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What’s he doing with that power? He’s trying to negotiate deals. Unfortunately, he really, really doesn’t know what he’s doing. On trade, he’s a rebel without a clue.

last weekend he claimed to have reached a major trade understanding with China; but as J.P. Morgan soon reported in a note to its clients, his claims “seem if not completely fabricated then grossly exaggerated.”

The Chinese essentially rip off technology. So there is a case for toughening our stance on trade.

toughening should be undertaken in concert with other nations that also suffer from Chinese misbehavior, and it should have clear objectives. The last person you want to play hardball here is someone who doesn’t grasp the basics of trade policy, who directs his aggressiveness at everyone — tariffs on Canadian aluminum to protect our national security? Really? — and who can’t even give an honest account of what went down in a meeting.

Unfortunately, that’s the person who’s now in charge, and it’s hard to see how he can be restrained. So the future of world trade, with all it implies for the world economy, now hinges largely on Donald Trump’s mental processes

When organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the Heritage Foundation declare that Trump’s tariffs are a bad idea, they are on solid intellectual ground: All, and I mean all, economic experts agree. But they don’t have any credibility, because these same conservative institutions have spent decades making war on expertise.

it’s hard to pivot from “pay no attention to those so-called experts who say the planet is warming” to “protectionism is bad — all the experts agree.”

Similarly, organizations like Heritage have long promoted supply-side economics, a.k.a., voodoo economics — the claim that tax cuts will produce huge growth and pay for themselves — even though no economic experts agree. So they’ve already accepted the principle that it’s O.K. to talk economic nonsense if it’s politically convenient. Now comes Trump with different nonsense, saying “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” How can they convince anyone that his nonsense is bad, while theirs was good?

Much worse and scarier things may lie ahead, because Trump isn’t just a protectionist, he’s an authoritarian. Trade wars are nasty; unchecked power is much worse, and not just for those who are poor and powerless.

The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law. And it’s at risk in part because big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of tax cuts.

Too many powerful interest groups have too much of a stake in the status quo for Beijing’s policy makers to force wrenching changes on the Chinese economy. But absent major reforms, the danger of a serious economic shock is growing.

China’s problems today are following this pattern. Pakistan, the largest recipient of BRI financing, thinks the terms are unfair and wants to renegotiate. Malaysia, the second largest BRI target, wants to scale back its participation since pro-China politicians were swept out of office. Myanmar and Nepal have canceled BRI projects. After Sri Lanka was forced to grant China a 99-year lease on the Hambantota Port to repay Chinese loans, countries across Asia and Africa started rereading the fine print of their contracts, muttering about unequal treaties.

But as Lenin observed a century ago, the attempt to export overcapacity to avoid chaos at home can lead to conflict abroad. He predicted rival empires would clash over markets, but other dynamics also make this strategy hazardous. Nationalist politicians resist “development” projects that saddle their countries with huge debts to the imperialist power. As a result, imperialism is a road to ruin.

The Belt and Road Initiative was designed to sustain continued expansion in the absence of serious economic reform. Chinese merchants, bankers and diplomats combed the developing world for markets and infrastructure projects to keep China Inc. solvent. In a 2014 article in the South China Morning Post, a Chinese official said one objective of the BRI is the “transfer of overcapacity overseas.”

China’s chief problem isn’t U.S. resistance to its rise. It is that the internal dynamics of its economic system force its rulers to choose between putting China through a wrenching and destabilizing economic adjustment, or else pursuing an expansionist development policy that will lead to conflict and isolation abroad

that with the right economic policies, a mix of rising purchasing power and international economic integration can transcend the imperialist dynamics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But unless China can learn from those examples, it will remain caught in the “Lenin trap”

But China is buying fewer U.S. soybeans, thanks to bumper harvests of cheaper beans in South America.

Limited storage capacity forced many Brazilian farmers to sell at low prices, analysts said. Many Chinese crushers also prefer the higher protein content of Brazilian beans. Brazil’s soybean exports to China more than doubled from September to January while U.S. sales to China dropped more than 20%.

