CHINA/ECONOMY/TARIFFS/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “As President Trump tries to tilt global trade in the United States’ favor, he is increasingly putting his finger on the scale to help once-iconic industries that are declining as a share of the American economy, at the expense of some of the country’s fastest-growing sectors. The president’s attempts to boost domestic steel manufacturing and coal mining have come largely through policies that limit foreign competition, like tariffs, and proposals to prevent coal-fired power plants from closing. Those efforts have produced only modest job gains so far in two blue-collar sectors that Mr. Trump championed in his run to the White House. But they have injected uncertainty into a host of other growing industries — such as advanced manufacturing, natural gas production and renewable energy generation — that have helped drive American job creation since the Great Recession. On Friday [6-15-18], the Trump administration escalated its trade conflict with China, announcing $50 billion in tariffs on goods from Chinese industries that the Beijing government has targeted for its next wave of economic development. The administration has not articulated a strategy similar to China’s, and experts have warned that the tariffs — and the retaliatory tariffs China has threatened to impose — will end up hurting America’s own growth industries.”
-Brad Plumer and Jim Tankersley, “Trump Picks Economic Winners, Guided by Nostalgia,” The New York Times online, June 18, 2018