back to article US-China trade war is back on: White House repeats threat to tax Middle Kingdom imports

US President Donald Trump has put a missile, in the form of trade sanctions, back on the launchpad, started fueling it, and programmed its computer to strike Beijing. The countdown clock for liftoff is set for mid-June. In March, America's commander in chief threatened to increase the tax on Chinese imports, which would affect …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trump is a lunatic

    I think he deliberately tries to take both sides to every issue so he can claim he was right all along no matter what happens, and point fingers at the mainstream media for 'fake news' for the half of the things he said/did and they reported on that weren't how things ultimately ended up.

    I'm sure some of his defenders will now step in and claim this is why he's such a genius negotiator...

  2. Mark 85

    Just a question..

    Is Trump really the brilliant, supreme negotiator or just nuts? Brinksmanship is an art but I'm wondering here.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just a question..

      He is ascended, a route to enlightenment through confusion. The Chinese official who is both surprised and not-surprised seems to have glimpsed the power of his teachings.

      1. mhenriday
        Boffin

        Re: Just a question..

        That Chinese official, like many of his kind, may well be STEM educated, and is simply recalling what he once learned about the quantum nature of small particles, like Mr Trump....

        Henri

  3. Christoph

    "China's favoring of its own companies over foreign firms"

    Which the US would of course never ever do. Well, except for the endless stream of "America First!" pronunciations from trump specifically stating that he will favour US firms over foreign firms.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Let us not forget that China's growth in high-tech was driven initially largely by US firms wanting cheaper manufacturing and being willing to bend over to take whatever the Chinese government demanded in terms of joint ventures, etc, to push "shareholder value".

    2. horse of a different color

      A US president that favours US firms over foreign firms.

      Isn't that his job?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Isn't that his job?"

        And pouting and sulking and pointing fingers and whining and accusing every others of doing what he's doing, too. What a job, and how great he's at it!

      2. HausWolf

        You can tell by all the domestic content his "premium" clothing lines use.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lunatic

    Just one word........Nuts!

    1. agurney

      Re: Lunatic

      Is it a coincidence that the moon's full?

      1. Kane
        Boffin

        Re: Lunatic

        "Is it a coincidence that the moon's full?"

        Technically, the moon is always full.

        1. Tom 38

          Re: Lunatic

          ... of clangers

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Say what you want about trump. But I find it hard to deal with someone such as that. He stands a chance of getting a good deal but equally he runs the risk of the chinese doing their best to have one other on the US.

    I find it best to do a deal and have a little give and take. After all there is always the next deal. A goos deal is ine where bith sides feel like they have done well.

    1. veti Silver badge

      That's loser talk. A good deal to Trump is one where the other side has to take whatever crumbs you throw them or face bankruptcy.

      There's a little-appreciated feature of "the art of the deal", which not having read his ghost-writer, I don't know if Trump even appreciates: in business negotiations, at least half the battle is "picking the right partner to negotiate with". You want to find someone who needs to make a deal more than you do. In the case of property development, it would be a struggling construction company and a cash-strapped landlord - there's seldom any shortage of both of those.

      In international negotiations, you don't have that luxury: you can't just pick and choose your partners. I'm not sure whether Trump even sees the difference.

      1. Mike Pellatt
        Coat

        Someone who wants to make a deal more than you do....

        Like us Brits were told the EU had more to lose than us and would accede to all our demands, then.

        Looks like that's turning out well.

  6. MarcusArt

    Invest, invest

    No one spot the byline?

    在6月15日之前投资特朗普酒店,以避开名单

    Invest in Trump hotels before June 15 to avoid the list? Nice touch El Reg.

  7. JassMan

    Pot calling the kettle black

    The president has made a point of singling out China for what he says are years of unfair trade practices. In particular, China's favoring of its own companies over foreign firms...

    Not as if the US is involved in anything similar. In fact I seem to remember Trump imploring all US citizens via a series of tweets to buy American.

  8. Tomato42
    Unhappy

    Mexicans have a word for this behaviour...

    they described it as "loco"

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ZTE and others in the news this past weekend...

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/24/report-finds-android-malware-pre-installed-on-hundreds-of-phones/

    https://blog.avast.com/android-devices-ship-with-pre-installed-malware

    1. Denarius
      Trollface

      Re: ZTE and others in the news this past weekend...

      malware in Android ? Isn't android something like a JVM running something like java ? if so , of course it has malware. it is malware. Adding telco bloatware, often unremovable. Malware is mandated

  10. steviebuk Silver badge

    Quick, buy all your hard drives NOW!

    If magnetic hard drives are going to increase in price. Trump really is an idiot. That means the cost of online storage and even onsite storage will probably increase now if those prices go up. Although surely, if we deal direct with China, surely we'll be OK and get them at the same price and not the jacked up prices they'll be in the US?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Quick, buy all your hard drives NOW!

      Isn't most of the HDD manufacturing in Thailand, Malaysia and The Philippines? (remember the Thailand floods that took out a big chunk of the HDD manufacturing?)

  11. steviebuk Silver badge

    I wouldn't trust Trump to make a deal at a car boot sale...

    ...considering he's the man that managed to make his casino go bankrupt. How does anyone make a casino go bankrupt. So allowing Trump to decide on trade is a mistake.

    1. Steve Todd

      Re: I wouldn't trust Trump to make a deal at a car boot sale...

      How does anyone make a casino go bankrupt? They finance it with a bond offering an impossibly high interest rate, then threaten any financial analyst with legal action if they try to point out that it can't possibly make money while paying off debt at that rate.

    2. Joe Harrison

      Re: I wouldn't trust Trump to make a deal at a car boot sale...

      Sometimes you need a tax loss and if one of your companies has a problem anyway that you don't want to bother fixing then yes why not let it go bankrupt.

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