Trade: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

It maps out the basic barter system, an exchange you have to do very carefully or you'll end up with Dwight Howard Syria, seriously, parents talk to your kids about

trade

, you don't want to go to school with Peter Lunchables and come home with Dwight. Howard the baby will add a three point shot to his game now that the kids grow up there is no

trade

trade is a topic in which our current president considers himself particularly expert trade that's what I'm going to do so well I'll take those traders and I'll make them so good, that's what I do.

I love taking bad deals and making them good. I love commerce. You know, trades have always been my thing. I could name ten different forms of commerce. I know each one of them. Hey, the Wharton School of Finance, right here, yeah. I can name ten forms of trade there is a free trade fair trade Rough Trader Joe's that's what eight then there is human trafficking which is like the trade of well-assembled people and call it ten Wharton School of Finance Roy here Thomas talked about a big game on trade for decades and spent this year imposing tariffs on products from China, Canada, the EU and others, prompting them to retaliate with their own tariffs and this trade war has rapidly escalated from tariffs on just 18 products at the beginning of the year to now over 10,000, so things have gotten pretty serious and American workers are already being affected, particularly in agriculture, we are feeling a lot of pain right now in the agricultural sector, it is affecting farmers in a negative way.

I always hope that one morning President Trump wakes up and sends that 3:30 a.m. tweet saying the tariffs are gone, wow, that's a depressing thought, so that guy's livelihood depends on a tweet saying that the tariffs are gone, and even if Trump ends up doing that at 3:30 in the morning you just know he's going to say that tariffs are a bully and we'll all have to decide what he meant by that, so

tonight

, before things get much worse, let's take a look at this trade war because it's tempting to think that Trump has a plan after all. trade is his thing and he has tweeted that trade wars are good and easy to win, but for years his strategy seems to have been based on little more than tone of voice, so easy that he eliminated a 25% tax on China and, now You know, I said for someone who is really the messenger, the messenger is important.

I could have one guy say, "We're going to charge you a 25% tax," and I could have another guy say, Listen, we're going to charge you a 25% tax. "Oh, I see, okay, then tone is important." If I told someone that's not how business negotiations work, that would be one thing, but if I told them that's not how business negotiations work, you're stupid, that would be much more effective. There are some very basic things about the economy that he seems really confused by accepting tariffs that Trump wants to tweet that if the trade war doesn't end other countries will pay us large sums of money in the form of tariffs, we win either way but This is not how tariffs work, tariffs are taxes designed to make foreign goods. more expensive, therefore making domestic products more attractive, other countries do not pay us tariffs, importers here too when they receive the products and generally pass that cost on to the consumer, so when Trump imposes a tariff on an item , you will probably pay more.

Therefore, as journalists have been trying to explain in the most literal way possible, here in the kitchen, utensils and appliances made in China, such as stoves and refrigerators, are being attacked. Up in the bathroom, everyday items such as shampoo, nail clippers , makeup and towels, could mean higher prices for things like instant coffee and this Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Everyday items like the iPad could be hidden. The tablet has an Intel chip that could be a target. East Cooter's has taken off this year and is now facing a 25% tariff. Okay, I hate to admit it. but if one of the key casualties of this trade war is electric scooters, I actually think I'm okay with that, basically, Dane Cook somehow became transportation and it's not just the tariffs that Trump seems to misunderstand, too There are our trade deficits, basically the number that expresses how much more we buy from other countries than they buy from us Trump talks about it all the time generally so our trade deficit skyrocketed to 817 billion dollars think about we lost 817 billion of dollars a year for the

last

few years in trade, in other words, if we didn't trade, we would save a ton of money, okay, okay, so there's a lot to unpack first, our trade deficit is actually 552 billion, so which fell behind by a quarter of a billion dollars. of finance right there a second trade deficit is not always bad and many economists believe, for very complex reasons involving savings rates and the dollar's special status as the world's reserve currency, that the United States trade balance could be more or less less where it should be and finally and this is important when we have a trade deficit we don't lose money it's not a lot of cash that we give out we buy things that we receive and I'm not saying it was all valuable does anyone really need the pony?

