What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[mongers]

Breaking News:

12.57 (EST)

Trump set to announce Ivanka Trump as his supreme court nominee.

[Valmy]

Good one Mongers.

[LaCroix]

If it is your ticket to the big city go ahead. I look forward to all the dirt from the inside...that you are legally and ethically allowed to disclose of course.

I just thought the vast badlands had a certain primordial beauty or some shit you liked.

I was mostly joking around. except with amazing connections and/or a ton of luck, you almost need to graduate from a top law school to even get considered for those gigs

[Valmy]

I see.

I don't anything about lawyer things. Fed jobs don't seem that prestigious to me but then I live in Texas where government jobs are all well below private sector rates.

[celedhring]

Good one Mongers.

If I were Trump I would try to come up with the most ludicrous/beyond the pale appointment or measure that the GOP Congress would still pass.

[alfred russel]

He is just trying to divide democrats for a future impeachment. A modestly pro gay agenda with Pence as VP may get him some protection, albeit grudgingly.

Doubtful. This is like Obama making pro-gun statements. The right will hate him anyway and the left, outside of the few to whom this is their big thing, will just ignore it.

I sure hope there is something to be gained for moderating these days. But I don't see it.

It is a different calculus in an impeachment vote. There will of course be whatever issues supply the grounds for impeachment, but the backdrop will be Trump or Pence.

[Zanza]

First warning shots ahead of the upcoming trade war between the USA and Germany... 

Interesting new angle to blame Germany for the failure of TTIP based on the imbalances in the currency union. Didn't hear that one before.

Also interesting that they openly announce that they want to play divide & conquer with the EU.

The idea that the new administration could somehow roll back the globalization of supply chains is silly and against any economic sense. They can at best destroy value, but they'll not repatriate the supply chains. As long as the US is the richest country on the planet, there will always be an incentive to offshore labor-intensive production stages and the an artificial barrier just lessens the overall wealth created.

I don't really understand the argument that the border adjustment would lead to an appreciation of the dollar, neither in this article nor one in the Economist. 

https://www.ft.com/content/57f104d2-e742-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539

Trump's top trade adviser accuses Germany of currency exploitation
Berlin is using a 'grossly undervalued' euro to gain advantage over trading partners, says Navarro

Germany is using a "grossly undervalued" euro to "exploit" the US and its EU partners, Donald Trump's top trade adviser has said in comments likely to trigger alarm in Europe's largest economy.

Peter Navarro, the head of Mr Trump's new National Trade Council, told the Financial Times the euro was like an "implicit Deutsche Mark" whose low valuation gave Germany an advantage over its main trading partners. His views suggest the new administration is focusing on currency as part of its hard-charging approach on trade ties.

In a departure from past US policy, Mr Navarro also called Germany one of the main hurdles to a US trade deal with the EU and declared talks with the bloc over a US-EU agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, dead.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, responded to Mr Navarro's allegations, saying Germany could not influence the euro. At a press conference in Stockholm with Stefan Lofven, Sweden's prime minister, Ms Merkel said Germany has always "supported an independent European Central Bank".

The Trump administration has denounced alleged currency manipulation by its trading partners. At a meeting with pharmaceutical bosses on Tuesday, Mr Trump accused Japan and China of using monetary policy to pursue "devaluation" in the past to gain a trading advantage over the US.

"They play the money market, they play the devaluation market, while we sit here like a bunch of dummies," Mr Trump said.

The new president says he prefers bilateral trade deals rather than the broad multilateral accords pursued by Barack Obama, his predecessor. Mr Trump last week also withdrew from a 12-country Pacific Rim deal negotiated by Mr Obama.

"A big obstacle to viewing TTIP as a bilateral deal is Germany, which continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the US with an 'implicit Deutsche Mark' that is grossly undervalued," Mr Navarro said. "The German structural imbalance in trade with the rest of the EU and the US underscores the economic heterogeneity [diversity] within the EU — ergo, this is a multilateral deal in bilateral dress."

Germany's large trade surplus with the US and much of the eurozone has been a point of friction in Brussels and Washington for several years, with both capitals calling for Berlin to stimulate domestic demand to rebalance its economy.

Critics have argued Berlin has disproportionally benefited from weakness in the rest of the eurozone, which has held the euro lower than other regional currencies, like the Swiss Franc, making German exports cheaper in overseas markets like China and the US.

Despite those differences, most debate over German economic policy during the Obama administration was cloaked in diplomatic language; Mr Navarro's comments highlight a growing willingness by the Trump administration to antagonise EU leaders and particularly the German chancellor.

Besides publicly supporting the British government in its negotiations with the EU over the terms of its exit, Mr Trump called the EU a vehicle for Germany, and Nato an obsolete alliance.

