“When a country is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
– Donald Trump, March 2nd, 2018

In the intervening year since the president dragged America into this ludicrous trade war with China, we’ve learned two things (though most of us knew these things beforehand and warned against this catastrophe):

1) China can’t be bullied in a trade war.

So the Chinese show a slowing economy, part of which, say the Republicans, can be attributed to the impact of the Trump tariffs on Chinese imports into the United States. Sure, maybe, but it probably has a lot more to do with the serious internal structural problems within the Chinese economy itself that have been there for decades.

Billions in western investment have rolled into the mainland for decades now, with the expectation of continued liberalization of their economic system, but, for the last decade or so, Communist Party hardliners have become increasingly hostile to foreign investors and have been terminating contracts and seizing assets from foreign companies.

While Trumpists will try to use China’s recent sluggish economic numbers as some sort of validation of his ignorant touch talk on China, China’s economy has been slowing down since 2010 (above), and China’s economic woes have nothing to do with Trump’s idiotic trade war and have everything to do with their hostile economic policies.

2) American producers are paying the price for Trump’s bluster.

Farmers who supported Trump in 2016 and footing the bill for their buffoon-in-chief’s trade war. Bankruptcy claims by small farmers have been on the rise since Trump’s trade war with China that made American crops untouchable in the Chinese market, and Chinese negotiators continue to drag out negotiations with no incentive to deal.

Meanwhile, things have gotten so bad for American farmers, that the “anti-socialism” Republicans have written billions in “not socialist” government subsidies to “anti-socialism” farmers to keep them from bailing on Trump and the Republicans in 2020. No one should be surprised by Republicans have abandoning capitalism again.

The Republican opposition to government interference in the market has only ever been with the exception of their lobbies. Buying votes through government handouts demonstrates just how strong their capitalist spines are. Brittle as glass. Why would they be otherwise, though? Their cowardly “anti-socialist” constituents cashed the checks.

The trade war and the moral cowardice of the “heartland voter” demonstrate just how little “heart” there is in this land. I, for one, am completely unsympathetic to any Trump supporting farmer who’s losing their family farm. I firmly believe that anyone and everyone who voted for Trump should pay a price for being a degenerate coward.

Fair weather patriots deserve to see their families lose their homes to the investment banks that Trump has put in charge of the economy. They wanted this president, because he was going to pick a fight with China. They literally asked for this, so they have no business complaining about the rain when they called down the thunder.

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Liberty is For The Win!