The White House proposal for tariffs on steel and aluminum has nevertheless exacerbated concerns about retaliation, according to research firm AgResource Co. Even if China couldn't avoid the U.S. altogether, the firm said, it could buy exclusively from Brazil for the next six or seven months.

Other headwinds for U.S. soybean farmers are strengthening. U.S. officials said they would start labeling soybean shipments to China that contain more than 1% of detritus like weed seeds, to conform with Chinese requirements.

“It’s just one more factor that has contributed to the relative uncompetitive nature of U.S. soybeans,” said Ken Morrison, a trader and commodity newsletter author.

If the U.S. cites national security as its reason for imposing the tariffs in the face of a WTO challenge, it’s unclear how the trade body would respond. “The WTO doesn’t have a lot of experience in adjudicating this sort of dispute,” Oxenford said, noting that the U.S.’s decision to effectively target its allies and geopolitical rivals alike could make the justification seem tenuous. Even if the WTO were to rule against the U.S., it’s unlikely it would change the president’s stance. Trump threatened to pull the U.S. out of the WTO, which he has also accused of being biased against the U.S. “We lose almost all of the lawsuits within the WTO because we have fewer judges than other countries,” Trump said in October. “It’s set up. You can’t win.”

Filling in more details of an ambitious multi-part strategy Macron floated at Tuesday’s White House news conference, the French president said he is trying to create a new, smaller coalition to build on the JCPOA and make the nuclear ban permanent, ban Iran’s ballistic missile program, and contain Iran’s aggression in Syria, ultimately leading to political negotiations to end the civil war.

And on Friday, Germany’s Angela Merkel will meet with Trump for a few hours to add support for Macron's arguments to Trump on Iran, steel and aluminum tariffs and Syria policy.

In a December New York Times interview, Trump claimed that "[We lost] $17 billion with Canada — Canada says we broke even. But they don't include lumber and they don't include oil. Oh, that's not. ... [Inaudible] ... My friend Justin [Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister] he says, 'No, no, we break even.' I said, 'Yeah, but you're not including oil, and you're not including lumber.' When you do, you lose $17 billion, and with the other one, we're losing $71 billion."

President Trump, who was critical of China’s trade practices well before he entered the White House, appeared unperturbed about the possibility of a trade war. He asserted Wednesday the annual $500 billion U.S. trade deficit with China means “you can’t lose,” and that intellectual-property theft was costing the U.S. another $300 billion.

At the moment though, American consumers needn’t worry, Kennedy said, because “the products that the Americans have put penalties on and those that the Chinese have responded with aren’t primarily products that American consumers are going to miss on their shelves.”

But, he added, the trade threats initially resulted in a broad decline in U.S —and global—stock markets. “The primary way American consumers are going to feel pain in the short terms is in their portfolios,” Kennedy said. “So, it’ll affect folks’ savings, and that, in turn, affects their discretionary spending. So it’s that indirect effect that in the short term has the bigger effect.”

The U.S. and China need each other. Trade between the two countries was worth $648.5 billion in 2016. And the trade dispute could ultimately affect companies like Apple, which makes its iPhone in China. Tech companies not only need China to make their products, but also China’s massive consumer market to sell them.

On Wednesday evening, the president became “unglued,” in the words of one official familiar with the president's state of mind.

According to two officials, Trump's decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team.

Ruhle and Alexander report that the White House had not even vetted the steel and aluminum executives who were at the meeting. They say there was no position paper on the policy changes as of midnight Wednesday. Key Cabinet departments such as State, Defense and Treasury had not been given a heads-up. The White House Counsel's Office had not even completed a legal review of whether the steel tariff would pass muster.

The harm done by the trade war has had measurable consequences. As of September 2020, the Tax Foundation reports the tariffs have cost Americans $80 billion in additional taxes and lowered employment by 179,800 jobs.

In essence, we are involved in a seemingly endless trade war being waged by the US government against the American economy. Ending it would honor USTR's stated mission of creating "new opportunities and higher living standards" for Americans.

When this happened during the Trump administration, his staffers and cabinet members were harassed, heckled and even forced out from restaurants in protest. Time magazine went so far as to run a cover showing a towering Trump looking down upon a crying Hispanic little girl.

this is a crisis, and one of Biden's making

Over and over, the reporters were told the same thing -- these migrants were coming to America because Biden told them they could.

