E.g. one explanation given for these trade policies is that trump sees a war with china down the line and is worried that china has tons of factories that could be converted to make ammunition while usa does not.

2. Alienating allies won't help the US produce ammunition

You're giving him too much credit.

Trump has always liked tariffs [alas, I can't find the source for this pre-presidency, its been blown out by current events]. He thinks trade is a zero sum game, and thinks that someone else set up the petro-dollar system.

Trump has consistently and reiliably always cowered away from war. Using other means to stop it (see russia, NK, China, Iran). Yes I hear the "we're going to invade x, y and z" but they never acutally came to anything (is that because of his advisors?)

Trump doesn't think about future capacity, only future pride. Does this change "make american stronger, and other weaker" is pretty much the only calculus that he's doing.

Trump's thinking is roughly as following:

"Why do we have taxes when we can use tariffs to raise cash and bring power back?"

"Why don't they buy from us?"(china/rest of asia)

"why are we spending money on them, when we don't get any money back? They are weak."(NATO)

"Why are we punishing russia, they are offering deals" (Putin offering cash deals)

There is no 4d chess. Its just a man who's pretty far gone, shitting out edicts to idiots willing to implement them.

It is the logic of schoolchildren. It is the simplistic logic of a teenager discovering Ayn Rand's wikipedia entry. (Grover Norquits came up with his tax pledge while in highschool.) The world is more complicated than any econ 099 exam.

The US are never going into a direct war with China, and China is never going into a direct war with the US. This is M.A.D in action.

At most we might see a proxy war over Taiwan (i.e. the US supporting and arming Taiwan, with sanctions against the PRC). The risk would then be a widespread disruption of global trade, at which point the US would not want to be dependent on the Chinese economy or factories in any way.

There is no logic to these things. This is the emperors new clothes, over and over again.

The proximate cause for these tariffs is not some future event. This is post fact rationalization.

The proximate cause is still the ongoing “information” war which determines the perceived reality that is litigated in elections.

Earlier politicians played theater, acting as if the red meat being fed to voters was real on TV, but dealing with reality as need be when it came to decision making.

This was a betrayal of voters, who saw their election efforts result in legislators who didnt do what they said.

Trump does what he says. He believes WWE is real, and acts as if it is. His base believes it is real, and now reality is crashing with the fiction.

The fiction will prevail, because his party has also been working to build the power to enact their will.

Everyone sees logic here, the same way that everyone saw the emperors clothes. The alternative is illogical.

This is the reason potential reasons “we dont know” have to be postulated (war / China can make more ammunition)

How will they project power into the Asia Pacific now they have tariffed their allies and probably forgotten about AUKUS?

I like this take a lot. I also think that America competing on manufacturing is obviously never going to happen.

>Trump sees a war with china down the line

So is destroying diplomatic relations with all their allies and trying to force ceding of power in central Europe to a former enemy who is allied to China?

Go on with ya.

He's a prick saving himself from prison whilst being willingly used to establish an oligarchic fascist state from the former USA.

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