China’s Retaliatory Tariffs Will Hit Trump Country Hard

Areas to be impacted by China tariffs.

Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer,  seems hell bent on sparking a trade war with China.  Since Trump seemingly listens to no one and finds even briefings of more than a single page too taxing to read, perhaps he was oblivious to the fact that China would not just roll over and play dead when hit by tariffs by Trump.  Perhaps all he was focused on was bluster and "tough guy talk" so loved by his (in my view) cretinous/racist base.  In any event, China announced that it would play tit for tat and impose its own round of tariffs.  What is almost enough to make a progressive smile, is that China's proposed tariffs will hit Trump voting red states particularly hard.  Indeed, some states could find their economies significantly damaged and, rather than bring better economic times, Trump would have delivered economic hardship to his most loyal supporters.  China definitely knows how to deliver pay back to Trump.  Here are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:

It was inevitable that China would respond in kind to tariffs levied against it by President Trump. [Trump] the president argued that the trade deficit and Chinese theft of intellectual property necessitated taking economic action. But the net effect is that China also will charge more for American products to enter its country — tariffs that are likely to affect places whose residents voted for Trump more significantly than voters in other areas.

The products to which China will add additional duties include manufactured products such as airplanes and vinyl records. (For some reason.) But they will also apply tariffs to a number of agricultural goods, according to CNBC, including:·        Yellow soybeans
·        Black soybeans
·        Corn
·        Corn flour
·        Uncombed cotton
·        Sorghum
·        Other durum wheat
·        Other wheat and mixed wheat
·        Tobacco

It won’t surprise you to learn that agricultural areas produce most of these goods. And rural areas supported Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Take soybeans. Soybeans are heavily produced in the Mississippi River region . . . A tariff on soybeans affects a lot of places that backed Trump.

We can do the same thing for other products on the list, such as corn, which is heavily produced in the upper Midwest — a region that helped propel Trump’s narrow electoral-vote victory.  The map for wheat is dramatic, encompassing wide swaths of the country, mostly red.

[A]ny action taken by Trump that might negatively affect agriculture is almost necessarily going to affect places that preferred him to Clinton by a lopsided margin.

That seems clearly to be the case with the duties China will apply in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs.

Should these tariffs be implemented, frankly, I will find it difficult to not smile at the self-inflicted suffering of Trump voting regions. Deliberately put an unfit, racist, morally bankrupt individual in the White House and you deserve whatever misfortunes come your way.  Actions do have consequences.