Whether the Chinese are negotiating or not, Boeing planes are already being sent back, and small-value parcels from Shein are already costing US consumers 377% more. Meanwhile, Spain, rather than US farmers, has received orders for 12 million tonnes of pork.
The world changed on Jan 20. Eight decades of post-World War II consensus and paradigm shifted as US President Donald Trump, in his bid to "Make America Great Again" (MAGA), ruled like a king, issuing a stream of executive orders while lording over an acquiescent Republican-controlled Senate and House. The few judges and courts who dared to stand in the way have been labelled, threatened, ignored, and in one case last week, arrested.
"The beginning of the end," the ominous title of Chew On This for Issue 1183, was, in hindsight, not alarmist enough for the tariffs sledgehammer unleashed on April 2. The only reason why this changed world has not yet fallen off the edge of the abyss was because of the subsequent reprieve so that the rest of the world - except China - can "come to daddy" to negotiate "beautiful trade deals".
