His mishandling of the pandemic is the key reason why he lost the reelection. We have the best medical delivery in the world, but now the worst country in handling this pandemic. We lose credential by comparing to the deaths from this pandemic in China.
His deglobalization policy makes him unpopular even among his allies and particularly to China. The global companies do not support this policy as they would lose a lot of money from foreign operations (factories and foreign market) in addition to the foreign profits converted back to depreciated USD. We need to subsidize some industries such as making masks and devices / medicines for this pandemic. He also woke up China to tell them not to depend on us esp. on computer chips.
He has gained support from the workers; some jobs have already moved back to U.S. However, the benefits of deglobaliation may not compensate for the losses.
The capital rampage brings his downfall and did a lot of harm to Republicans, and he will never recover politically. I cannot figure out why he did this, as there are no benefits. It must be his ego covering his eyes. I can conclude that Trump is a gussy guy without thinking his actions thoroughly (i.e. not cunning enough to be a politician). Some argue that he may gain a lot of donations. I do not think so; who will support a politician who has lost most of his political power? Financially his businesses will not be welcome by many sponsors.
The other conclusion is Trump has a lot of followers. Most think their living standard is lowered due to China and globalization, and most do not know the outside world (obvious from the counties of his supporters). If he is not impeached successfully, he would run again in 4 years. In any case, the country is deeply divided, and Biden will have a tough time.
Compared to Hong Kong’s riot, the property damages were less severe, and the rioters were less organized and stupid without the masks. Hong Kong police looked like pussy cats by comparison.
Many comments on Hong Kong riots and national security law slap our cheeks, while we are still laughing at others. They are “beautiful scenery” describing the Hong Kong riots, “disbanding the Hong Kong police”, “rioters are revolutionary”, etc. Double standard or we are tasting our own medicine?
The social media ban Trump, have we violated his freedom of speech? We can argue that our national security is more important than our freedom of speech. Most of these media companies such as Facebook and Twitter do not like Trump; even his favorite FoxNews is changing their support. These companies like controversial posts to sell their stuffs.
Many global companies do not like Trump due to the threats to their foreign operations. They are the wealthy and powerful force. Trump has underestimated the difficulty in moving the supply chain away from China as evidenced by Apple and Tesla.
We have become the laughing stock and we have not set up a good example of policy we are preaching. One Brazilian said that the riot was not successful (i.e. the government had not been overthrown), as there was not a U.S. embassy in Washington D.C. He meant that many uprisings in foreign lands were financed and aided by us. This article is brief as many topics have been discussed in this book.
Trump could be the first president that solved the trade deficit problem and could be reelected. The pandemic changes all these for the worse, and it actually helps China. The major issues are:
· Trade deficit with China. From the last figure, we have the second highest deficit with China. The tariffs do not help. With the quick recovery of the pandemic, Chinese products particularly those for the pandemic such as masks are in high demand for almost all other countries beside China.
· We gain some jobs before the pandemic. The supply chain has not been moved back to the U.S. as it is a very risky venture. About ¾ of the corporations oppose it. Moving to the other low-wage countries such as Vietnam does not really work; they do not have educated work force and adequate infrastructure as China. In addition, their local market for assembled products such as iPhone cannot compete with China. It is a loss-loss situation.
· Our Federal deficit (= incomes – expenses), unemployment, national debt and our life expectancy are heading for the worse.
· A Washington Post with the title “No vaccine to cure ignorance and irrationality” argued that the pandemic would not end soon due to our ignorance and irrationality (Trump is the problem on this).
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The above article is from my book "China and U.S.: Apocalypse or Co-Prosperity".
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