{"id":3017,"date":"2020-06-30T19:52:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T19:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3017"},"modified":"2020-06-30T19:52:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T19:52:26","slug":"bolton-trumps-tough-on-china-stance-was-a-campaign-strategy-not-a-trade-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3017","title":{"rendered":"Bolton: Trump’s Tough-on-China Stance Was a Campaign Strategy, Not a Trade Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Rather than securing a better trade agreement for American farmers and blue-collar workers, the real goal of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China was a second term in the White House. So says John Bolton<\/a>, Trump’s former national security advisor, in a Wall Street Journal<\/em>excerpt<\/a> from his forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolton writes that he would be “hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision” that wasn’t driven by the president’s re-election plans. But Bolton singles out Trump’s fraught and sometimes frothy relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping as a particularly striking example of how Trump “commingled the personal and the national.””<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rather than getting tough on China, Trump appears to care far more about the appearance <\/em>of getting tough with China than actually accomplishing substantial policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s been fairly obvious to anyone who cared to look. After all, how many economists and journalists have\u00a0debunked<\/a>\u00a0Trump’s claim that\u00a0China is paying for the cost of his tariffs<\/a>, or pointed out that\u00a0trade deficits<\/a>\u00a0don’t work the way Trump\u00a0seems to think they do<\/a>? But the tariffs were a useful way to\u00a0appear\u00a0<\/em>to be doing something. From the outside, Trump’s trade policy has looked like a\u00a0haphazard, self-interested mess<\/a>\u00a0from the start; Bolton confirms that’s how it looked inside the White House too.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bolton: Trump’s Tough-on-China Stance Was a Campaign Strategy, Not a Trade Policy<\/a><\/blockquote>