Raise Dad's chair, allowing your child to symbolize his new dominance over your life. No, I didn't need it, but I wanted it and, honestly, it has brought my father and me closer - even the world leaders Trump has been feuding with seem alarmed at how little EU chief Jean-Claude understands about trade Juncker supposedly met with Trump armed with a series of simple, colorful flashcards to explain the trade war and the work that actually gets me there is colorful because that means they have some simple flashcards and they thought they didn't. too clumsy, let's put some really fun baby colors on those things, let's give it a chance and Angela Merkel struggled to explain something even more basic.

The independent newspaper established that an anonymous senior German official ten times Trump asked Merkel if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany, each time she replied that a trade deal cannot be made with Germany, only the 11th refusal, Trump He finally got the message. Oh, we'll make a deal with Europe then, that's how she understood it, but only after the 11th rejection, listen to what that means. Sounds like a deal with Europe, ha, deal with your, ha, deal with your, ha, deal with York, ha, deal with your, ha, deal with your car, deal with your car, deal with your, honestly, I It is surprising that after the fifth time, Angela Merkel did not turn. to our translator and say okay, you're fired, you can't possibly be translating this correctly.

No, I'm not saying it's easy to understand. Trade is one of the most complicated issues that exist technically, politically and emotionally over the years. Trade has been criticized from all sides and people argue that unrestricted trade can reward the worst behavior of multinational companies and exploit countries with less labor protection and that has certainly happened, but Trump usually sticks to arguing that Trade is responsible for the death of America. jobs in the manufacturing sector and while there is some truth that automation is the biggest culprit, we actually still make a lot of things in the United States.

American factories now make twice as much as they did in 1984, but they do so with 1/3 fewer workers and the The overwhelming consensus among economists is that, broadly speaking, trade between countries can create jobs, reduce costs, and be a net benefit for both nations. Basically think of trading like sex, if you're doing it right it can be good for both partners, although the odds of that happening plummet as soon as Donald Trump gets involved and the problem, the real problem that Trump's failure to understand trade is that he therefore does not understand its consequences; For example, one of the first major shots he fired in this trade war was to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum.

That was great news for people who work in those specific industries, like this worker at a Missouri aluminum plant. Do you think his policies are the reason you have a job today? I know what it is, you know, yes, I want to have a job. offer if it didn't happen I wish I could meet him and give him a big hug you know yeah I know and I honestly understand why he wants to hug him. Trump getting him his job back is one of two possible explanations for why this man wants to hug Donald Trump, but the other, of course, is that during the early stages of the campaign Trump and Melania were driving through Missouri on a stormy night and her car broke down and Donald wouldn't get out, some Melania ends up getting out in the rain and opening the hood, while that aluminum worker is driving down the road, rolls down the window and asks if he can help, to which Melania, gratefully, tells him He asked for maybe a flashlight, and if the aluminum worker is handing him the flashlight, he gets hit by lightning and changes bodies. so now Donald lives in the White House with an aluminum worker who feels understandably weird holding his hat while Melania is forced to flag down her husband from the factory, her heart aching every second of every day, knowing full well Revealing her true identity would just complicate things for everyone, but that's Melania, go with him, the world will accept your love, that aluminum worker is clearly not in love with him, everyone can see him and his players, but that guy individual in that individual work.

They have improved, but when it comes to trade, nothing happens in isolation and then those tariffs have downstream effects, not far from where that guy works, there is an eighth nail factory that suffered because thanks to Trump's steel tariffs the price of its raw material, steel. Sales skyrocketed, they were cut in half and more than a hundred workers were laid off and those who remain are worried. Some of these people this is the only ink in their guide, like me, this is the only thing I have inked and have to put. another daughter at school, you know it's very difficult, yes, that's the problem here: protecting the steel, helping the steel, but it damages everything that is made from it and you have to balance those consequences with an estimate.

