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What authoritative figure backs President Trump's trade wars notions? Surely he isn't so stupid as to come up with this idea on his own, is he?

Apparently he's been advocating for tariffs since the 80s.

This guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro

Gary Cohn resigned.

Interesting, Trump selected a liberal Democrat for that job. Does anybody remember what Bernie's views are on trade?

Navarro isn't hired yet (in Cohn's position, but he's leading the national trade council)... he's just of the same opinion as Trump and generally considered to be "way out there".
"Who Will Replace Gary Cohn" https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... hn/555062/
"Four Reasons That Gary Cohn's Resignation Is Different" https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wh ... different/

Looking like they might not be so easy to win today.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03- ... re-tariffs

Gotta be cautious with Zero Hedge, but it makes sense. I wonder who blinks first? My money is on China, their greatest fear is social unrest, and I think this is not a game they ever wanted to play.

Either way, it means economic pain across the board.

FXmacro tweeted this a while ago:

In 2011 the U.S. International Trade Commission found that if China matched U.S. levels of intellectual property protection, it would likely create 923,000 U.S. jobs and increase U.S. exports and affiliated sales to China by approximately $107 billion per year

Helps to understand why Trump is so keen to impose tech tariffs and better IP protection.

Howeve, IMO Trump is a negotiator and this tariff news was just his “opener”. We can expect his executive order to be watered down, which in turn will give the stock markets a boost.

Both China and the EU have said they don't want a trade war, but at the same time shown that they are prepared with a catalog of counter-measures.

The EU has already negotiated its way out of steel an alu tariffs. So have Australia, South Korea, Argentina and Brazil.

The Chinese are still playing hard ball, but they can ford to since they have refocused their economy toward inward consumption in the last few years.