It was an absolutely genius Trump strategy, that is, right up until to the very bad day it was not. That bad day came in a harsh reality check on May 3, 2019. That’s when China’s chief negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, backed out of what had been a very firm handshake deal (
33)—a deal that would have been the biggest and most important not just in American history, but also in global economic history.
Lest you think that might be a bit of Trumpian, Sean Spicy hyperbole, think again. This original full monty China deal was a nearly 150-page Trump masterpiece. It would have forced the Chinese Communist Party to cease committing its Seven Deadly Sins and thereby fundamentally restructure and transform Communist China’s protectionist and mercantilist economy into a model of free, fair, and capitalist international trade.
With such a deal, this would have been Communist China’s own version of the Soviet Union’s Perestroika moment. Both the U.S. and Chinese economies would have rocked. And the global economy would have rocked and rolled with us.