Trump's tariffs may create 26,000 jobs in steel and aluminum, but could cost more than 400,000 jobs in the rest of the economy, so if Trump is trying to create jobs, almost anything would be a better idea than tariffs, you'd be better off dressing a turtle like David Bowie and throwing it into a pool full of milk. jobs of course not, but you won't actively lose hundreds of thousands of them, plus it will be the highlight of ziggy, dust off life and listen, listen, we're still just scratching the surface of how complicated this is because distinguishing between a a product foreign and an American job can be a lot more complicated than one thinks, let's take some of Trump's favorite villains when it comes to foreign companies that sell Mercedes and BMW and the cars come in millions and we barely tax them. let's stop doing these things we protect Germany Germany that doesn't have a BMW we're going to tax Mercedes Benz we're going to tax BMW we're going to tax all those beautiful Mercedes Benzes that are perversely attacking the BMWs that are coming in Trump is furious with the cars Germans and this is what happens in the clip where he told the crowd who doesn't have a BMW in his classic man of the people style, so the trunk is actually in the North.

Augusta, South Carolina, and just a two-hour drive away is a place called Spartanburg County, well known for this. Spartanburg is home to the largest BMW plant in the world. Last year they manufactured more than 370 thousand luxury SUVs, employing 10,000 people, injecting billions into the state's economy, yes. It seems that Trump didn't know that look, everyone knows that he doesn't know many things, but from time to time it is important to remember that he doesn't know anything either, it's true, it's true. I'll show you all close your eyes right now and think about something you're thinking about he doesn't know and since the trade war started Spartanburg County is actually double because they're going to be hit with higher costs for steel than They use to build the cars and when they try to ship them to China they will be hit by Chinese tariffs so they will find themselves in complicated problems or as Trump would say, listen, they get taxed twice, so if a trade war could be so disruptive and the net benefits are probably this negative, why is Trump doing this, especially since members of his own economic team seem to be against it?

Gary Cohn reportedly abandoned the proposed tariffs and Steve Minuchin, the Treasury secretary and hot sex bomb, has tried to do damage control by claiming that we're not actually in a trade war, this has been a trade dispute all along.time, it was never a trade war, it's a trade dispute, oh, I get it, it's not a war, it's a dispute, you know, I almost always buy that because I'm so distracted. by these lavaridge sex volcanoes it seems hypnotic the guy i must have a bad case of manucci' he is now because he looks like an absolute snack so who is who is telling the president this is a good idea?

Well, by most accounts, the driving force is Peter Navarro, head of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, he's Trump's trade manager, isn't he Peter, I'm the trade manager, thanks Peter so just for the record let's all clarify our role in the trump administration we have trade boy lyle and nothing boy jesus please one word ghoul crime nymph drunk grandpa and daughter wife is a well oiled machine she's running Navarro is now the author of a series of books on get-rich investments and, like Trump, is obsessed with trade deficits in general and China in particular. They say that trade with China is a zero-sum game, which It means that one country can only win if the other loses, and it's hard to overstate how rare his views are among economists.

When the New Yorker described him, Varro was asked. To help them find even one colleague who agreed with him, he gave them two names, one Peter Murray saw a professor at the University of Maryland who said that Navarro has a pretty harsh position on the zero-sum claim. I have a problem with that, where is the proof of it? and the other was a blogger named Allen Tolson whom Navarro described as an excellent economist. to which Thomson replied: I don't have a degree in economics and I assume Thomson doesn't have a degree in web design either because this is the photo on the about page of his blog, so if it's understandable that you're wondering right now, as?

Did Navarro get a job in the White House? Well, he's a lot dumber than you think. Apparently Jared Kushner was tasked with finding Trump experts on Chinese trade and this is how he did it, so Jared went on Amazon, turned on his computer and found some of Peter Navarro's books and asked him to came to the White House, that's how Peter Navarro ended up in the White House. Yes, Jared sought out experts at Amazon, that was his rigorous process, so when Jeff Sessions gets fired, get ready for him. to be replaced by crystal kaswell author of the erotic fiction novel dangerous rock a novel of dangerous noise because for some reason that's honestly the first thing that came up when we wrote smart right person good parentheses in a stranger now the Navarro book he found Jarrett was China calls death and paints the US Chinese trade relationship in apocalyptic terms because while there are some legitimate complaints about China's unfair practices, they have deliberately depressed their currency, violate intellectual property rights and possibly circumvent the rules of the WTO.

