Trump orders 100 billion additional tarrifs on China

[Torie]

I suspect he's bluffing. Trump thank heavens at the end of the day does not have the balls to do the most insane things that come out of his mouth, that he has the power to do on his own (he backed way off from the steel tariff thing, that is now down to bashing just China mostly at the moment). Just why POTUS has the unilateral power to levy tariffs is a bit disturbing in and of itself.

[Torie]

I'm actually curious as to how this plays out.

The US imports $5 worth of goods from China for every $1 dollar we export. Already, the Chinese have run out of US goods to levy tariffs on even before Trump's latest fart. If they then move on putting tariffs on services, where the US runs a small  (~$50 billion) surplus, then it will represent a major escalation on China's part. And if they really do decide to go nuclear by selling off their T-bills, then they will cause their own currency to skyrocket and put their own companies out of business (or at least make them that much more expensive to subsidize by the central government).

The trade deficit in reality is much lower than the figures being bandied about. Trump's 500 billion dollar figure is totally bogus. If one ignores the value added issues discussed in the link, that is the total trade deficit for the US, not just China.