What's the story with the Tariffs?

[Amishman]

12. It's a twofer for them - their base is passionate about it, and it lets them do something they want to do anyway

I don't mind the China tariffs are a tool to get China to play ball, there are big - and increasing problems - with our China trade.

One is that exports to us is one of the things sustaining their economy since their construction / real estate market has derailed. They are also a cold war style enemy at this point - relentlessly stealing information and technology, building their military and using that to pressure neighbors.

The other is that the Chinese government doesn't care at all about the bad actors operating out of their country. Counterfeit goods is a huge problem, and the fakes are flowing out of China. I've heard several horror stories from old coworkers in the past few years about counterfeit networking equipment in US procurement channels. One of them was several million dollars worth of Cisco data center networking hardware. Externally, perfect match for the real thing. Internally and functionally deficient, and likely loaded with malware and backdoors.

This is the kind of thing we should be pressuring them over.