Trump "Overrules" Cabinet, Prepares To Unleash Global Trade War | Zero Hedge
Description: In what may be one of the "most consequential and contentious" decisions about to be announced by Donald Trump, with the political world distracted by Trump's media wars, Axios reports that Trump - defying virtually all his Wall Street advisors - is set to launch a global trade war.
Keywords: Zero Hedge,Zerohedge,Finance,Economics,Markets,Politics,Analysis,China,Counterparties,Donald Trump,Germany,Japan,Mexico,Peter Navarro,Trade War,Trade Wars,White House,Wilbur Ross
Date: 2017-06-30T00:00:00Z

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# Trump "Overrules" Cabinet, Prepares To Unleash Global Trade War

by Tyler Durden
Jun 30, 2017 7:16 AM
0
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While one of Trump's recurring campaign promises was that he would "punish" China and other key US trade counterparties if elected, for taking advantage of free-trade by imposing steep tariffs and duties on foreign imports to "level the playing field", the President's stance changed drastically after the election, U-turning following his amicable meeting with China's president Xi Jinping in March, but mostly as a result of pressure by his ex-Goldman advisors to keep existing trade arrangements in place and not "rock the boat."

Now, all that may be about to fall apart.

According to Axios, behind the constant media scandals, "one of the most consequential and contentious internal debates of his presidency unfolded during a tense meeting Monday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House" where with "more than 20 top officials present, including Trump and Vice President Pence, the president and a small band of America First advisers made it clear they're hell-bent on imposing tariffs — potentially in the 20% range — on steel, and likely other imports."

In other words, Trump - true to his campaign promises - is set to launch a global trade wars after all, one where then main country impacted would be China, however the collateral damage would extend to Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany and the UK.

And what may be even more striking is that Trump overruled his cabinet, as "the sentiment in the room was 22 against and 3 in favor — but since one of the three is named Donald Trump, it was case closed." Axios adds that while "no decision has been made, the President is leaning towards imposing tariffs, despite opposition from nearly all his Cabinet."

Needless to say, if Trump follows through, the outcome would have a profound effect on U.S. economic and foreign policy; Trump will formalize his decision in the coming days.

What is also notable, is that this is the first time - so far off the record - in which Trump has openly defied his Wall Street establishment advisors, while siding with the Bannon "populist" front:

> In a plan pushed by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and backed by chief strategist Steve Bannon (not present at the meeting), trade policy director Peter Navarro and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, the United States would impose tariffs on China and other big exporters of steel. Neither Mike Pence nor Jared Kushner weighed in either way.

> Everyone else in the room, more than 75% of those present, were adamantly opposed, arguing it was bad economics and bad global politics. At one point, Trump was told his almost entire cabinet thought this was a bad idea. But everyone left the room believing the country is headed toward a major trade confrontation.

As Axios adds, the reason why Trump defied the guidance of his Wall Street-derived advisors is Trump's base "which drives more and more decisions, as his popularity sinks — likes the idea, and will love the fight."

This, more than anything, should send shivers down Wall Street's spine, because for all his bluster and outrageous media outbursts, Trump had largely been in Wall Street's pocket so far.

Not anymore, and with Trump's base hell bent on punishing the 1% (which includes Wall Street), if Trump indeed launches global trade war, his future decisions will become increasingly market unfriendly.

- China
- White House
- Donald Trump
- Germany
- Japan
- Peter Navarro
- Trade War
- Wilbur Ross
- Counterparties
- Trade Wars
- Mexico

- Printer-friendly version
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Putrid_Scum Jun 30, 2017 7:18 AM

Trade wars usually result in shooting wars.

Putrid

jcaz Putrid_Scum Jun 30, 2017 7:21 AM

Long overdue....

playit jcaz Jun 30, 2017 7:26 AM

I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.jobproplan.com

silverer playit Jun 30, 2017 7:30 AM

Post your tax return.

cheka silverer Jun 30, 2017 7:33 AM

the american system about to return (before skype replaced tariff revenue with taxes on WAGES)? bring it on. tariff or continue to get bled out by nyc

along with peak oil, 'free trade' one of their greatest scams

Killtruck cheka Jun 30, 2017 7:37 AM

Glad to see him overruling the OverRulers.

not super happy about the trade war thing, but better than what we have going on for the last couple of decades. And not being owned by Wall Street is, as far as I can tell, a new thing for Presidents.

