China negotiations

Judging by number of post reads and comments I sense this subject is not so interesting to followers of this blog. Nevertheless it's probably the most important thing that President Trump is doing and I don't see it given the coverage that it's due.

This is one man, Trump, and his team of course, so not really just Trump, but without Trump we'd have China having their way with American politicians, buying them where necessary, to the tremendous disadvantage of our nation.

What we see instead is Trump handling the entire Chinese politburo with implacable equanimity from a position of strength. China is just one nation that will be very happy when Trump is gone. Then they can get back to slapping around American politicians and playing them like marionettes.

Until then, they have Trump in their way.

Their Panda face Dragon face wipe on wipe off and using DPRK as leverage is played out. They're stifled, presently unable to pull that anymore without being completely obvious to everyone.

The Mnuchin and Lighthizer meeting was intended to gauge China's seriousness to negotiate. They would report to Trump on the likelihood of successful trade deal or whether China was gaming for further delay.

China  did what they usually do and had their proxy North Korea shoot off its missiles.

Now Trump immediately slaps back by cooly applying his pressure to negotiate seriously. Instantly, the delay China had negotiated in Argentina G-20 is erased and Trump applied the additional tariffs to 25% on entire groups of imports. Reserving other unaffected groups of imports untouched by tariffs for future smackdown.

Shoot off more N. Korean missiles? That game has played out completely. See? Do that again and they signal their backs to the wall with nothing else available. China has zero imagination. They simply cannot deal with Trump by their usual means of manipulating American politicians, and that's all they've got is their usual means. Their situation is pathetic.

To put it crudely, Trump has them by their little Chinese cajones and he's squeezing them. Hard.

The Round-1 tariffs that were previously delayed from 10% to 25% are now triggered.

The Round-2 tariffs of 25% on 325 billion of different goods originally scheduled for March and also postponed are also triggered.

China pulled back from some commitments and that prompted Trump to apply the tariffs.

Wipe on, wipe off. Trump too has his own kitten face, lion face. Trump understands Chinese style like no other American president that I've seen. China lamely fires their proxy missiles, Trump punches back ten times as hard in the only place the Chinese leadership feels anything.

Then next week Trump will be reaffirming what great personal friends he is with the Chinese Chairman, and what deep respect they hold for each other.

Trump is observably punishing the entire Chinese leadership and the only place we see this reported accurately is on the financial pages that also reports all their globalist concerns about the damage Trump does to global economic equilibrium. They strongly prefer predictable global markets over a strong United States. It doesn't matter to them which political economic system their wealth comes from so long as it comes predictably and reliably. So far as patriotism goes, they are agnostic.

By observing response we can tell without seeing Lighthizer delivered an ultimatum on Beijing last week that made Beijing drop their soft fuzzy mask and have DPRK fire its missiles.

This puts Trump at the spot where he always was headed; full tariffs on Chinese imports because he knows China cannot honestly renegotiate terms until they are economically defeated.

By their nature, China cannot do anything that is not to the advantage of China. Therefore, Trump must create the situation in which renegotiation of terms is advantageous to China. Trump must initiate and then win an economic war in order to force China to renegotiate terms to anything that resembles fairness to the U.S. And that's what we're seeing Trump do.

One man with his team does this. And it was not possible with any other president and team.

Can you imagine Hillary doing anything like this? She'd gladly accept payoffs to avoid any conflict and watch with satisfaction as the U.S. slips further in imbalanced trade.

Chinese Chairman and Vice-Chairman have no more delay tactics available. Any more DPRK activity has no further benefit.

This is the point where Trump closes the deal.

Will American media acknowledge Trump's successful realignment to American advantage?

Of course not. American media doesn't like Trump so petulantly they cannot even acknowledge anything happening except for the unhappy disruption Trump causes. Their reporting is all about feels.