Good news everybody -- you're rich!
That's what Trump told reporters yesterday when he was asked about the damage his trade war with China is doing to the economy. Trump said he's "not ready" to make a deal with China because Americans are "loaded up with money" thanks to the GOP's tax cuts. There's no need to make a deal, he said.
Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow also said there's "no recession in sight" because American consumers are still spending money.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and top White House officials dismissed concerns that economic growth may be faltering, saying on Sunday they saw little risk of recession despite a volatile week on global bond markets, and insisting their trade war with China was doing no damage to the United States.
“We’re doing tremendously well, our consumers are rich, I gave a tremendous tax cut, and they’re loaded up with money,” Trump said on Sunday.
But he was less optimistic than his aides on striking a trade deal with China, saying that while he believed China was ready to come to an agreement, “I’m not ready to make a deal yet.”
It wouldn't be difficult to disprove this even if the White House had not already disproved it through their own actions.
Last week, Trump himself and several of his top advisers announced that tariffs on at least $150 billion in Chinese goods would be delayed until after the Christmas shopping season because imposing them now would be bad news for the economy.
Just this morning, the Trump regime announced that sanctions that would prohibit American companies from selling products to Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei will be delayed for another 90 days because imposing them now would harm rural Americans.
When Trump spoke to reporters yesterday, he once again linked the resolution of unrest in Hong Kong to a potential trade deal with China and that is also a sign of weakness. They're running out of talking points and the economy is drying up so they're linking unrelated events to a trade deal in an attempt to cast China as the uncooperative villain.
Trump and members of his regime have publicly floated the idea that China is trying to wait him out, but we have to consider that Trump is the one waiting it out.
After all, if not for his global trade war, what is Trump going to run for reelection on? I mean, aside from racism. Is he going to run on his tax cuts for corporations?
Perhaps it's true that Trump won't make a deal because he needs this issue to stay alive for political reasons and true that he won't make a deal because he's incapable of making deals. The conflict itself is becoming self-sustaining.