How Trump's petty personal business disputes with Japan in the 80s explain his views on trade.

[DTomlinson]

I have long been somewhat perplexed by Trump's consistent obsession with "other countries ripping us off on trade" and his love of tariffs. I have thought, "This is odd - Trump has been consistent on few things (besides being a consistent asshole, narcissist, media manipulator, con man, racist, and misogynistic sexual predator), so there's got to be a reason for this. Surely there can't be a principled belief here?"


And. lo and behold, I found this article in the NYT from last year:

Donald J. Trump lost an auction in 1988 for a 58-key piano used in the classic film “Casablanca” to a Japanese trading company representing a collector. While he brushed off being outbid, it was a firsthand reminder of Japan’s growing wealth, and the following year, Mr. Trump went on television to call for a 15 percent to 20 percent tax on imports from Japan.

“I believe very strongly in tariffs,” Mr. Trump, at the time a Manhattan real estate developer with fledgling political instincts, told the journalist Diane Sawyer, before criticizing Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia and South Korea for their trade practices. “America is being ripped off,” he said. “We’re a debtor nation, and we have to tax, we have to tariff, we have to protect this country.”

Thirty years later, few issues have defined Mr. Trump’s presidency more than his love for tariffs — and on few issues has he been more unswerving. Allies and historians say that love is rooted in Mr. Trump’s experience as a businessman in the 1980s with the people and money of Japan, then perceived as a mortal threat to America’s economic pre-eminence.

“Tariffs tie so much of Trump together,” said Jennifer M. Miller, an assistant history professor at Dartmouth College who last year published a study of how Japan’s rise has affected the president’s worldview. “His obsession with winning, which he thinks tariffs will allow him to do. His obsession with appearing tough. His obsession with making certain parts of national border fixed. And his obsession with executive power.”

Mr. Trump was a vocal critic of Japan as its economy and international influence boomed in the ’80s, a period of high anxiety over Japanese economic ascension, though he himself had a complicated relationship with the country. He competed with Japanese developers for properties in New York City, then bragged of selling condominiums and office space for a premium to Japanese buyers. He borrowed money from Japanese financial institutions, but complained about the difficulty of doing deals with large groups of Japanese businessmen.

His critiques of Japan — and to a lesser extent, other trading partners — won him publicity as he briefly explored a presidential campaign before the 1988 election.

Mr. Trump’s interest in leveling the playing field in trade dates back even further than[the 80s] — to Lee Iacocca, the swashbuckling chairman of Chrysler, who brought the carmaker back from ruin under an onslaught of Japanese imports.

“He imagined himself Iacocca’s equal as an icon of American business,” said Michael D’Antonio, one of Mr. Trump’s biographers. “Beyond that, there is the personalization he does about everything. He always thinks that if something bad is happening to him, there must be, by definition, something evil afoot.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/us/politics/china-trade-donald-trump.html

There's always a "what's in it for me" angle with Trump.

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

This is just another reason why he is so unfit to serve as president. He is simply unable to see any issue objectively, or to think about what would be the wisest course of action for the nation as a whole, rather than just for him only.

Everything is personal to him. Every interaction is an opportunity for him to "win" or to screw somebody over. He has no leadership qualities whatsoever. He doesn't have the slightest concept of what the job of POTUS entails and he is not interested in learning. It's long past time for him to go.

[DTomlinson]

2. Yup. Agreed entirely!