Dear God, Make It Stop!

He's doing it again! The latest economic pronouncement from the Tweeter-In-Chief to his 16.6 million followers (including me, of course; it's like a traffic accident where you can't look away):

Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (*the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!

Sure, why not tweak China both on trade and on its controversial South China Sea bases?

Sidebar: The United States does impose a tax on Chinese goods — 2.9 percent for non-farm goods and 2.5 percent for agricultural products.

Former President Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer tweeted:

To call this is a diplomatic strategy would be like calling a monkey throwing its feces against the wall artistic expression

Click here for an article at Bloomberg, by Ros Krasny, entitled "Trump Takes On China in Tweets on Currency, South China Sea." It says:

If Trump challenges the basis of the One China policy “at the same time that he places pressure on China over trade, we could be heading for a very rough road,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.

Maybe he'll get better:

“In time, Trump may realize the limits of the powers of the White House in foreign-exchange markets,” said Sean Callow, a Sydney-based senior strategist at Westpac. “China’s currency policy is up to China, just as the U.S. pursues its own interests. The debate is moving on from the formal label of currency manipulation to which unilateral trade sanctions will be imposed next year, and the reference to the South China Sea adds to the geopolitical risk premium."

"... the reference to the South China Sea adds to the geopolitical risk premium."

Perfect. I'll see your massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea and raise you a provocative, insulting tweet. What could go wrong?