A Liberal in Trumpistan: January 1, 2021: Trade Deficits Balloon

Saturday, March 26, 2022

January 1, 2021: Trade Deficits Balloon - No Iran Deal

January 1, 2021: Happy New Year! In just nineteen days, Lame Duck Donald will be toast and butter.

Iran decides this would be a good time to poke Loser Donald in the butt on his way out, announcing that they will begin enriching uranium to 20% purity, five times the 4% level agreed to under the deal they made in 2015.

That was the deal Trump called the “worst deal” in history. So, having ripped up that deal, The Art of the Deal genius found out the hard way, that talking smack as a candidate and getting real diplomatic deals done, are two different species. The “worst deal” and other Obama moves kept Iran from getting nuclear weapons for a decade. The always petulant Mr. Trump tore it up, essentially because it had Mr. Obama’s fingerprints on it. (See also: The Affordable Care Act.)

It will take 90% enriched uranium for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. So this is their way of firing a “warning shot.”

Sen. Mitt Romney studies the Trump administration plan for rolling out vaccines to fight COVID and summarizes that plan in less than glowing terms. “That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.” That might be the epitaph for the Trump presidency, really.

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“A true liberal believes in advancing freedom not only here at home, but around the globe.”

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WE KNOW TRUMP FANS are having a difficult time at this point, what with their hero’s premature political demise. This blogger hates to be kicking then while they’re down. But what Mr. Trump learned the hard way (if he learned anything at all in three years in the White Houseˆˆ) is that diplomacy is hard. For instance, Mexico never did pay for the wall. North Korea spent the president’s entire term in office increasing its nuclear arsenal. All Trump got for his troubles were a few “love letters” from Kim Jong-un. China never did fully implement a trade deal and the U.S. trade deficit under President Trump increased.

According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the worst trade deficit in eight years under President Obama was $745.5 billion in 2015.

The MAGA Man took over and slashed that fat deficit to…$792.4 billion in 2017.

(Blogger scratches head. That does not look like an improvement.)

Okay, maybe 2018: $872 billion.

(Blogger rubs eyes in astonishment.)

Surely, a third time would be a…WTF… the deficit for 2019: $854.4 billion.

(Blogger smacks forehead.)

Well, then, surely, Mr. Trump got the hang of this trade deficit business in his last year in office before a majority of Americans tossed him out.

Son of a b****! The trade deficit is already $814.7 billion for 2020, with one month left to go.

To be fair (something this president has never been when attacking others), it does not appear that Census Bureau figures have been adjusted for inflation. Even if we allow for that, Trump has failed to fix our trade deficit problems and had to sit by and watch them grow instead.

Much of this is beyond any president’s control, but that didn’t stop Trump from bashing his predecessors, particularly Mr. Obama. This liberal blogger might also point out that he was never personally sorry to hear Trump talk about taking on the Chinese in regard to trade. After all, a true liberal believes in advancing freedom not only here at home, but around the globe. Chinese communist leaders have always marched in the opposite direction. And I, for one, have spent the last decade trying to avoid buying Chinese-made products whenever possible, rather than contribute to support of a hostile government, which refuses to allow its citizens basic freedom.

Avoiding Chinese-made goods is increasingly difficult since, for instance, a company like General Electric is content to produce all its lightbulbs in China. (That also makes a liberal mad.)