Those tariffs Trump is supposed to announce next week are the one laid out in July 2/ piie.com/blogs/trade-in…
Three quarters of them are still on inputs into U.S. business, so they're reduce, not increase, US competitiveness. But they'll also impose direct costs on consumers 2/ 
Two questions: will this help U.S. workers? Almost surely not. It will, instead, disrupt existing business arrangements, imposing a second China shock rather than fixing the first one 3/
And will it bring China to the negotiating table? My problem here is that the U.S. doesn't seem to have any coherent demands. Trump wants to sharply reduce the bilateral trade imbalance -- which isn't in China's power to achieve 4/
Maybe they'll find another face-saving way out: China does something meaningless, and Trump gets to call it victory. But I wouldn't count on it 5/
Oh, a final thought: Trump may believe that a trade war can change the subject from his many scandals. He's probably wrong: people don't pay that much attention. So he may have to invade Venezuela 6/ vox.com/2018/7/6/17536…
