It's a marvel, really.

China has been provoked into humiliating Trump, and the rest of the world is on the sidelines cheering on Beijing.

Read that again. The US getting beaten up, and rather rushing to its side, we're sitting back, alternately horrified and grimly smug. How on earth did we get to this?

First - a trade war with China. Effectively, the Donald thinks it's unfair that the US buys more stuff made in China, than China buys that has been made in the US. Why do US consumers buy these imports? Consumers tend to be rational actors. For one reason or another, buying an item from China is the preferred choice. Cheaper? Better? The only choice? That sort of thing. Why don't the Chinese buy American goods? At the risk of being flippant, what American goods? They do (or did) buy oil, grain, some machinery and even TV parts, but it's true that they buy far less than they sell.

Trump is in full-on attack mode, going after a nation that is known for "playing the long game" and being very concerned with "face". It might not be in "The Art of the Deal", but if I was going to take on China, I'd being thinking long term, and I'd be negotiating behind closed doors, wary of issues of face. I'm a simple creature.

No. Apparently, the best approach is to slap on massive tariffs as publicly as possible, without even getting as far as thinking about what such an action might do to your own money markets or your own corporate behemoths, many of whom rely on Chinese manufacturing.

After all, who knew that China is one of the biggest holders of American Treasury bonds? Or that Americans like iPhone?

Umm...everybody knew.

As Trump doubled down, he imposed tariffs on everyone else, friend and foe alike.

How did China react?

It paused, allowing the world to see what Trump was doing. I'm sure there's a political maxim that say do not interrupt your adversary when he's making a twat of himself. (I may have papraphrased.) Then, it matched the escalating tariffs, looking strong and resolute. Meanwhile, it reached out to the rest of world, saying "Well. This is an unholy mess, isn't it? Look, perhaps we all need to have a think about world trade should work, this Orange fellow seems a tad unreliable."

China efficiently swept up the geopolitical capital that the belligerent toddler was throwing out of the White House pram. Then, Beijing took a breath and set about putting the toddler over it's knee. How? Selling bonds. US Bonds are the symbol of American solvency. They proclaim that the US is an economic powerhouse (which it is, for the moment). If US Treasury bonds collapse, that's the world withdrawing that proclamation. China started selling bonds. As did Japan, and many other countries. It worked. Trump put many tariffs on hold, stopping the rot.

Still though, we wanted to fight China, so he upped the game. China sighed and raised it's eyebrows towards the rest of us.

Quietly, it matched, and promised to stop sending little things, like rare earth minerals and magnets. Now, I don't knowingly need any earth magnets. But then, I don't build F-35s, Tomahawk missiles, nuclear subs , destroyers or Predator drones.

The US will just get them somewhere else, surely. Actually, no. Up until 2023, China handled 99% of rare earth element processing. Then Vietnam closed its refinery. So China now has 100%.

Ah.

No more tariffs, this week. Let's snatch people off the streets and deport them. Let's stop the universities doing anything remotely useful. Throw Ukraine under the bus. Fire senior spooks. Why would we need those?

Anyway, where was I?

Ah yes, Padel. What a cracking game that is. Tennis with ping-pong bats on two squash courts, one each side of a net. Easy to learn, easy to play: a game for everyone. Even for large fellows trying to lose weight!

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