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Originally Posted by TeflonDawg
I think you give President Trump way too much credit. He definitely gets credit regarding China, but I have an extremely hard time believing that he fully understands what he's doing. He has made statements that demonstrate he doesn't even understand what a tariff is. I know that's sort of an ad hominem attack, but it's not the only time he's said things that 1) make no sense and 2) clearly do not present as evidence he's a great leader. His verbal intelligence, as you put it, has nothing to do with it. A great leader doesn't state things publicly that his own team has no idea what is going on or gets blindsided by. That's extreme disorganization. The only positive takeaway from that behavior is that it's nice to not have a pussy in the White House and he's aggressive with regard to China...
Great leaders provide a general direction and surround with themselves with people who execute the particulars of the vision. Trump might not know everything, but Ross, Lighthizer, Mnuchin, Kudlow and Navarro most certainly know everything there is to possibly know about trade. You cannot come up with a better all star cast to represent the U.S.
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But he's curiously not aggressive with Russia. You can't just conveniently ignore that. It's problem.
Then you haven't been paying attention and don't understand how Trump operates. Trump has been an absolute nightmare for Russia. Sanctions upon sanctions, the annihilation of a Russian battalion with over 200 soldiers killed, installing military bases in Poland, US becoming a net exporter of shale oil; any one of these things would be a problem for Russia. All of them together are a catastrophe.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-ho...obama-in-eight
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/o...ons-putin.html
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/63065...ever-on-russia
One of the most fascinating things about President Trump is that with respect to foreign leaders, he makes good personal relationships with his enemies/competitors and allows them to save face while shivving them hard under the surface. He is not going to taunt them over the victories.
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One other problem is, in a general sense, America is not a business and the President of the United States is not a CEO. It's nice to run a country that way if you own real estate, business, have mad money in a portfolio, or don't have or care not to have a moral compass. Even if you like Trump as President on the basis of being a businessman, again, for the millionth time, he's not a great businessman. He's more like a boom or bust WR in fantasy football. You can't run a country like that with lives at stake imo
On the contrary, his experience in business gives him a Machiavellian play-to-win mentality far beyond any normal politician. He will use anything and everything to win, and he's doing it on behalf of the U.S. It is a grand sight to behold, although his ruthlessness is rather frightening at times.