Incorrect.

Donald Trump during transition holds fewer press conferences than past presidents-elect - CBS News

FTA:

I still don't get what the advantage of a trade war with China is. A 35% tax on all Americans who don't work in factories? I know China makes a nice boogeyman but most of those jobs are being lost to automation.

I'm sure jobs can be brought back if we're fine paying over $1000 for a phone and $40,000 for a new car. But do people want that so that a small percent of the population has their old jobs back?

This is a patently incorrect misrepresentation of the policy. His use of the term liberal enclaves on Fox is directed at those that the typical Fox reader gets all excited about. However, the correct term should be classical liberalism. ---

Classical liberalism is a political ideology that values the freedom of individuals — including the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets — as well as limited government. It developed in 18th-century Europe and drew on the economic writings of Adam Smith and the growing notion of social progress.

This leads into...


Market Liberalism Law & Legal Definition. Market liberalism a political theory in which market forces is allowed to develop without outside interference. It emphasizes the support to free markets by combining free market economy with personal liberty and human rights.

Which is exactly what Republicans have had as the main plank in their economic policy for as long as I can remember. It's become the anchor post of the entire Tea Party like some Ayn Randian economic dream.

Globalism is the natural extension of Market Liberalism. Trump has successfully allowed the Republican party to now somehow disown this when Democrats have been trying to play that game for generations.

Further, he goes on to say that this was supposed to fatten the pockets of everyone in the US. Money saved by getting progressively cheaper and cheaper products that the average citizen wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, is one way to play that game, but for the sake of this argument, you'd be a fool to believe that everyone gets fat stacks in their pocketbooks in the US. Someone has gotten fat stacks and that trickle down hasn't been exactly what we were promised either.

This argument can't have it's cake and eat it too. You don't get to divorce your stance on free global markets now because your guy doesn't believe in them, and you don't get to turn around and blame all of what did happen because of them on the other guy, when it's been the wet dream of so many on your side of the aisle.

He's already doing it. Between his only giving interviews to certain journalists, calling for sanctions against the press and limiting what and how they report, and his preference for using Twitter as a media platform. It's not hard to follow the trail. His attitudes and past behaviors are completely usable here as a basis to how he might act in the future.

Donald Trump Fires Transition Team Member Michael G. Flynn For Spreading Fake News About 'Pizzagate'

Which is it?

Trump has never had to report to anyone (I'd argue even his father, who just bailed him out whenever he got in trouble) other than himself. And that's basically what press conferences and dealings with the media are - being held accountable and having to defend your actions. I don't think he's about to start doing that now. He'll give carefully controlled speeches and hold rallies, but he's not about to field questions he has no control over.

I'd say the Six Assurances we continually re-authorize would put much more pressure on us to defend Taiwan than if we treated them as a normal country. It's not like we went to war with Russia over the Ukraine.

(Plus the idealist in me thinks Taiwan has paid its dues and deserves to be treated as a real nation, but I've always hated realpolitik.)
The average person doesn't understand diffuse effects on purchasing power and never will.
I've completely given up on this one and dominate/dominant.

I just want to highlight this post because I think you did a great job in explaining things here. Globalization being foisted on liberals (as in those on the left) is a strange thing as conservatives have been just as eager, if not more so to engage in globalization (GHW Bush negotiated NAFTA after all). Traditionally the party of free trade has been the Republicans. It's only recently that the Democrats have been that (since Bill Clinton, which was considered quite a shift).

Thank you, I have noticed this one, too. It actually bugs me even more than dominant/dominate. It just sounds so wrong in my head.

I'm playing a daily game of True or False with my wife, where I give her 2 Trump stories and she has to tell me which is true.

This goes along with my thinking of, is there anything you could be presented as a Trump story where you could say, "you know what, there's no chance that's true."

"Donald Trump Sells Businesses to Avoid Conflicts"

LOL she donated a ton to his "charity". Way to drain that swamp!

It appears they picked my boss (SecLabor), Hardees/Carl Jr. CEO Andy Puzder. Apparently his big thing is that he's against raising the minimum wage... which is something Trump said he wanted to do (at least to $10/hr).

Trump's twitter battle with the head of the union at the Carrier plant and who he is putting in his cabinet are helping me to see that his desire to help workers only goes as far as helping workers by making sure that the company they work for is forced to stay in the US. It has nothing to do with fairness, quality of life, safety, and it has everything to do with the bottom line for the company.

Trump will be no supporter of unionized labor, and I'm guessing that his support for raising the minimum wage is pretty weak. I'm also guessing that if his advisors tell him that wages must be kept low so the company can "compete," then Trump will give them whatever they want to the detriment of the labor there. His response to the Union leader there of "get back to work" is straight up, classic owner/servant language. It's all about the owner, damn the worker, get back to work and be happy you have a job.