Just don't go for any open-top limo rides in Dallas, Mr. President. They have magic bullets down there.

FrozenGoodz Killtruck Jun 30, 2017 7:52 AM

Idiot's protectionism is going to get us killed

PT FrozenGoodz Jun 30, 2017 7:57 AM

Why does China need to sell steel to the US anyway? Why can't they just turn it into cars, washing machines, refrigerators, I-beams etc and sell it to their own peasants??? After all, they're the ones who do all the work. Why can't they be rewarded for their labour?

From where does China get its iron ore, energy and other resources?

"Oh, life is so hard! I work my guts out building stuff all day and I am poor becoz no-one will buy it from me!" : Can anyone else see a problem with this picture?

HockeyFool PT Jun 30, 2017 8:03 AM

0bammy and friends did so well with the economy and foreign policy we should still be persuing those failed policies? Fuck you, frozenassclown.

BaBaBouy HockeyFool Jun 30, 2017 8:30 AM

Yes Donald... Who Needs Fair Trade, We Gats everything we need right here, We even have some healthcare here and there... Rah Rah Rah

What we NEED is More Billionaires and RICHER Billionaires ...!

Manthong BaBaBouy Jun 30, 2017 9:01 AM

He should take that attitude to the Pentagram first.

barndoor Manthong Jun 30, 2017 9:15 AM

"Now, all that may be about to fall apart."

Get accustomed to this sentence. You'll be hearing it a lot more in the medium term....

Oh regional Indian barndoor Jun 30, 2017 9:40 AM

The death of the dollar is a long planned event.

Get used to becoming a Gulag, soon, even this year perhaps. Your money won't buy shit abroad anymore. There will be two dollars. Standard and eurodollar.

Flying in and out of the US will be a nightmare. All your two-wrists, in and out, wil dry up.

This is not just a trade move. This is a giant step in the planned destruction of the US of A.

Meanwhile, you can rah rah on so much winning.

MAGA....Making America the Greatest Ass...

froze25 Oh regional Indian Jun 30, 2017 10:18 AM

Screw Wall ST, traitors have made too much money off of offshoring our manufacturing base. Globalist Traitors.

nmewn BaBaBouy Jun 30, 2017 9:12 AM

At least we have finally broken down the argument so the average Joe can understand the difference between Free Trade and Fair Trade.

There is a distinct difference.

DaBears nmewn Jun 30, 2017 10:02 AM

China is already in a trade war against US for decades, $350 billion trade surplus per year from US via protectionism as of today.

earleflorida BaBaBouy Jun 30, 2017 10:29 AM

enjoy this...George Carlin reality `blast from the past as in deje vu all over you!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47349.htm

Billy the Poet BaBaBouy Jun 30, 2017 10:31 AM

The world has not yet chosen you as the arbiter of what constitutes fairness. What a rip off!

Stuck on Zero HockeyFool Jun 30, 2017 8:31 AM

Trump starting a trade war??? WTF. We've been in a trade war for thirty years and have surrended on every battle front.

Arnold Stuck on Zero Jun 30, 2017 8:44 AM

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-23/trade-wars-begin-us-imposes-256...

"This means that suddenly China's steel exporters will have to scramble to find a comparably large market in which to sell their wares as now exporting to the US is prohibitively expensive and would result in massive losses to domestic producers. "

Tarrifs?

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040115/which-countries-have-high...

BurningFuld Arnold Jun 30, 2017 9:03 AM

The US does not import steel from China. Read this report. Number one supplier is Canada. Us fucking socialists kicking ass again!

http://www.ita.doc.gov/steel/countries/pdfs/imports-us.pdf

Trump hates Canada.

Kayman BurningFuld Jun 30, 2017 9:38 AM

Canada imports Chinese steel. And has put a tariff on Chinese rebar. So Canada does behind the scenes what Trump does up front.

BTW- Chinese steel mills are the number one source of CO2 in the world.

Doom and Dust Kayman Jun 30, 2017 9:41 AM

So has, and does, the EU.

Fucking hypocrites. Well at least they pay their Climate Indulgences to the church of ACC.

BurningFuld Kayman Jun 30, 2017 10:15 AM

59% of Canada's steel imports come from the USA. 9% from China.

