And.... did China just blink? (Trade War)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/chinese-president-xi-jinping-speaks-at-boao-forum-for-asia.html

I am politically neutral, I have my likes and dislikes with both recent presidents - Obama and Trump. But we can't deny that Trump is forcing some changes in U.S. relationships with other countries for better or worse. IMHO, not taking leadership in environmental protection (worse) while taking a harder stance on trade (could be good).

If Trump did not push for tariffs, China would not have said we will try to import more. We can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Peter Thiel is an advocate for contrarion thinking.

In my mind, the goal is not to reduce overall trade deficits with the rest of the world, because we are already borrowing and spending more than we produce (low unemployment rate as well).

The goal should be:
1) Open up markets to American companies. For example, tech companies like Facebook don't really have to produce more, their product/service is highly scalable (ignore the recent scandal for a moment)
2) Punish bad actors for stealing trade secrets
3) Finally, making sure we are using money we are borrowing (deficit) to invest in future higher returns. E.g, automation and such and not using it to restart outdated coal mines/plants.

"If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd." - John Templeton

Submitted April 10, 2018 at 08:07AM by jzanick01 https://ift.tt/2HorASS