Trump Headed to China and Trade-Hating Bannon on Nasty Battles Inside the White House

President Trump will visit China in November, Bloomberg is reporting.

He is also expected
to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Association of Southeast Asian Nations summits in Vietnam and the Philippines that month.

According to Steve Bannon, Trump respects Chinese President Xi Jinping more than any other foreign leader.

“The relationship they have is very strong, and I don’t think there’s a world leader that President Trump respects more than the president of China,” Bannon said.

The remarks came, according to Bloomberg, a speech in Hong Kong by the former chief strategist.

Bannon also provided the inside scoop on trade battles in the White House:

“The most acrimonious, vitriolic, nastiest debates inside the White House, in the Roosevelt Room and in the Oval Office, were about trade,” Bannon said in his speech, according to an attendee. He described a wing comprising himself, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in opposition to “globalists” that he didn’t name.

Going further in exposing his trade ignorance. Bloomberg reports:

[I]n his speech, Bannon appeared to attempt to package his doctrine of American economic nationalism as compatible with -- or even modeled on -- what he called “mercantilist” systems in China, Japan and South Korea. The U.S. should be similarly protective of its industries and jobs, he said.

“These are very difficult issues. They go to the hearts of two different systems, the mercantilist system that the Chinese have and the open-market free trade system,” Bannon said. “We as economic nationalists are trying to change that. We’re not free traders. We think it’s a radical idea, and it’s a radical idea that’s actually worked to the detriment of our country.’’

Bannon, clearly, has no understanding of the basics of international trade. For what I mean, see: Why Donald Trump Never Washed the Windows at Trump Tower 

  -RW