I'm sorry but I think the world needs more CO2 in it's atmosphere because it is what plants breath.

Billy the Poet BurningFuld Jun 30, 2017 10:36 AM

After a hard day at the plant those Canadian steel workers kick back and relax with their peanut butter dogs.

Most bestiality is legal, declares Canada's Supreme Court

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bestiality-legal-canada...

DRTexas Stuck on Zero Jun 30, 2017 8:59 AM

No, they were in a trade war. We never showed up to the fight. We have rolled over and pee'd on ourselves since Clinton was in office.

Kayman DRTexas Jun 30, 2017 9:40 AM

Clinton's got wealthy from the dirty Chinese money imported to the Clinton Foundation in transit thru Canada.

DRTexas HockeyFool Jun 30, 2017 8:56 AM

I'm confused. Is that Frozenass Clown, or Frozen Assclown?

JRobby HockeyFool Jun 30, 2017 9:24 AM

People elected him to go with his gut.

He should go with his gut. The "Cabinet" is compromised.

curbjob PT Jun 30, 2017 8:31 AM

If the world no longer has access to the tarrif free American consumer,

they no longer need America's discount coupons.

Goodbye reserve currency status.

Kayman curbjob Jun 30, 2017 9:42 AM

It's time to use the reserve currency to build the American economy instead of letting political traitors sell out this nation.

swmnguy curbjob Jun 30, 2017 10:20 AM

Note who's in favor of tariffs and trade wars. Bannon, Navarro, Miller, and Ross. The guys whose stated interest and intention is the takedown of the US Empire, and control over selling off the parts for scrap. At enormous profit of course, because taxpayers paid for it all. Pretty much what Yeltsin oversaw in Russia in the '90s, egged on by the Chicago School of Economics CIA boys, to the enormous enrichment of the Russian Mob.

We're getting the same treatment here. Bannon laid it all out at CPAC, and everywhere else there's been a microphone.

I think we all knew the US Empire had passed its peak and was on the way down. I think most of us expected the Elites to try to engineer a descent, but instead the standing order is "Pull It," and for the same reasons. There's more money to be skimmed in a collapse than in a decline, so that's what we're going to get. Disaster Capitalism, the "Shock Doctrine." And then the crackdown. These people have been fantasizing and planning this for decades and now they're getting very close. They just needed a leadership vacuum, and now they've got that.

Doom and Dust swmnguy Jun 30, 2017 10:30 AM

Yes this.

Same story in the UK. Total coup. It's happening.

toady PT Jun 30, 2017 10:34 AM

"Why does China need to sell steel to the US anyway? Why can't they just turn it into cars, washing machines, etc....."

It's a 50-50....50% of the time the steel doesn't actually exist, and 50% of the time the buyer doesn't pay.

Killtruck FrozenGoodz Jun 30, 2017 7:58 AM

Look around, fuckhead. "Free trade" has been getting us killed for the last 40 years. Been to Youngstown recently?

mofreedom Killtruck Jun 30, 2017 8:06 AM

Been almost 20 years outside the valley, miss it, wanted to work in Pittsburgh, but I had t go home. Some day I will return home. God bless.

Rothbardian in ... Killtruck Jun 30, 2017 8:14 AM

How has the last 40 years been anything approaching free trade?

So we basically blow up the entire production capacity of the first world in the middle of the 20th century except our own. For the next 50 years we have zero competition. We respond with labor unions and regulations and taxes. When the rest of the world finally recovers and begins to compete with us we cry foul. In your case, lamenting Youngstown. Youngstown looks like it does because Youngstown did that to itself. Maybe if we had embraced free trade, liberty and competition for the last 50 years instead of finding ourselves on 3rd base and acting like we hit a triple....then Youngstown wouldn't look like the 50 year old local barfly on a Sunday morning.

VW Nerd Rothbardian in Cleveland Jun 30, 2017 8:33 AM

Rothbardian,

The US not only had a 55 year monopoly on production, but, just as important, a monopoly on money and banking in the form of the US dollar as global reserve currency. While other countries had to maintain dollar reserves to buy and sell their goods in the world marketplace, oil especially, the US had the luxury of creating dollars out of thin air whenever they ran a deficit leger balance. This continues to give them a false sense of prosperity and at the same time pisses off countries around the world who are forced to us the corrupt dollar system. Expect an increase in non dollar trade alliances if Trump refuses to play nice with US trade partners.

