QOTD -- "Deal" Or No Deal

 

"The Trump administration is planning to announce its first trade deal today, with Britain. Except it won’t be a deal; more of a 'deal.' Reportedly it will mainly be a 'framework' for an actual deal that may or may not happen sometime in the future. This is the tariff equivalent of “concepts of a plan” for health care.

"In other words, this will be smoke and mirrors, an attempt to persuade the gullible that Trump’s tariffs are actually working. Markets — driven by small investors who seem desperate to believe that the people in charge have some idea what they’re doing — may briefly bounce on the announcement.  [snip]

"... Nobody knows what will eventually come out of it, but we can be sure of one thing: It won’t lead to any significant opening of the British market to U.S. goods. Why? Because that market was already wide open before Trump stomped in.

"The most important thing to understand about Trump’s trade war is that it’s an attempt to solve a problem that only exists in his imagination..." --  Nobel economist Paul Krugman, writing in his Substack on "Will Trump Pretend to Fix What He Broke?," on the announcement of a trade "deal" with the United Kingdom (poorer and very thirsty after Brexiting themselves).  Like pretty much everything the Malignant Fascist has ever gotten involved in, his dysfunctional brain imagines a problem*, he proceeds to break things badly, then he announces a solution that wouldn't have been necessary had his dysfunctional brain not imagined the problem and broken things in the first place.   But what voter in 2024 could have possibly seen this coming, amirite?!

*Or, it's placed there by his handler, war criminal Putin.