Tom Friedman explains why he agrees with Trump’s China trade approach and what he would do in Trump’s position – May 18, 2019,
Now, I’ll be the first person to say that I don’t agree with everything Donald Trump des, but what I won’t do is say if I were in Donald Trump’s position I’d do this, why? Because, only history can reward what Donald Trump has done so far and there is no person on this planet that could have done what Donald Trump has done so far.
China has been destroying world economies for decades, China has never played fair and the reality is Chinese leadership is very intimidating for most world leaders, why? Because the Chinese people understand a market economy and their knowledge of a market economy equates to them knowing how to put up an economic fight against any country that’s implemented any form of price or wage controls. It’s extremely important to know that wage-price controls or minimum wages is why it would take a business minded person to understand how to combat China.
If you believe in minimum or livable wages and you don’t believe in market wages, China can already destroy your countries country by devaluing their currency. Trump has used tariffs because the truth is there is America via regulations in many sectors has priced itself out of many jobs. With that said, China similar to other countries subsidizes a lot of companies and because of their understanding of the market and their banning of labor unions, for example, it allows China to basically over their logistical services free of charge, which allows Chinese merchants to basically ship things to countries all over the world free of charge.
Now, domestically in most developed countries, the business sectors and governments are at war with each other. In a democratic process, voters can vote against their best interests as consumers and their governments can unknowingly force local companies to move to countries like China which in turn makes China intertwined with many developed countries. Recently Italy signed on to China’s belt and road initiative, why? Because voters look to government to extract more money from the Private Sector, which of course drives businesses towards China, which of course leads to intellectual property theft, but you see because explaining what I wrote here is impossible to explain to the average voter who’d be asleep by now reading this, Trump has to use business tactics to garner the support of the average voter.
Trump’s use of easy to understand language shouldn’t be confused with what he and his team have to do behind the scenes. It’s not like the United States has the moral high ground here, however, if something isn’t done soon, the Chinese Communist Party will control the world economically. He who dominates manufacturing calls all the shots, this is something that labor unions don’t tell their members. Once you’re reliant on another country to take care of important industries, your national security is at risk. People have to be trained to learn certain things and if they don’t know how to do certain things for multiple generations, your people then become dependent on the nation that does the manufacturing for you.
Now, Trump has been able to compartmentalize all of what I wrote and been able to sell it to voters, economics is a boring subject to most people, if you tell the average American voter than minimum wages or labor unions are a bad thing, they’ll look at you like you’re Hitler! The fact that Trump is able to bring so many people together is amazing and one thing is for sure, Tom Friedman would never be able to handle the verbal abuse thrown Trump’s way, just to become president. I’ve never seen so much mudslinging in politics and Trump has been left unscathed for the most part, so to Tom Friedman slow your role!
Interesting times ahead!