His nomination of Pudzer today just supports that argument.

I was watching Fox News while working out the other day and heard somebody talking about how great these tax breaks will be for the workers. Apparently, it will add more profits to the balance sheets of Carrier and these other companies which of course means higher wages from workers. Because, according the expert, once companies like this get more cash, they give raises to workers. It's almost laughable if people did not actually believe it.

I really hope the Trump reigns in all these regulating agencies with too much power that waste all our money and hurt the lives of our citizens by keeping companies from being able to operate profitably here. If they could just let them be to run the way they choose we'd all be much better off.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/08/att-cramming-settlement/

Which would almost certainly be the same as most of his voters' position on the subject.

That's pretty much DOA with every Trump voter I know.

Given your geographic location and the rabid support base in the south for Trump that's not surprising. When the historical economic basis of employment and corporate profit revolves around the success of a business being based on cheap labor that's bound to be a leading opinion.

But the Clinton Foundation and E-MAILS. E-MAILS. E-MAILS.

Not what I expected.

Consumers, businesses, and CEOs are all loving life since Trump's election — and that's great news for the economy - AOL News

Why raise minimum wage when you can pay for their Peach Care out of your taxes?

And I'd argue that some of Trump's support closer to the Great Lakes would actually be likely FOR increased minimum wages. It's a different type of Trump voter up there.

Anyway, speaking of Great Lakes, Vox had an interesting opinion article today about relocating some federal government offices (the ones that don't have to be right next to Congress or the WH to do their jobs) to the Midwest:

Let’s relocate a bunch of government agencies to the Midwest - Vox

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/09/trump...-nbc-news.html

He must really want to know what was in those speeches.

Raising the min. wage would just move many from under-employed to unemployed. No gain there at all.

And, philosophically, I'm opposed to both paying people more than they're worth AND to having government dictate wages to private employers.

The Census Bureau already has its main processing center in Jeffersonville, IN, it's one of the largest employers in an otherwise economically depressed area.

Then they're fucking idiots who must love higher unemployment.

Deplorable some would say.:)

I don't understand how:

lower minimum wage + fewer union jobs + more expensive Medicare + less Social Security + lower taxes for the top 20% = prosperity

Its just going to be more of the same. No change in my taxes.

Well they'll be paying less taxes or something

Well done :)

It's simply mind boggling that this will be swept under the rug. From the Washington Post:

'Cause ya know, there's no proof or anything. Nobody believes the government anyway, they all work for Obama so they can say whatever they want.

Yes, it represents a significant threat to our country that the process could be manipulated so easily. I'll throw this back to what Angus said earlier in his readings about "The Foundations of Geopolitics." It's very disturbing to delve into the old Soviet/Russian mindset that is set on the complete destabilization of the West, and the theory that it can be achieved through ploy and manipulation due to the nature of the structure of the society is both terrifying and brilliant.

This did not make the difference. The silent majority was voting. Not because we know what everyone knows, you dont trust Hillary.

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street

The entire concept of the silent majority (pro tip, Trump didn't win the majority) is that of the great pumpkin who shows up to help if you only believe.

Are you really advocating a position of ignoring the fact that Russian hacker got into a highly strategic communication line and used it to keep a narrative of fraud and that all the public heard was emails. Hell, half the voters who don't pay attention thought those emails were on Hillary's server, and who in the Republican party was going to correct them?

Here you've got a strategic gain for one party in a close battle, but you've loosened the pillars of the country to do so, and now they've got to go back and recognize the threat it is, not wave their hands and say, "These aren't the Russians you're looking for."

So, back to the whole did not make a difference. Belichek cheated even when he had a superior team. Why? You can argue that it wouldn't have made a difference, you can't necessarily quantify that it did, but you can say that there was an advantage to be gained from it, otherwise it wasn't worth the effort. And to that I say, it did make a difference in some way.

Won't impact most people now. Most likely a present for our kids and grandkids that will have to pay back the debt we'll incur from the tax cuts.

Who cares at this point if it made a difference or not? Trump is the president regardless. What we should care about is that a foreign government was throwing it's weight around in our election. We need to figure out an appropriate response to that happening and I would hope that Trump and the other Republicans in power would want to lead that effort.

Im sure that we have had an impact on a few major world powers elections as well.
I think this was just a lot more public than usual.

HRC must have gotten kicked around by Putin and he didnt respect her. Probably why Russia threw their weight behind Trump.
More bad diplomacy by HRC. She should have taken a tip from Claire Underwood. :)

That is, of course, disturbing.

