QOTD -- The Shart Of The Deal, Cont.

 

Paul Krugman on the "trade deal" made with Japan -- nothing written, not legally binding -- that is just as stupid (and damaging to America) as the Malignant Fascist himself:

You might imagine that making a deal with one of our most important trading partners must have involved a team of experienced, skilled negotiators backed by economic experts. But in reality it was clearly pure amateur hour. Look at the photo at the top of this post, from CNBC. It shows Trump with a card in front of him laying out one much-hyped though probably meaningless part of the deal, a promise by Japan to invest in America. How much? The card says $400 billion, but that number was crossed out by hand and replaced with $500 billion, which somehow became $550 billion in the final announcement.

Next thing you’re going to tell me that Trump will start modifying weather forecasts with a Sharpie. Oh, wait.

So Trump’s negotiators probably had no idea what they were doing, and didn’t realize that in their frantic rush to conclude a deal they were agreeing to tariffs that would be highly unfavorable to U.S. manufacturing.

Why were they frantic? Trump has been the subject of considerable mockery over having made big promises about his ability to negotiate trade deals, then coming up empty month after month. So he and his people were surely anxious to make some major announcements before his self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1 — anxious enough not to realize quite what they were agreeing to.

And of course they may also have hoped that a splashy trade deal would move the news cycle off Jeffrey Epstein.

Now that other countries have seen what Japan was able to get away with, I won’t be surprised if we see more deals in the near future. Will these deals be just as stupid? Probably.

The soundbite media will doubtless not take any time to present the truth about this "deal," just as it didn't with the ballyhooed UK or Vietnamese "deals."  If you read their accounts, they're treating these shams with maximum chin-stroking seriousness.  Meanwhile, the regime populated by people judged for their loyalty rather than their competence, working for a world-class moron, continues to work on ruining America, one "deal" at a time.