In the book we published this month, its author Edouard Prisse roughly advocates what President Trump is doing now.  But the differences between the President’s actions and what this book advances are worth noting.

Prisse goes about it in an organized way, where President Trump has already created chaos, just look at the stock exchanges’ reactions. While POTUS is doing fundamentally what Edouard Prisse advocates, the differences  boil down to sheer incompetence of the White House trade advisers in their execution of the excellence of the president’s ideas.

1. Prisse suggests POTUS announce a stop to free trade that should start only six months after the announcement of it, thus giving US industry the time to reinvest in production capacity for products we depend upon but cannot yet make any more. Trump wished to give time to our industry too, but did that chaotically by exempting electronic products form his 145% tariff! He was then being scolded form it , like by an Ed Krassenheim. But even if he did not prepare earlier for it and had again to make a sudden U-turn, POTUS’s motive and action were cerrect. Then, U-turn again, under Chinese threats tariffs have come down to 50%, and that totally scuttles any positive effect of what the President started. POTUS’s instinct is good, but his execution is chaotic, his advisers seem and the whole activity fails. 

• Prisse suggests another way to proceed. He wishes POTUS to start by publicly recognizing the Bill Clinton erroneous arguments on which the world wide free trade with China was started in 2001. This would explain that he is putting that error right and, it would also put the panicky stock exchanges at rest.

• An important advantage of his ‘wild’ method, so suddenly, even unpreparedly, is that President Trump thus avoids any lobbying by the business community against his plan. There is no building up of pressure to stop him, he goes too quick. Very positive!

• Nevertheless, Prisse still advises POTUS to do point 2: Show the stupid error By President Clinton and also say that what he is doing is in fact stopping our funding of China’s economy towards its too quick rise.

• The President might add that the European Union better join the US in its trade attitude to China, if the EU does not wish its industry to collapse. The EU joining the move will also be useful for the US to succeed.

• Finally, the President might add that this is not against China, but simply putting trade matters on an even keel. Because in the long run, the US (and Europe) will have to live peacefully with China. In fact, POTUS is for the first time creating the conditions for the famous wish by Henry Kissinger to become possible: “The US and China should live peacefully together”. Getting this done is only waiting for some wisdom.