It's the economic situation that most interests me in Trump's new 'era'. I agree with you how risky it is. Yet, relationships are dynamic. He may trash some now but they can always be rebuilt. As in life generally. Influence may well be lost however and recovering reputation involves a far longer time period. It could be a matter of decades not years for instance. Only now is Europe gradually coming around to Brexit (and vice versa). And the country hasn't healed yet.
Tariffs played a contributory part in the Great Depression. You could certainly see retaliatory responses from other countries, increasing domestic prices, inflation etc. You could see a situation with his policies leading to recruitment being more difficult and labour /. materials supply problems and businesses losing confidence and flexibility. Or, a converse scenario is that there will be the kind of AI boom and big tech innovation he predicts and they will be the catalyst for huge economic growth. It has a certain feeling of a gamble about it from these shores. Transactional is the right word you've used.
I suppose it's either brave or foolhardy. One thing for sure with all the dismissals and demolition of structures / political apparatus is that it is always easier to demolish and break things up but far harder to rebuild and put back together. You lose such a well of experience. The outcomes and repercussions of such disruption could well affect many US citizens in a few years time.
While stuff is being pulled apart it leaves a vacuum and will involve such a lot of time to rebuild. Time is money too.
Who knows? I don't. I haven't formed an opinion because I don't live there and I haven't got the first hand experience. Yet I can see some scenarios. It makes an interesting watch and you can only speculate and try to keep informed (about actual outcomes and less of others' opinions).
I don’t actually have a problem with tariffs, if you have industries that are strategic or important for the nation (energy, food, steel etc) then in my opinion allowing yourselves to be undercut by other nations who may have lower wages or lots of state aid is rather stupid policy. However using them as a means to threaten other nations into doing what you want is a different proposition, one that will more than likely lead them to look for other opportunities and outside your influence. If the Americans want to contain Chinas rise through a Cold War type scenario then they need likeminded allies to do so, so pushing those allies away and into the arms of the Chinese is about as foolhardy as you can get.
The agree that breaking stuff is the easy part, rebuilding it is where the problems will lie. However I think vast numbers had decided that the status quo wasn’t working for them so were willing to take a punt on something new. It will be interesting to see what it morphs into, but I don’t think it will be the likes of Trump/Farage/Le Pen who actually carry it through. They’re merely the battering rams who have the force of personality to get the ball moving, it will be up to those that follow what happens next.
As an aside I’m not unhappy at seeing the end of the Blairite era. I’m happy to see a touch more protectionism and would like to see power moved away from various quangos and NGO’s and back towards Westminster, for those Ministers to have more power and accountability
