[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

This is another interesting example of your thought process. So, if it hadn't been for the swine flue, China wouldn't have bought pigs from US farmers? So we have to depend on China's disasters in order to sell them stuff? That doesn't seem like a good formula for sustainable trade.

On top of that, China is helping its own farmers to fill the needs of the country--but it wouldn't be doing so if Trump wasn't slapping tariffs on goods from China? Oh, really? China would "help" farmers in other countries through its Belt and Road policy, but it wouldn't do so for its own farmers if Trump didn't impose tariffs? That's caca brain thinking. It's also naïve thinking that China's Belt and Road policy is some generous gesture or even an attempt to create beneficial cooperation with the rest of the world. If it were, it would certainly cooperate with the US in this beneficial cooperation. To think such a thing is merely to swallow China's propaganda.

"Belt and Road" is a slick trick to gain Chinese world dominance, and especially to replace the dominance of America with its own. It essentially seduces economically depressed countries into accepting its "help" and makes them dependent while it rapes their resources for its own use, and in the meantime gaining a "partner" in its drive to power. It's an extension, by other means, of taking out what little wealth those countries have as it has been transferring out whatever wealth it can from us by loaning us trillions of dollars. And by "allowing" American manufactures to produce in China if they turn over the management and intellectual property of those businesses to China. (China's rape of America has given it the wealth and edge to make Belt and Road possible.) Even debt ridden European countries are considering accepting China's "help." Hey, after Trump destroys the US, then we could accept the help available in its Belt and Road.

Trump's "trade war" is about far more than fair trade.

China would have had no need to buy our pigs without the swine flu and they bought them despite the tariff imposed by themselves.
Markets that are hurt by tariffs are not easily replaced.
Interesting that you find China's colonialism upsetting but find Trump's policys that enable it and take us out of the equation to be good.
Now it is time for golf.