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Trump is proving America's power through economic warfare
h/t Instapundit
[NYPost] After nearly two decades of strategically aimless military action in the Middle East, the Trump administration has apparently decided upon a new and smarter way to fight: employing resurgent American economic power in the forms of tariffs, sanctions and trade deals.

Starting with the oil embargoes of the 1970s, foreign adversaries have routinely employed economic warfare against the US. The rampant inflation of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years were exacerbated by soaring gasoline prices that threw a monkey wrench into the American economy. But instead of pushing back against the Gulf States, which soon grew obscenely wealthy on the backs of the American consumer, presidents from Reagan on did little or nothing except coddle them.

...Tariffs and fiscal and monetary policies can have diplomatic uses, too ‐ and today, with the American economy booming, the Trump administration is finally swinging the big stick of tariffs and sanctions as a non-lethal substitute for diplomatic or even military action.

In Iran, the rial is down 40 percent in the wake of Trump’s canceling of Obama’s nuclear agreement in May.

...In China, America’s foremost geopolitical challenger, Trump’s approach has been more stick than carrot lately, imposing tariffs and threatening a major trade war, unnerving the Chinese communist leadership, which is beginning to think he may just be crazy enough to do it. The Chinese yuan is down 9 percent against the dollar since April and its stock market is slumping.

...Meanwhile, in Turkey, where the tinpot dictator Recep Erdogan is trying to revive the lost glory of the Ottoman Empire, the country’s currency, the lira, has lost 45 percent of its value this year. This is a direct result of American-imposed tariffs and sanctions against the Islamic regime, in part over the continued imprisonment of American evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson, whom Turkey has accused of spying. In "retaliation," Erdogan has announced a boycott of US electronics. Good luck with that.😜


Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-08-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=521096