Forget 'free’ trade: there is always a price to pay, and the price for Australia's entanglement with China has been the loss of jobs and the import of shoddy goods, with political interference and spying thrown in. Donald Trump is doing the job he was elected to do: protect the United States of America and Americans. That is much more than can be said for our gutless wonders in Canberra.

Australians should stop talking about Trump and start imitating him if we are to survive China, globalism and “free” trade.

Very informative article. The US is the only country that can resist Chinese aggressive mercantilism, let's hope that Trump succeeds.

Meanwhile Trump has his Trump Brand of business suits and accessories as well as Milena's range of shoes manufactured in Mexico and China, as well as much of the steel used to construct his buildings.

China didn't "take away" American manufacturing - it was deliberately sent there by American business owners eager to increase their profits and I doubt they will be keen to return to making things that locals simply can't afford to buy. In the end, consumers are as self-interested as businesses.

Let's see what happens to their economy and society when they have to pay thousands of dollars for their locally manufactured iPhones and other tech gadgets.

The suggestion that manufacturing and employment will magically return at the same levels to those hard-hit States and fix everything is as fanciful as Trump's claim that Global Warming is simply a hoax perpetrated by China.

I think Trump is going about this like a bull in a china shop. Sorry for the unfortunate pun.

And sure to end in tears. China will find and exploit other markets and partners, in the east perhaps? And right into the open welcoming arms of a duplicitous Putin?

For mine, this whole thing needs rethinking and a far better much more inclusive, industrial/manufacturing template. Imagine if you can, All America's factories/manufacturing was converted by law to the cooperative model and where the workforce would own a percentage of the stock. Say 40% and therefore share in a percentage of the profit or losses?

And given they were doing better than just paying wages or just holding their head above water, how many would be able to transfer to China, merely to save a few bucks.

Those anticipated savings more than available via much cheaper energy! Supplied by co-ops operated as private enterprise in a highly competitive local domestic market. And assisted by even cheaper tax, set at a flat rate of 15% and free of any deductions, for everyone above the threshold.

Donald wants to make America great again? But is trying to achieve that by dividing both ends against the middle and thoroughly pissing off its biggest potential market.

China is too big in every sense of the word for bully boy tactics to work! And all a brutally belligerent bellicose bully has to back the diabolically dumb diatribe. That passes for sane and rational policy from a six times bankrupt, D Trump.

In order to be great, one first needs to give. And not the forte of a man who reportedly spent a lifetime "taking"?
Alan B.

I think Trump is going about this like a bull in a china shop.
AlanB,
...and no matador in sight. Is it because the China shop needs restocking anyway ?

Individual, you are right.

Donald got in promising blue collar worker jobs!

I stand by my earlier comments and add co-ops were the only free market, private enterprise model that largely survived the great depression intact!

Far and away, more efficient and productive than any other business or sovietized model.

More profitable, because the workers are also shareholders watching their managers and each other to quickly identify/expel the drones and the incompetents.

If you give the best tax breaks to co-ops, the lowest energy and capital costs, by legislated design?

It wouldn't be too long before all manner of business became cooperative, and also not too big to fail

. This aspect better achieved by not giving shares to company employees but supplying them on loan, be they the CEO or the lowly bathroom attendant.

Compel the management to focus on maximised profit streams and subsequent organic growth ahead of acquisitions and hollowed out companies? Simply to boost shortlived and inherently destructive capital gains.

Loaned shares, that still nonetheless pay dividends. Serves two things, maximised profit and the company kept in the same hands for its entire operational life. Means the shares can't be acquired, piece by piece, by some exploitive extreme capitalist, and the cause of all America's current woes, not China!
Alan B.

As someone who has spent the bulk of his life mercilessly exploiting people, the Trump solution, bound to cruel an economy well in recovery mode before his emergence as the most powerful man on the globe! Unable or unwilling to try a much more inclusive business model for the entire nation and with that done, positioned to beat the pants off of the likes of China economically!

They need force and coercion and never ever as successful as incentivized self-interest! And that aforementioned free market private enterprise model is what we in the west need to triumph over the emerging evil axis!

Watch this space, if only to see a prediction of Donald Trump being removed and replaced while still in office by his own people side? And remember, you read it here first! Alan.