Day 767: Uhh, over two years on the job, Trump proves he has no idea how international trade agreements work

Donald Trump was embarrassingly contradicted by his trade czar during an Oval Office press gaggle over the weekend after Trump failed to understand basic terminology surrounding trade deals.

Discussing trade with China, Trump said he was against a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The problem is an MOU is the actual trade agreement between nations, so Trump was saying — in remarks about movement toward a possible trade deal with China — that he was against a trade deal with China.

Trump seemed to think a contract would come after the MOU. But, as opposed to agreements like real estate contracts, when it comes to trade agreements, there is no later contract: the MOU is the agreement for as long as both parties want to keep in place.

Trump was wholly ignorant of this fact, despite frequently claiming he’s an expert negotiator who is making fantastic deals. Trump said MOUs “don’t mean anything.” But that’s wrong: they mean everything in a trade deal. They literally are the final trade deal.

When Trump’s trade representative, Richard Lighthizer, politely contradicted Trump by saying an MOU “is a binding agreement” between nations and that “it covers everything in great detail,” Trump sat stone-faced and appeared confused. Upon opening his mouth, Trump confirmed that he had no idea what Lighthizer was talking about by disagreeing that an MOU is a contract. He then continued to just use the phrase “memorandum of understanding” over and over and over again, talking in nonsensical circles, essentially waiting to be rescued.

Not wanting to embarrass Trump a second time, Lighthizer threw him a lifesaver. Lighthizer punted on the term MOU, deciding to call it a “trade agreement” instead. This simple word change — with no effect on the substance of the actual document that would be agreed to by the nations — was a simple attempt to appease Trump and move on.

But Trump still didn’t understand what Lighthizer was doing, asking if the terms in any trade agreement would be put into a subsequent agreement. Lighthizer, seemingly exasperated, clapped his hands for emphasis, explained the terms yet again, and Trump finally decided that making a “trade agreement” instead of an MOU was a great decision.

Trump concluded, “I wouldn’t go into an [MOU], I would go straight into a trade agreement.”

They’re literally the same thing.

Trump’s comments are as illogical as if he said, “I don’t like aquatic, black-and-white flightless birds in Antarctica, but I do like penguins.”

Impossibly, Trump still has no idea how international trade deals work, in part because he doesn’t understand basic terminology surrounding them.

767 days in, 695 to go

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