But what about the content of those "wiki leaks?" Was anything FALSE?

I suppose Clinton didn't get fed debate questions for example.

The disturbing thing to me is how horrific and corrupt this entire system is. Of all the candidates out there, I can only think of one single guy who would have had little to no fear of leaks. And he wasn't one of the final candidates on the ballot.

The people we have running for office AND the parties they represent are corrupt to the core. But that's a story nobody wants to hear. MY CANDIDATE AND MY PARTY ARE CLEAN, THE OTHER PARTY IS FULL OF IDIOTS. Ugh.

Silent minority (by nearly 3 million)

As stated it'd not a matter of whether or not it made an impact its about a foreign government trying to control our election results.

But I guess that's OK when your guy is the one that they're helping.

They couldn't have helped any candidate if they didn't have the ammunition. They steal her emails and release a bunch of stuff talking about boring press junkets and mundane garbage, nothing happens.

Putin is a douche bag. Russia is frightening. We can continue to focus on that if we want. The downside is both of our parties candidates this year were frightening. That gave Russia the ability to do what they did. That's more frightening to me.

Imagine an alternate universe where Hillary gets one of the debate questions exactly worded, holds a news conference before the debate firing everyone on her team involved with getting the question and saying the election is important, but if she has to win that way it isn't worth it.

How important is that Russian mail dump in that universe?

Equally.

The issue isn't whether or not it worked, it's that it was done. We can't let that go without any retaliation.

Now I think Trump knew about it, which is a much bigger problem, but that hasn't been proven.

I just don't see "pick better candidates" as a realistic solution. We had a candidate that Putin had a lot of interest in getting into office or he wouldn't have gone to the lengths to make it happen. Maybe someone with less baggage would have been more difficult to do this to, but I'm fairly certain every presidential candidate in our lifetime could be smeared by releasing emails like this.

The fact that they directly interfered with our election process is grounds for retaliation on some level. The fact that some are OK with it because it might be why their guy won is disturbing.

Huh? This would be treated like it was a huge scandal, not like an honest politician trying to stay above the fray. It would've decimated her in the polls and the entire debate would've been about that. The e-mails still would've had relevance. It would be all about what did Hillary know and when.

Harm the losers, hold bargaining chip against the winners?

Log In - New York Times

Well, we have been interfering in their internal politics. Part of the fight over the Ukraine for the past decade+ has been because after Putin cracked down on internal media anti-Putin oligarchs were using Ukrainian soil for TV & radio stations that could broadcast into Moscow. I'm not "ok" with it, but I don't think it's anything we don't do or new in anything but scale.

Count me in with the side that dislikes foreign interference but thinks it's more disturbing that both the Democratic candidate and partisans seem to think we should ignore the contents of the emails because of where they came from.
Bernie? Ben Carson?

Bernie. I would be surprised to find anything "dark" that he hadn't already said out loud to begin with. I doubt there would be speeches with him saying things like "I have to have one public voice and one for you guys" He doesn't have a foundation, I doubt there is foreign money involved in his campaign. Note: I'm not saying I supported him as a candidate, only that I doubt there would have been much for him to go on.

I strongly disagree with this. One side would have tried to make it a major scandal. People who HATED Hillary due to her constant issue with the truth? I think a lot of them move to her check box. See, she's then the politician that isn't going to play the stupid games or tolerate the cheating. She's the one who will deal with it.

As far as what she knew and when did she know it, that part would have been addressed by her: Not going into the debate with inside information, announcing it before the debate along with the firings.

The other option is to do what Hillary did. Take the question and prepare for it because she was going to win this thing at all cost. No action against any individual who got the question (accept maybe a promotion to head of the DNC) Then act shocked and stunned when the email gets released and scream "RUSSIA, it's the fault of the RUSSIANS!!!, LOOK AWAY FROM MY DISHONEST CAMPAIGN"

That was really effective.

Again, I'll repeat, run a clean campaign and there isn't a damned thing Russia or anyone else can do. Don't and bad crap comes out.

I can't imagine the vitrol that would have come from the left if Fox News had leaked Trump questions before debates twice and the person who leaked them found their way into the upper reaches of the RNC. MSNBC would be having nightly specials on this. And I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have given a damn how the emails were found to show it.

Trump is a disaster for the country and I hate it. . . but I'm not going to blame Russia for it. I'm not blaming "idiots, racists, or rednecks either" It's a lot more complicated than all of that and if we don't figure it out, there will be more Trumps.

Uh, according to Megan Kelly Trump did get debate questions from a Fox host.

