For a person who leads the largest western democracy, Mr. Trump seems to have an inordinate love for royalty and he wanted a state visit. There he was positively glowing at Windsor albeit in an ill-fitting tail coat. Beside him King Charles, immaculately dressed as usual, as they are led to dinner.
And so Keir Starmer got his trade deal with the U.S. so that luxury cars and high end exports escape Trump’s tariffs. No doubt it makes the high tech crowd and manufacturers of these autos feel relieved. But screwing up the world trade system with side deals which other countries might find unfair causes trade wars. It is why the trading system requires a referee, and does have one.
That referee is the WTO or the World Trade Organization. Complaints can be filed there and a panel of judges make a binding decision. Of course, if someone like Trump shows up and dismisses the lot as being unfair to the U.S., then a system that has been running for over 70 years making the world more prosperous is at stake.
If your shorts are from Taiwan and your top was made in Sri Lanka, Trump would have you believe you are being taken for a ride. But then think of the cheap lumber from Canada, or manufactured goods made for American companies in Mexico. And think also of the Wisconsin dairy farmers and their exports to Canada.
Then think of the great blusterer, Donald Trump. Bluster replaces economies; bluster replaces common sense; bluster screams over critics. If tariffs raise prices, the pain must be endured until those exporters come to heel.
The biggest of the exporters are the Chinese. Do they need us? Far from it. They graduate more engineers, more technologists, more software people than almost any other country. They have most of the rare minerals; they make just about anything, and are now making inroads in airplane manufacture — a U.S. preserve for some time.
There may have been a time when the U.S. produced nearly half the world’s GDP. No more. For example, in 2015 China produced half as much as the U.S. by GDP; that figure is now two-thirds and China is on the rise.
As they say, the writing is on the wall. For the future, the U.S. is likely to need China more than the other way round. It is a changing world, and going alone, as the UK tried to do by keeping out of the common market, gives less clout than being part of a larger whole.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Netanyahu continues his murderous onslaught. As if bullets and tank shells don’t kill enough, Netanyahu has the Gazans, children and women included, on a starvation diet by restricting food. Children and the very old are the first to succumb. Trump can stop it, instead he has okayed another shipment of arms, no questions asked. Now who was it who thought he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize?