It’s old news at this point that the president prefers to take to social media over options like actual diplomatic meetings. He finds it appropriate to make policy pronouncements via Twitter, sometimes taking even his staffers by surprise, and all the while inflicting his chaos on the world.
This time around, the president took to Twitter to defend both his stances on trade with China and immigration policy.
In the case of the former issue, Trump has imposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods that the Chinese have responded to with tariff announcements of their own. He has cast his moves in this regard as necessary to protect the United States from being taken advantage of by the Chinese, although his incessant tariffs and threats of tariffs have dragged the world closer to seeing a trade war erupt between the two powers.
Writing on Twitter this Saturday, the president defended his stance, saying:
‘The United States hasn’t had a Trade Surplus with China in 40 years. They must end unfair trade, take down barriers and charge only Reciprocal Tariffs. The U.S. is losing $500 Billion a year, and has been losing Billions of Dollars for decades. Cannot continue!’
This tweet is the latest of an array of social media statements from the president that are meant to defend his aggressive stance towards China.
For instance, just yesterday the president claimed that his aggression is well-placed considering supposed bias towards China on the part of the World Trade Organization.
That statement came in light of China seeking to use dispute settlement mechanisms enshrined by the organization to resolve their burgeoning trade war with us, which stretches back to the president’s recent announcement of hefty sanctions on imported steel and aluminum. He eventually allowed for waivers from the sanctions to be issued to allies like Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, but China was granted no such waiver.
Also on Saturday on Twitter, the president took to attempting to defend his aggressive stance on immigration, a stance that recently led him to sign an order for the National Guard to be deployed on our border with Mexico.
That order came in the face of repeated failures on the part of the president to get the wall that he’s long sought in between us and Mexico. He has unsurprisingly secured neither domestic nor foreign funding for the project. Undocumented border crossings are at a much lower level than that seen in recent years, anyway, and yet even still, the president wants this wall to go up.
Speaking to the issue on Twitter this Saturday, the president commented:
‘We are sealing up our Southern Border. The people of our great country want Safety and Security. The Dems have been a disaster on this very important issue!’
The president has attempted to cast himself as a fiscal conservative when it comes to an array of issues, having his administration propose massive cuts to an array of government departments and programs, and yet he finds it nothing to propose the massive expenditure that a border wall would be.
Check out Twitter’s response to his latest ranting below.
Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/ AFP/Getty Images
