the tax cut has brought immediate juice to the economy... to me that is enough for now.. perhaps it's part of the negotiation to get it passed in the first place.. that we don't know. Obama - all his policies have been head winds to the economy... yes it expanded but was due to the easy money... so it expanded DESPITE obama... Trump's policies have been pro-biz. Trade war - if you watch his interviews from as far back as the 1980s he already had this idea that the US has been ripped off... the main goal is not to 'aid the expansion', but is to maintain US' dominant position in the world... China had the Road and Belt Initiative, and Made In China 2025, both demonstrating the ambition to take the domination away from the US... that is something Trump cannot tolerate and he told Xi in his face that he does not like 'China 2025'.... China is already #1 in PPP and not too far behind in nominal GDP... this is of the utmost importance and Trump is taking action to defend the western way of life!
that's kinda normal for the mid term election isn't it... regardless which party owns the white house.
that's the GOP playbook since Reagan. Deregulate, have wild spending in defense and other fields, and have cheap money to create a bubble and let the democrats try to fix the mess they inherited. People are dumb so buy Republicans' cheap self-help spiel, "are you sad with the state of your life and want to blame others? Come vote for us"
No, it brought immediate relief to stock indices. Which went up for the whole year with no pullback of note.
first of all, the offset is not completely true... the USDCNY rate has increased some to offset the offset lol, in other words the Chinese exporters can afford to sell for less USD as the CNY cost is reduced... also the Chinese government has to subsidize the exporters to keep them going.. have you seen stuff going up by 25% in your local Walmart? I haven't. secondly, the offset shouldn't be permanent, or as long lasting as the tax cut... either China caves in, or the companies will move to non-tariff countries like Vietnam to produce. thirdly, the tax cut and the tariffs are really unrelated.. the first one is to boost the economy, the second one is to contain China, so that the US can remain dominant, especially in the high tech area.... Made in China 2025 clearly demonstrated the ambition that by 2025 China will obtain world leadership in many high tech areas, and that is something the US cannot tolerate!
the 2 things are not mutually exclusive though... during the time the indices went up, that that does not exclude the fact that now companies have the incentive to bring overseas profit back to the US... the high corporate tax rate really has been killing the US... it's too easy to tax shelter for all the multinational corporations by moving profits to low tax countries. the tax cut did not significantly affect individual taxes... a couple of grand for the medium income family? the big ticket was the corporate tax... that was a big tail wind.
Funny how that "tailwind" did not take effect until 2018. So why was 2017 so up? OH, SORRY, it wasn't. It crashed and burned in 2018.
I think both parties are equally guilty in 'wild spending'. But deregulation in general is a good thing to boost the economy... generally speaking bigger government is a drag (unless we fundamentally disagree on this one lol). Cheap money - yes it's very cheap... but Trump has a legit point... our rates are still significantly higher than the ECB or JCB rates... yes it's ridiculous how cheap money is, globally... but it makes sense for Trump to want the US to be competitive in bringing companies back onshore, and one big component is the money needs to be cheap.