Biden issued a 100-day moratorium on most deportations, which a federal judge blocked, and ended the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" rule.

If there was one bright line dividing the Democratic and Republican parties in last year's election -- and in the actions of the last two chief executives -- it was immigration. Biden ran against Trump's so-called "racist" policies and pledged to reverse his immigration restrictions and border security measures. The message was sent loud and clear: with Trump gone, the border is open.

Now in office, laughably, Biden and his Department of Homeland Security secretary are trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

Biden's first crisis as President is at hand

Close to 50 billion bottles of water are consumed in the United States each year, with close to 200 billion in the world, according to a May 2008 article in The New York Times.

Bottle shapes and sizes evolved along with this trend, and different types of materials were used. Water is now sold and carried in jugs, cans, multi-gallon-sized plastic and even aluminum bottles.

brokered a deal to move the Port of Los Angeles toward 24/7 operations, joining Long Beach, which is already operating around the clock, and that they are encouraging states to accelerate the licensing of more truck drivers.

On Wednesday, the White House will host leaders from the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to discuss the difficulties at ports, as well as hold a round table with executives from Walmart, UPS and Home Depot.

Imports for the fourth quarter are on pace to be 4.7 percent higher than in the same period last year, which was also a record-breaking holiday season,

Companies are exacerbating the situation by rushing to obtain products and bidding up their own prices.

Administration officials acknowledged on Tuesday in a call with reporters that the $1.9 trillion economic aid package Mr. Biden signed into law in March had contributed to supply chain issues by boosting demand for goods, but said the law was the reason the U.S. recovery has outpaced those of other nations this year.

Consumer demand for exercise bikes, laptops, toys, patio furniture and other goods is booming, fueled by big savings amassed over the course of the pandemic.

The blockages stretch up and down supply chains, from foreign harbors to American rail yards and warehouses.

Home Depot, Costco and Walmart have taken to chartering their own ships to move products across the Pacific Ocean.

the average anchorage time had stretched to more than 11 days.

Companies that had been trying to avoid passing on higher costs to customers may find that they need to as higher costs become longer lived.

worsening supplier delivery times and conditions at ports suggested that product shortages would persist into mid- to late next year.

governments around the world could help to smooth some shortages and dampen some price increases, for example by encouraging workers to move into industries with labor shortages, like trucking

“But to some extent, they need to let markets do their work,” she said.

a Transportation Department official gathering information on what the administration could do to address the supply chain shortages had contacted his company. Flexport offered the administration suggestions on changing certain regulations and procedures to ease the blockages, but warned that the problem was a series of choke points “stacked one on top of the other.”

from the whole big picture, the supply capacity is really hard to change in a noteworthy way.”

The shortages have come as a shock for many American shoppers, who are used to buying a wide range of global goods with a single click, and seeing that same product on their doorstep within hours or days.

The political risk for the administration is that shortfalls, mostly a nuisance so far, turn into something more existential. Diapers are already in short supply. As aluminum shortages develop, packaging pharmaceuticals could become a problem,

slow deliveries could make for slim pickings this Christmas and Hanukkah.

Consumer price inflation probably climbed by 5.3 percent in the year through September, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to show on Wednesday.

They often point out that much of the surge has been spurred by a jump in car prices, caused by a lack of computer chips that delayed vehicle production.

the pandemic has shut down factories and slowed production around the world. Port closures, shortages of shipping containers and truck drivers, and pileups in rail and ship yards have led to long transit times and unpredictable deliveries for a wide range of products

Tesla, for instance, had been hoping to reduce the cost of its electric vehicles and has struggled to do that amid the bottlenecks.

If demand slumps as households spend away government stimulus checks and other savings they stockpiled during the pandemic downturn, that could leave purveyors of couches and lawn furniture with fewer production backlogs and less pricing power down the road.

If buying stays strong, and shipping remains problematic, inflation could become more entrenched.

To get their own orders fulfilled, companies have placed bigger orders and offered to pay higher prices.