50 k in tax MORE from our little company.

Yeh. I heard that China refuses to admit any wrong doings. We'll see.

You mention a great many things in your note above. I comment on two of them.
One, Trump is calling for zero tariffs and minimal regulatory restrictions. His methods are questionable of raising them as a means to force the other side to capitulate to zero but that is his stated goal.
Second, the $500 billion "deficit" with any one country, like China, is meaningless. All trade or exchanges are beneficial precisely because they are NOT in balance. For example, you buy from your supermarket all the time. You have a gigantic imbalance with them in that they have all of your money and you have food. …
that is a good thing. And the services you get paid for have a deficit also. So what.
Another example is the state that you live in (if you are in the US) has surpluses and deficits with the other states. So what.

The very best thing that can happen in trade is we get all the stuff, real wealth, and they get all the pieces of paper. a la China.

They all, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Turkey have to worry more about their own people uprising against them in their own countries. If the trade doors were to slam shut today so nothing is imported or exported from the USA then it won't take long before the world powers are fighting with their own people. We do hold the "Trump Card" pun intended.

Our problem is that we are sending $500 billion USD every year to China, and they are buying from us only a fraction of that. If there were the gold standard, we would have run out of gold and our $$ would drop in value, and their Juan would increase- prices would rise in china and it wouldnt be so cost effective to buy from them.

BUT, there is no gold standard, and the juan is still cheap and we are sending paper dollars over there which they have pretty much just stockpiled. That has prevented the massive inflation that SHOULD have occurred here from the chinese buying up everything in sight in the USA.

So here we are. Chinese stuff is still 1/3 the price of equivalent things made in the usa. 25% tariff will do nothing to discourage buying from china. Tariffs would have to be 100-200% to get costs of chinese stuff and USA stuff even close to equal.
In the meantime, 25% tariff on all chinese imports will do little to discourage imports, and will therefore not hurt the chinese economy and cause them to "blink" as our government thinks.
Plus, indicating that you are looking for them to "back down" isnt really a good way to get cooperation.

What Trump should do is put out an offer to get rid of ALL tariffs between usa and other countries, like is donne already in certain situations. Do it NOW. Trade will normalize and costs to consumers will drop. The huge bureaucracies involved in customs will shrink dramatically (they wont like that of course), and global shipping will accelerate.

But I dont hear that being proposed in the media or by our government (very strongly at least). Why not? Its the only solution.

Then get us back on the gold standard (never going to happen at this point however) so we never have this issue again

Agreed, but there is something which undermines everything you are talking about: China's own overheated economy. The only thing keeping them afloat is their currency manipulation (pegging against the US dollar). They have built entire state-of-the-art ghost cities to house a million people just to keep workers doing something - those cities are empty. Without the US to buy China's cheap manufactured goods, they could very easily slump and slump hard.

That being said, their military positioning in the South China Sea (especially the Spratly "islands" - really coral atolls) is a danger to everyone else in the region, including Vietnam, the Phillippines, Taiwan, and even Japan. They shouldn't be taken lightly, but unless you are Russia (or to a minor degree Taiwan), you're not really worried about that ridiculously huge army they have because they have no way to move or supply it.

It is a good one.

A month or so ago a short list of funny names to call Trump showed up in my email.
From that list, all I remember is my favorite one.

The "Tangerine Tornado" is a new one to me.
When younger as an athlete , a few of the volunteer Coaches would call me "red" not bothering to learn or ask my name at the start of the season. I was determined for them to know it by the first game.

I have to admit I don't give too much attention to the People's Republic, your points are well understood.

"Yuge," a New Yorker like Trump would say, though me dino does believe I have heard the Tangerine Tornado say "Huge" correctly more than once.

They never thought she could lose with all the cheating and weaponizing of the Alphabet agencies and voting fraud. Boy the deck was stacked against Trump!

Good point , please do as I don't know what you mean.

Yes, China underestimated Trump just like the commies in Washington did. Tee-hee!
Even that lazy campaigner, wannabe Commie Party Chairman Cackles The Evil Hag, thought her entitled coronation was in the bag..

Thanks for you two cents. We will see as you could be right.

Oh yes and play them he does.

I think we are vastly underestimating China. The swarming masses in China will work, fight and die for their country whether they want to or not. Militarily is what we should be worried about. South China Sea island bases, underwater drone development, space lasers, etc.
Nobody wins a war; economic or militarily. Yet China will patiently keep moving forward inch by inch. We in the USA need "gimme gimme now now now". We won't win a trade war with China without a change of cultural attitudes.
Europe, on the other hand, is as spoiled as we are. They will cave in and lower their tariffs.
That is my two cents

Most people underestimate or rather misunderstand Trump, especially the MSM. These entities operate through a programmed (collective) mind and will never grasp what just happened in front of their nose.

That is good b/c the President can play them as he wishes.