I think Bernie, or more likely his wife, did have something to hide. They were far from transparent about their finances.

Republicans have gone from Reagan standing against the Soviets and Communists to now being OK with being a puppet of Russia.

Do you guys root for Drago in Rocky 4 now?

Looks like we're getting a Sec/State that literally got a friendship medal from Putin.

Sure didn't see them coming back and winning the Cold War in overtime.

Nothing to see here. Let's re-focus on emails folks.

It's word of mouth. Not an email in large letters stating it. If the press had obvious proof, they would have went nuts with it.

Maybe Bernie did have something to hide. I was just guessing. As long as they all have something major to hide and the parties themselves have things to hide. . . we will be at the mercy of anyone who can hack into their emails and systems.

That's not being in support of republicans or democrats, it's simple reality.

You'd have to be quite silly to not realize that we ALL have things to hide. Hell, this forum is public, but there are at least a few posts that would disqualify any one here from any public office. Most politicians and party workers tend to keep their regular thoughts private, but likely have let a bit loose in email (up until recently).

The Exxon CEO. Don't worry, after this one he'll start draining that swamp.

The debate question seems like a weird thing to draw a line in the sand over with HRC.

Trumps' philosophy on intelligence briefings:

I'm not talking about opinions here. I'm talking about wildly unethical behavior. If it's silly and naive for me to think that our politicians shouldn't engage in that, then you can paint me with that brush.

I'm also not talking about personal things. I don't care if Hillary looks at pornography three hours a day. I don't care if she is an atheist (I know she isn't) I don't even care if she has a different opinion on a few major issues. I do care about a lot of the things that came out in those emails. They showed an incredibly unethical person surrounded by unethical people.

And before anyone starts: I didn't vote for Trump. I do not condone any of the things he said. I know the guy is dirty as hell. I know his associates are too. That's the point. Both sides are horrible and because of that it allows other countries to pull this crap.

I can only think of 3 or 4 people on this board that would have "lost" my vote before the election begins. (and no, I'm not naming them, but I will say they are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum)

Some on reddit broke down the time line of events with citations.

jacquedsouza comments on CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

So Trump is Fredo... It all makes sense now.

That reddit thread devolves into a "Clinton had the person responsible for the leaks murdered" thread within 10 posts.

Seriously.

$4 billion market cap hit this morning for Lockheed Martin thanks to sticky fingers and his Twitter account.

Apparently the only businesses allowed to thrive are ones he his okay with thriving. That is a pretty scary reality.

I'm not a fan of Trump at all but maybe the new reality is also that the US defense industries have spent decades getting rich with our bloated defense budget and the gravy train had to end at some point? I hate the he is doing it with individual companies but the same old same old way of pushing the budget problems down the road to the future politicians had to stop at some point.

Yeah I didn't go below the highlighted post because I fully expected something of that nature.

100% agreed Panerd on the gravy train for defense manufacturers; however, his method of attack is a very slippery slope which concerns me a lot more.

Yeah you would think he would understand how Obama making a tweet about Trump industries would effect stock prices and honestly I'm pretty sure he does. I just hate the black/white that the news outlets and a lot of people (not you obviously) seem to have on Trump. I agree with the content of the tweet but not the delivery. When will this spending madness stop?

Isn't his plan to increase defense spending? I understand that cutting waste doesn't mean we have to spend less, but this isn't a road to less spending.

I know I shouldn't be surprised at anything, but I think the biggest story is a president elect publicly trashing his own intelligence community. Whatever your political affiliation that's not a good thing, right?

I'd worry more if Trump weren't smart.

Trump would trash national heroes if it made him look better.

No, wait he's already done that. Multiple times.

So Chinese state media has said DJT is as ignorant as a child. Twitter war with China before he's even in office?

He says he wants to dramatically increase military spending.

what better

twitter war or real war?

Of all the idiotic things he's done/will do, this is the one I have the least amount problems with. China has been hacking/blackmailing/stealing US industry trade secrets for years. They have used those secrets to hurt a ridiculous amount of American companies and all of our politicians (those with an R and those with a D next to their names) have allowed it to go on without any response.

China needs the US as much as we need them. It's time to change the dynamics of the relationship. The reason they are going on state media with things like that is they are worried and uncomfortable. That's a good thing from where I'm sitting.

Agreed. I'm fine with him blasting some of these companies. They're getting called to task publicly and it's really hard to disagree with his point, even if the knife did enter their back.

Same with China. There's plenty of skeletons in their closet if they really want to go into a war of words.

Depends upon what aspect(s) are being criticized.

