It looks like there is one thing that former President Donald Trump has in common with his predecessors. Getting tricked by China. A new analysis from Bloomberg finds that China is well behind on the two-year targets set in the phase one trade deal. (Bloomberg)
Total purchases of U.S. agricultural, manufactured, and energy goods were $123 billion in the 14 months since the trade deal was signed in January 2020, according to Bloomberg analysis of official Chinese data. That was 32.6% of the target of $378 billion for 2020-21.
Trump wasn’t the first and sadly won’t be the last. China’s M.O. is tricking trading partners. I will admit that I do have less sympathy for Trump mostly because of his campaign bravado. When he ran for office he argued he would single-handedly fix the trade deficit by signing great trade deals. In the end, he was tricked like everyone else. He kinda deserves to be mocked for that. Those are the rules.
Apropos of nothing. Scott Lincicome coincidentally tweeted out this Kevin Williamson piece from February that explains why economic nationalism has less to do with economics and everything to do with political-patronage. (NR)
Manufacturing protectionism is a way to make factory jobs into political-patronage jobs — patronage jobs that don’t have to show up on the government’s budget, because these clients (and that is what they are) are not directly on the federal payroll. Looking after hometown jobs and local financial interests, which are the dominant interests here, is in very few circumstances the most efficient, reliable, or direct way to secure our national defense and often runs counter to U.S. national-security interests. And these protectionist policies are bad for U.S. manufacturing and the rest of the economy, too, creating market distortions that favor a handful of politically connected firms and industries at the expense of everybody else.
And just one more excerpt for good measure
Economic nationalism is corporate welfare in patriotic drag. It was a bad idea for the Trump administration, and the Biden administration may yet discover a way to make it worse.