Trump is now in the Twilight Zone. Intellectual property? The US leads the world in corporate theft of intellectual property. Facebook stole its software from Leader Technologies. Sovaldi, the blockbuster hepatitis C drug, is an illegal patent of British Protide research. Most major American research starts off being funded by the federal government. If the research is successful, the resulting technology gets transferred illegally to a private corporation. Otherwise, the patent rights would belong to the US taxpayer who funded the research.

When one counts the trade that US companies BASED in China sell to China, which isn’t counted as exports, one finds out that the actual “trade” is about even. Just because they don’t put it in containers and ship it across the Pacific doesn’t mean it isn’t “trade”.

All the fools that are proclaiming the USSA is China’s biggest market are deluding themselves and basing it on the artificial worth of the dollar. One example is Shale, which is a scam at today’s oil prices.

Trump is basically trying to get the Chinese to buy more American products. We sell them food and energy; they sell us manufactured goods. He’s also trying to further open up China to American corporations. Those corporations can then do business in China without worrying about the Chinese stealing intellectual property. How does this help American workers? The jobs will still be in China.

If the US had tied corporate tax cuts to bringing jobs back, it would have made sense. If not, it’s just US corporations trying to get more from the Chinese government.

The Chinese government could also drop tariffs on American products and have their people boycott American-made products. Or devalue their currency.

Propaganda works both ways.

From here on in for the USSA, it is about managing the post-colonial demise, shrinking purchasing power and post super-power status.