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The fact is China and to a lesser degree Russia are trying to undermine the U.S fiscally through Brics and the Belt and Road initiative and militarily by building up their inventory of equipment and technology.

The U.S, well Trump in particular can see that unless the West gets off their butts, it is only a matter of time before the World order flips, China is investing a hell of a lot into developing countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand etc so those countries will be more receptive to ditching the U.S dollar as reserve currency.

Unless the West stops the slide into third world style economies, it is only a matter of time before it actually happens, just ask yourself "if we didn't have the iron ore, coal and minor minerals, what would keep our dollar at its current level"?

So even the EU has a collapsing economic model, they have expensive energy and can only sell their product, on historical respect for quality.

As China's  manufacturing standards improve, the perceived difference between the Chinese and European product will narrow, but the cost difference will increase, China's will get cheaper due mainly to volume, cheap energy and cheaper labour costs.

It is only a matter of time before the Chinese product is comparable with the European or American product, much the same as happened with Japanese products, they went from Jap crap to best in class.

No doubt what Trump is doing is going to hurt financially, but my guess is unless the West changes, they will hurt a lot more in the long run.

Do I think Trump is a unattractive person and personality? Absolutely.

Do I think he is right in what he is doing? Most of it yes, because the ingrained operandi modus in the West entrenched.

There is a huge amount of money being made by smoke and mirrors and money printing.

IMO at the moment the only way the West can stop the slide is by tariffs, this negates the advantage that China has and slows their sales.

That should in turn mean that China will have to increase their prices at home, to compensate for loss of sales to the major U.S market, that in itself would become inflationary for china and their wages will have to climb.

It wont stop the rise of the second world countries, but it should slow the rise, hopefully it ends up with the countries on a level playing field, without tariffs in the future sometime and most countries with similar living standards.

This whole process was put in place in the 1970's, with the Lima Agreement, it was meant to raise third world countries out of poverty and it has worked to a degree.

But it was never intended, to send first world countries into poverty, from my recollection.

Europe needed to get its house in order, way too much bludging, pizzing in each others pockets and group hugs, while the house burns down.

IMO Trump has stoked up the wrath of the multinationals, all their inventory that they source from China, is going to hit their bottom line and CEO's pay packets.

Just my thoughts, but it sure is interesting times.