Day 946: The wannabe king, Trump, absolutely lost his shit about all things China
No policy, no strategy and played for a fool since day one.
Things in the White House have been bad for 31 months. Donald Trump has made awful decisions and compounded them with worse ones. He has made terrible hire after terrible hire and the White House has been a turnstile of ineptitude for his entire tenure.
Lately, he has seemed especially out of control and demented.
Just two days ago, he was declaring himself “the chosen one” while giddily quoting a far right extremist who called him “the second coming.” He is openly throwing temper tantrums because Denmark won’t sell Greenland to the U.S., despite the fact that it was never for sale. He wanted to award himself the Medal of Honor for imaginary military accomplishments.
Friday, it was almost as bad.
- He’s trying to blame Democrats for starting a recession — which isn’t really even possible — while single-handedly torpedoing global markets with threatening tweets about China.
- He wondered who was a “bigger enemy,” the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, (who Trump nominated) or the president of China, Xi Jinping. (A president calling an American citizen and his own appointee an enemy would ordinarily be a substantial story. Calling any foreign leader an enemy would ordinarily be breaking news across the world.)
- In a stunningly ignorant rant, he “ordered” — a power he does not have in any way, shape or form — companies to stop working with China, and “order[ed]” —a power he still does not have in any way, shape or form — private companies to spend gobs of money inspecting packages from China. Much as he would like, he is no king and his power is far from limitless.
- Continuing with the China meltdown, Trump suddenly decided more tariffs on Chinese goods were necessary. And so it became policy. Because he said it on Twitter. In an action that is sure to cause more market havoc next week. (The trade war began when Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese goods, and Beijing reciprocated on American goods. Trump is angry about that very, very expected development.)
- Now he wants to start trading with dictators whose country is literally burning to the ground.
Trump ranted all day about China, but has spoken glowingly about his relationship with Xi as recently as last week, calling him “‘a great leader” and “a good man.”
Today he referred to Xi as his enemy. But three weeks ago, Trump referred to Xi as his “friend.”
For years he’s tried to sell a great working relationship, though that’s clearly been a farce.
Trump has been played by China for years. He’s trying to use more tariffs as a way to get out of the tariff mess he created and yet he still doesn’t seem to understand basic economics surrounding such actions.
Trump’s behavior isn’t remotely normal. Trump has gotten the benefit by having his temperament or actions compared to himself, as opposed to the previous men who held the job of president.
Now Trump is headed to France to represent the U.S. to the world after showing no signs of mental cogency or competence for days. Trump is extraordinarily dangerous right now — even by his own standards — and he’s shown over the last week, yet again, that he does not care about anything but himself.
946 days in, 516 to go
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