Dindu Nuffins Rothbardian in Cleveland Jun 30, 2017 9:01 AM

You aren't going to compete in free trade against protectionists like China. Only protectionists can withstand the blood-sucking of other protectionist. They'll always undercut you, because they don't play by your silly white-boy ideas of fair play and your values that make worker safety and the environment an expensive concern. Free trade only benefits everyone if everyone embraces it fairly. Prisoner's Dilemma.

LetThemEatRand Rothbardian in Cleveland Jun 30, 2017 9:04 AM

"For the next 50 years we have zero competition"

This argument is so ridiculous on its face, yet it is "common wisdom" among the "free trade" crowd. It does not take 50 years to rebuild factories. We are being killed by free trade because of wage arbitrage with countries like China, not to mention that China has no real environmental rules. The only way pure free trade balances those scales is to pay workers in the West a few dollars a day and let our cities fill with smog again, and then you have to ask yourself who will be able to afford to stuff the factories are making.

Rothbardian in ... LetThemEatRand Jun 30, 2017 9:23 AM

No, it didn't take 50 years to build a factory. That wasn't my argument, perhaps I should have been more clear. I'd say "they" began to compete with us in the 60's. We started the race with a head start. We pissed it away. As the reality of competion began to take hold we responded not with laissez-faire capitalist, but with quite the opposite. I'd say "they" passed us sometime in the late 80's and early 90's. Some wars, the internet, yadda yadda. We traded leads for a while. Now "they" are ahead in some areas. And again, our response is one that is based that we can tax our way back into the lead again.

Kayman Rothbardian in Cleveland Jun 30, 2017 9:55 AM

"We started the race with a head start."

You've got to stop getting your history education from comic books.

The American taxpayer rebuilt Germany and Japan post WWII. Look it up. Those 2 country's were the greatest industrial competitors to the US until China arrived.

And China exists solely because American politicians let China into the WTO, even though China did not qualify. And American corporations funded transplanting their factories to China, where there were no labor laws and no pollution control standards. Top that off with free access to the American consumer market with debt based money and you have what we have today.

A wounded America and a new belligerent enemy/competitor- China.

Rothbardian in ... Kayman Jun 30, 2017 10:19 AM

The taxpayer? Hmmm.... From my understanding it was more to the effect of a Haliburton, Carpet Bagger type of effort.

Furthermore, China doesn't exist because we let them into WTO. They've only been around since...oh i don't know...ancient times. The corporate exodus to China we can agree upon.

shovelhead LetThemEatRand Jun 30, 2017 9:46 AM

How did we afford it before China became a manufacturing hub?

There's a hundred answers to that question but the fact remains that we got along fine buying US made goods for 250 years.

earleflorida LetThemEatRand Jun 30, 2017 10:23 AM

here's a little commentary by 'George Carlin' to refresh your memory[ies]?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47349.htm

enjoy

Kayman Rothbardian in Cleveland Jun 30, 2017 9:46 AM

The US blew up China? Get a fucking brain.

American industry and the jobs that go with it, were sold out by rootless Globalist corporations and dirty, for sale, American politicians. Do you think the Clinton's grew wealthy from creating jobs in America or China? Fuck off.

Rothbardian in ... Kayman Jun 30, 2017 10:13 AM

Nope. The Japs did. Raped it actually.

My point, was and still is, that we were the only significant manufacuring base left after the war.

But hey, do whatever mental/linguistic gymnastics necessary in order to sustain your little pissed off enlightened tough guy schtick.

HockeyFool FrozenGoodz Jun 30, 2017 8:04 AM

I'm up for trying anything at this point. Kick 'em in the balls, Trump.

mofreedom HockeyFool Jun 30, 2017 8:07 AM

Square in the NUTS.

Paul Kersey FrozenGoodz Jun 30, 2017 8:02 AM

If Trump follows through on this, the three quarters of Americans, living from paycheck to paycheck, will now see their paychecks get smaller and their expenses grow larger. Interesting that Trump takes the advice of Wilbur Ross, a wealth-extractor who spent 24 years at the House of Rothschild. With Trump, no anthill goes unkicked.

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