Mr Navarro's intervention follows a visit to Washington last week by Theresa May, the British prime minister, in which she and Mr Trump discussed ways to launch negotiations for a US-UK trade deal. Mr Navarro said the Brexit vote marked the death knell of a US-EU deal; Britain had been one of the pact's leading advocates.

"Brexit killed TTIP on both sides of the Atlantic even before the election of Donald Trump. I personally view TTIP as a multilateral deal with many countries under one 'roof'," Mr Navarro wrote in emailed responses to FT questions.

Although criticisms of German economic policy have been a staple of Group of 20 gathering since the height of the eurozone crisis, the view Berlin is intentionally advocating a weak euro to its own economic benefit is not widely shared.

The euro has weakened against the dollar over the past two years as the paths of the central banks of the two currency zones have split. The European Central Bank's mass bond-buying programme has weakened the single currency, while rate hikes by the US Fed has strengthened the dollar.

But Berlin has been a leading critic of the ECB's strategy. The Bundesbank has called for an end to bond buying, while lawmakers have pushed for higher rates — both measures which would strengthen the euro.

Mr Navarro said one of the administration's trade priorities was unwinding and repatriating the international supply chains on which many US multinational companies rely, taking aim at one of the pillars of the modern global economy.

"It does the American economy no long-term good to only keep the big box factories where we are now assembling 'American' products that are composed primarily of foreign components," he said. "We need to manufacture those components in a robust domestic supply chain that will spur job and wage growth."

Mr Navarro, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign, all but endorsed an import tax plan pushed by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives that has split the US business community. The proposal would eliminate companies' ability to deduct import costs from their taxable revenues while making any export revenues tax-free. It drew attention last week when the White House pointed to it as one way in which it could pay for a wall on the Mexican border.

Exporters such as General Electric have hailed the switch to a "border adjustable" system as putting them on an equal footing with international competitors that are able to claim value added tax refunds on their exports. Retailers such as Walmart and other import-dependent businesses, however, say that what would amount to 20 per cent tax on imports would raise consumer prices and hurt their businesses.

"The unequal treatment of the US income tax system under biased WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules is a grossly unfair subsidy to foreigners exporting to the US and a backdoor tariff on American exports to the world that kills American jobs and drives American factories offshore," Mr Navarro said. "President Trump promised during the campaign he would put an end to this unfair treatment of our income tax, and the House border adjustable proposal offers one possible option among several."

Mr Navarro rejected the argument that US consumers would end up paying the cost of such a tax change. That was "an old and tired argument the globalist wing of the offshoring lobby has used for years to put Americans out of work and depress wages by shipping our jobs offshore".

"We prefer paychecks to welfare checks for the American people and a robust middle class with rising wages," he said.

Proponents argue that at least some of the impact on consumers would be absorbed by a one-time appreciation in the dollar. That in turn, they concede, could also impact on US export competitiveness and lead to a widening of the US trade deficit with the world, which the Trump administration has vowed to reduce.

Mr Navarro, however, said he was not concerned about the possibility of a stronger dollar and its impact on US exports.

"I worry about the actual impact America's trade deficit in goods is having on our rates of economic growth and income growth."

[Valmy]

Interesting new angle to blame Germany for the failure of TTIP based on the imbalances in the currency union. Didn't hear that one before.

Weird. Didn't this exact same accusation get sent China's way?

[celedhring]

I was about to say, Germany has always pressured the ECB to follow a hard currency policy (you know how much we loved that in the south), not devaluation. But hey, alternative facts.

[Zanza]

The described effect exists, but the alleged motive is not there.

[grumbler]

Can't have a trade imbalance with the US without cheating, just like you can't get more votes than Trump without cheating.

[Syt]

Also:

I have made my decision on who I will nominate for The United States Supreme Court. It will be announced live on Tuesday at 8:00 P.M. (W.H.)

LIVE from Washington - Who Wants To Be A Supreme Court Justice! Tuesday at 8 (9 Central), only on TrumpbartTV!

Seems Colbert and his team had the dame idea. Though their hype trailer is better.

https://youtu.be/JuSDet45aKI?list=PLiZxWe0ejyv80jeCnI61atnOaGKlLFkRt&t=606

[Valmy]

TUESDAY TUESDAY TUESDAY!!

YOUR LIFE WILL BE CHANGED FOREVER!!

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

IF YOU MISS THIS YOU BETTER BE DEAD...OR IN JAIL....AND IF YOU ARE IN JAIL BREAKOUT!!

BE THERE!

[LaCroix]

you know, I just realized that while hillary had twenty years of media slandering her reputation, trump has had thirty years of media slandering his reputation

[Valmy]

you know, I just realized that while hillary had twenty years of media slandering her reputation, trump has had thirty years of media slandering his reputation

Claiming he needlessly and brutally murdered the USFL is not slander sir.