Remember when Trump bragged about his great skills as a deal maker? Emremember when he ridiculed everyone else who preceded him? Guess what? He was a conman on that claim like so many others, according to Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times.
The final tally is in, and the numbers are grim: Donald Trump’s huge trade deal with China — the deal he trumpeted as a “transformative” victory for the U.S. — turned out to be a massive bust.
The deal, it may be remembered, required China to make $200 billion in new purchasesof agricultural and manufactured goods, services and crude oil and other energy.
The idea floated by Trump was that the deal would end the trade war he had started with China, while producing a massive infusion of new income for American manufacturers and growers.
Today the only undisputed ‘historical’ aspect of that agreement is its failure.
None of those outcomes happened. Although the trade war stopped escalating, most of the tariffs Trump had imposed on Chinese goods remained in place, as did retaliatory tariffs China imposed.
More to the point, “China bought none of the additional $200 billion of exports Trump’s deal had promised.”
That’s the finding of a study just published by Chad P. Bown of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, who has assiduously tracked China trade since the deal was reached.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Honestly, I think Trump needs to be pitied. He is a sick, sick man. He needs to be given some trivial role so that he can ‘function’ without harming the social fabric. Perhaps, a TV ‘reality’ show might let him be a clown without harming society as a whole (or, perhaps not).
lyndon johnson’s ranch manager brought him the eggs that had been hatched each morning.
Sounds like a good job for Trump.
You apparently agree with the right-wingers who think Trump won the election, which is funny because even I’m quite sure Biden did.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/04/1043027789/biden-is-keeping-key-parts-of-trumps-china-trade-policy-heres-why
Oh, but the article says Biden is going to make China obey!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-15/biden-team-sees-limited-ability-to-press-china-in-trade-talks
What is it with our ‘system’ that thinks everyone must ‘obey’?
I don’t recall Biden bragging that he had mastered “the art of the deal” or any of the other boasts Trump made about “he alone” could save us. Four tumultuous years and our country is at each other’s throats.
So we should just ignore Trump and his acolytes and they will magically just go away?! We ignore these insurrectionists at our own risk. Trump, the Trumpistas and the far right wing GOP activists are a danger and threat to our fragile democracy.
A recent ‘Newsweek Poll’ shows Trump beating Biden by four points if the election were held today. If this is true, we have good reason to be concerned. Trump is seriously unhinged, but his bigoted, mean-spirited demagoguery has an appeal to his base. I hope the Jan 6th committee or New York finds something that will make him ineligible to run. The bad news is DeSantis is the new GOP “golden calf.” He is smarter than Trump, and, therefore, more dangerous, I think.
Tweedle Dum/Tweedle Dee ? I agree that Trump is not all there. Yet, both Trump and Biden serve the same masters.Have you looked at Biden’s record as Senator? Have you noticed that he’s been even more of a cheerleader for foreign wars?
[I’ll grant you that Biden ‘pulled out of Afghanistan’, but he then imposed a siege and stole half their assets stored in foreign banks… Gave it to “9/11” families when the people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with the World Trade Center. Pure, gross political pandering similar to what one might expect from Trump, if he were smarter.]
There’s a huge difference between Trump and Biden as well as their respective parties. The GOP has degenerated into a very vicious and dangerous death cult that could take us into an authoritarian type government and then precipitate a civil war. The GOP is so bad, that Cheney and Kinzinger have become “heroes” of a sort for criticizing Trump and their own party. Cheney and Kinzinger are very conservative Republicans with whom I disagree about 99% of things, nothing liberal or progressive about them, I would never vote for them. And yet they are being savagely attacked by members of their own party and of course by Trump who still wields some power even though he’s out of office.
Republicans praising Putin!
I do agree that when it comes to education, both parties are despicable with a few rare exceptions.
Daedalus,
Biden did not “steal” anyone’s assets. What he did was freeze half the assets because there are lawsuits pending by the victims of 9/11 against the Taliban government.
There is a bit of trickle down economics here with people believing that if they just give a corrupt and anti-woman government that uses violence against their own people billions of dollars so they can be totally empowered to kill and maim, some of that money will “trickle down’ to some of the people who need it.
Trump versus Biden? What about Hillary, Jeb Bush, Michelle Obama,,or some other family retread?
As a China watcher, I’ve read that many US farmers may have lost China as a buyer of their crops for good. After the traitor started his loser of a trade war, China found new agricultural markets in countries like Brazil. I’ve read that before the traitors trade war, China was buying all of its turkeys from the US and many other agriculta4r products from US farmers.
Brazilian farmers mowed down more of the Amazon rainforest and started to plant crops and raise turkeys on that land to sell to China.
The reason for the trade deficit with China is simple and will never be remedied by any president because Americans are hooked on junk from China.
China is the junk dealer and we are the saps…I mean buyers.
China is the world’s second richest economy and the number 1 manufacturing country. Sadly for the world, it is an authoritarian police state that jails dissenters and the mildest of critics of the government. It is constantly threatening and badgering Taiwan with a take-over in the way it swallowed up Tibet. It is committing a genocide against the Uyghurs.
The world is hooked on China’s goods, not just the US.
From wikipedia about Volvo cars: On 23 December 2009, Ford confirmed the terms of the sale to Geely had been settled. A definitive agreement was signed on 28 March 2010, for $1.8 billion. The European Commission and China’s Ministry of Commerce approved the deal on 6 and 29 July 2010, respectively. The deal closed on 2 August 2010 with Geely paying $1.3 billion cash and a $200 million note. Further payments are expected with a later price “true-up”.[32][33] It is the largest overseas acquisition by a Chinese automaker.[34] end quote
I don’t dispute the fact that they are the world’s biggest manufacturer.
But a lot of what they make is just junk.
And that includes the iPhone, which is very poorly made (breaks very easily).
Actually, we hired China to be our ‘junk dealer’ and put our own manufacturing facilities out of business (except for our weapons manufacturers, of course). As a result, our ‘brilliant’ owners have made us dependent upon China. But, of course, that was the way to ‘maximize profit’ (in the short term).
Of course, it might also be that the design of the iPhone stinks cuz the Apple engineers are no good.
Or maybe they purposely design it so it breaks and people will have to buy a new phone.
But Apple has their fans hypnotized into believing the phone is great.
Our weapons manufacturers also produce junk a lot of junk.
The F35 is an example of a 80+ million dollar piece of junk.
But hey, it’s our junk, so we should feel proud.
Apple must have subliminal ads built into their graphical user interface to make iPhone owners love their iJunk.
Come to think of it, “junk” can be a very personal thing, so those iPhones?
We recently had to retrieve an F35 that crashed in the South China sea because China is always on the hunt for junk and if they can get our junk, they won’t have to design their own and they can save on junk engineering costs.
I thought Trump’s deal with China was a rousing success — for Trump and his family.
Like most oligarchs, “success” is defined by what benefits the oligarch.
Warning:
Trump’s financial statements (and all of his other statements) cannot be relied upon.
Off topic-
Recognizing that each visit to the blog is not discreet, still, if it was, approximately, one out of every 10 Americans have read Diane’s blog!
If only it were true!
Never the less, an impressive statistic.