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CNN's Stephen Collinson believes that there is no easy way out for President Donald Trump when it comes to his trade war — and that means the American economy is headed for what he describes as an "ugly endgame."
In his latest analysis, Collinson makes the case that Trump has backed himself into a corner by refusing to budge from his trade wars with nearly every nation on the planet, including a remote island that is primarily populated by penguins.
"A president who believes he enjoys almost absolute power and who has torn off the constraints of his first term is not looking for an off-ramp," Collinson warns. "And his zeal for confrontation and sense of mission may also have implications beyond the economy and for other policy areas — such as his expansionist designs on Greenland and Canada, his mass migrant deportations and cultural warfare."
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Collinson thinks that it will be hard for America's trade partners to actually negotiate with Trump give his beliefs about basic economic concepts such as trade deficits, which Trump has insisted that other countries eliminate as a precondition before he'll consider lowering his tariffs.
"His ideas appear to make sense only according to his own internal logic and conflict with accepted economic theory, the advice of experts or even reality," he observes.
This was on display this week when Trump rebuffed offers from Israel, Vietnam and the European Union to lower tariffs to zero on the grounds that they were still supposedly "taking advantage of the United States."
In fact, Trump even took a rare direct shot at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office this week.
"Don’t forget, we help Israel a lot," Trump said when asked about the possibility of sparing Israel from tariffs. "You know, we give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot. My congratulations, by the way."
English (US)