Don't laugh, there's enough strategy behind it that it's clear it didn't come from Trump himself.

Looks like it's working exactly as structured.

Nothing could be making more logical progress.

It's just one of the things that Trump can smile about with pride, so he's doing his key part to deflect the heat since he's got faithful followers, he wins undue admiration in the spotlight. Meanwhile behind the scenes who knows what compromises are being made and what damage they may do because so much is non-transparent even to Trump.

A lot of things were not transparent to Nixon either, he just got caught for criminal behavior during a time when there was much less tolerance for a dishonest President. As a citizen of both times I can assure you we are breathing the same atmosphere about now, it smells the same way but people have been reacting to it with too much indifference now. I guess they have been conditioned to get used to the stink. Blind faith will tend to do that.

As fewer and fewer Americans can afford to buy Chinese products of many kinds, the leading Chinese technologies will have to cater to the rest of the world, who will potentially be able to benefit by different degrees of affordability in different currencies.

Those Chinese technologies may have to advance at a different rate in a different direction to cater most to non-US interests in ways they have never done in the 21st century. From the USA this is forcing their hand, and it's a sizable force.

Economically, right now millions of Americans who could afford cars, especially new cars, can no longer do that like they could just a few years ago. Domestic or not. Eventually it could end up where almost all Americans can no longer afford even the cheapest Chinese disposable items they have gotten accustomed to, naturally many millions more will no longer be able to afford cars or lots of other domestic products any more either. So we've got a long way to go. And hobbling tech just sounds like it can only get more expensive. I guess it's plain to see why so many people think it would be in their interest to accelerate the process.

Whatever it takes to make Americans unable to afford almost any Chinese products ever again, no matter how cheap or easy it was in the past.

You can't control the Chinese from Washington, but there's whole lot of Americans that can be controlled, right now like never before

And that's when Chinese technology will be most hobbled relative to the USA, when the absolute fewest dollars are passing from the US to China for any reason, the ultimate end game. But the curtailed tech and commerce will surely be concentrated in many areas which American companies used to profit quite handsomely from.

That's OK, they've already made their money.

And America needs some new economy other than a consumer economy anyway. Consumer outlook is not looking too bright.

Plus do you know how cheap labor needs to become for a production economy to even make a dent as an attractive enough alternate investment?

Hobbling could play an important part here too according to some plans.