Unintended consequences come to those who don’t think things through. A short term thinker like Donald Trump made political capitol out of attacking China (though at the beginning of his Presidency he heaped praise on China) largely as a way to appeal to his base and cover his failure to bring back jobs from China to America and more recently as a way to cover his failings due to the Covid 19 situation. During the election and as we still hear on right wing media Biden was painted as ‘week on China”. The reality of his China policy is that he pushed China into a realization that it could not any longer depend on US suppliers for technological goods and that as soon as possible China needed to make its own parts – in China and decouple from any dependence on the US. This will have severe consequences for American Tech and not just loss of jobs. Thanks Donald! You fucked another major US industry.

Meanwhile the Covid pandemic also showed the US that depending on foreign suppliers was also a problem for the US and much talk was about bringing back manufacturing so the US would NOT be so dependent. That talk disappeared when it became apparent that a face mask made in China cost thirty cents. The same mask in the US cost ten times as much. Our economy is based on Capitalism so it was never going to fly that paying ten Dollars for a one Dollar item would work in America.

Then of course are the farmers who sold their goods to China. Trump’s anti China farm policies then forced China to look to other suppliers such as Brazil who were only to happy to sell the China. To keep the US farmers on his side all he could do was go socialist and pay them money they lost when their China market dried up.

In the passage of time it will become ever more evident that the main achievement that Donald Trump boasted about – the economy – will prove to be an illusion.