This book goes much further with chapter titles that include phrases like shanghaiing the gene pool and Look, there's a death star pointing at Chicago, and Navarro actually turned the book into a film that one critic called the documentary equivalent of a street corner. of a delirious, abandoned street, which seems harsh until you see how the movie you're about to head to begins. One of the most pressing problems facing the United States is its increasingly destructive trade relationship with a rapidly growing China. It starts like this. Warming is literally a knife stabbed into the heart of America and if you're worried that it will leave you with nowhere to go, please.

Don't worry because there are even less subtle animations to come depicting China's trade practices like guns and bombs blowing up American factories and amazingly misleading moments like this. China has stolen thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs. The profits of multinational corporations are increasing and we now give more than three trillion dollars to the largest communist nation in the world. I'm not saying that big ball isn't very compelling, but our trade deficit is not the same as what we owe China, they are two different numbers and neither of them is close to three trillion dollars and when something central to your movie has something so bad you usually have to replace him with Christopher Plummer, so Navarro is not someone legitimate economists take seriously, and yet he seems to be the only person the president is listening to, Trump has directly called the death of China and praised its facts, figures and knowledge, and Navarro returns the compliment by saying of his own work that my role really as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analyses. that confirmed Trump's intuition and his intuition is always correct and that's just terrifying because economists shouldn't find ways to confirm the intuitions of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, it's like a builder working for a child saying my job is to build this house that he designed, which is shaped like an ice cream cone with a window that is also a door and the size of the sun and a dog.

His intuitions are always correct. No, they are not. You have to stop that kid. Before anyone gets hurt, in fact, if you want to get an idea of ​​how little Navarro understands the game he's playing, consider this since this trade war started, China has imposed $37 billion in tariffs on the United States. now take a look at what Navarro said in March: do you expect China to come back with retaliation? I don't think any country in the world is going to retaliate for the simple reason that we are the largest and most lucrative market in the world.

They know they are deceiving us and all we do is defend ourselves. It's impressive to see someone be so confident and so wrong. He's basically Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic shouting "I'm king of the world, except you're not." You, Leo, are just an amateur cartoonist who's about to be iced to death. When you put this all together, what you're left with is this: We're embroiled in an escalating trade war that almost no legitimate economists support, led by a A man who honestly doesn't seem to fully understand the mechanics of what he's doing is getting advice from the human equivalent of an all-caps email from his uncle and the crazy thing is, the effect of all this is the exact opposite of what Trump He says that because if you want to create jobs you don't do it by closing markets and suppliers to American companies and if you want to stop the abuses of countries like China you don't do it by pissing off the leaders of all other nations. earth and I know that nothing I'm saying now will get to Trump, so maybe it's time to take a page from one of the only people he's really listening to and give him some basic economic lessons in the only language he seems to understand.

That the movie you're about to see addresses one of the most pressing problems facing America: the destruction of basic economic knowledge through stupidity, and its consequences could be disastrous, so let's first review some fundamental facts: A trade deficit is not a large amount of money that you have lost to another country, that is idiotic. Secondly, if you think you can use tariffs as a weapon, you must understand that a tariff is not something that other countries pay you, it is a tax that you are forcing your own people to pay. salary that could end up hurting them much less than it hurts you, and thirdly, our economy is hugely interconnected and you can't just alter one thing without considering what the consequences might be for water;

Unfortunately, misunderstandings continue to grow while basic knowledge shrinks. and the result is that stupidity is increasing at an unsustainable rate. Listen, the economy is incredibly complicated, and at the very least, you probably shouldn't find your key economic advisor at Amazon or your trade guy because you could end up seriously hurting us.