Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
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You knew with every terrorist attack his position would look better.
The problem with protectionism is that it is more expensive, not less. If we begin to spend more on things it may seem beneficial, but it will hurt the economy and that will translate as either inflation, recession or both. Meanwhile China's exports to us have increased, not decreased.
Second, his approach is clearly driving a wedge between us and our allies. That may seem to save money in the short term, kind of like canceling the payment on the berth for your yacht at the yacht club while also losing the yacht. Instead of having our armies and navies safely docked in Europe and Japan, we'll bring them home. Yes we save money, but now if we are attacked it is on our soil and not theirs. So it is possible that total expenses will decrease, but our position in the world will greatly decrease.
The main problem of course is that the only way a government can succeed is if the population trusts the government. Attacks on the elections will undermine that both here and in Europe.
At this point I would say that his policies have not made the US safer, have hurt our standing among other nations, and they potentially could damage our economy. On top of this N. Korea has just thumbed their nose at his ultimatum or "line in the sand".