There's no way Trump actually picks Fiorina for DNI, right? This has to be another ritual humiliation ala Mitt, Christie and Rudy.

What will DJT's response be if China does retaliate by invading Taiwan after he has forced them to acknowledge their continued existence?

Unfortunately that is a distinct possibility. China even alluded to it.

I would hope sticking a warship in Taipei Harbor if the invasion hasn't happened yet and a complete embargo combined with a suspension of any debt repayments to them if it has. But if China invades Taiwan it's not going to be because Donald Trump accepted a phone call from the Taiwanese leader or said something mean on Twitter. Though I'm sure the usual suspects will blame him for China's childish escalation and egregiously aggressive actions even in that hypothetical.

Trump has campaigned against getting involved in foreign wars, and after the international (non)response to Russia invading the Crimea, I doubt China has a ton to fear, internationally speaking, from an invasion of Taiwan.

Though the trade war / embargo may happen regardless of any motions towards Taiwan.

This won't happen all at once, but Taiwan and the one China policy are way more important to China than to us. We have very little to gain and an enormous amount to lose. "China deserves it," isn't anything upon which to build a beneficial foreign policy.

I hope Trump et al. have decided how far they are willing to go before looking for an escape route. Even getting into a trade war over Taiwan is ridiculous. The one China policy has been working well for all three parties involved.

Apparently someone shorted a bunch of Lockheed Martin stock about 5 minutes before the tweet came out this morning. And now Trump has cancelled his press conference that was scheduled for tomorrow that was supposed to outline how he is going to address potential conflicts of interest.

Of course he canceled. He can't be put in a position where he has to not only answer a question, but has to answer a follow up question to rebuke whatever euphemism about "the best", "the greatest", etc he responds with the first time around. You can bet he will have plenty of time to tweet though.

No, that's absurd. It hasn't worked at all. People getting upset over the Russian hacks? How about what China has done for years without any push back? The one China policy has helped China.

China NEEDS us just as bad as we need them. This is not the one way street it's made to be. They make all the stuff, they need someone to buy it. We actually have a lot to gain here. The debt can be negotiated down significantly for starters.

There is no way China wants to become North Korea part 2 and isolate themselves from the world. It won't work and they damned well know it.

Again, I don't like Trump, but this is actually a much needed thing. The time for this has long passed.

China will never bargain away the one China policy, it's foundational to their national image. If we want to push back against China, that isn't the way to go.

Read some of what James Fallows is writing about this. It's very level headed and insightful.

This is one of the worst ideas he's ever had and would be catastrophic to the economy.

It's legal if the president does it.

I'm actually going to defend Trump on the Lockheed thing. The stock would have plummeted if this had been an official release, or answered at a press conference, or come out in policy discussions. If it really is his decision to cut costs in that area, Lockheed wasn't going to be able to hide from it.

Lockheed also saw a fairly big spike right after the election because of the belief that Trump would be a big spender. In fact the stock is still higher than it was before the election.

If there was insider trading based on this, that's another story. But Trump laying out a policy direction isn't his fault.

I've read extensively on this topic. The "One China" policy is beneficial to China, not to anyone else. The "One China" policy also doesn't mean they are allowed to steal trade secrets. (this isn't some new Republican scare tactic either, Obama spoke to Jinping about this in 2015. We just didn't do anything about it.)

If China wants this policy to continue, they can assure it continues by ending their hacking and spying program of IP. It's "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" Not "I scratch your back, you use a lighter to burn marks into my back and tell me I can't scream"

I'm not trying to be John Wayne here. And I understand the consequences of what could happen. Thing is, I've seen the consequences that have already happened and they need to stop and they need to stop now.

If you want to deal with China, this isn't the thing. They will never bargain over the one China policy. So then the question is, will we go to war over Taiwan? I certainly hope not, as we have almost nothing to gain by doing so.

And this has definitely been beneficial to Taiwan and the U.S. Without the agreed status quo, some sort of military conflict is damn near inevitable. As it stands, China gets to say Taiwan is part of China, Taiwan basically gets to be an independent nation, and we don't have to fight a war in Asia. It works, much the same way MAD worked during the Cold War. It sucks, but it's better than the alternative.

Yeah, trying to negotiate down US Treasuries is banana republic type stuff. Or it's Greek to me. You choose.

Well that was easy to predict and didn't take long. Instead of having a press conference to address his businesses and answer live and unpredictable questions, DJT fires off a series of 3 tweets.

But NOTHING in the One China policy allows them to act the way they have.

NOTHING.

It's one of the utterly most ridiculous policies we have ever had as a nation. They set the ground rules. They set the terms of trade. They steal IP, trade secrets and blackmail any company they can steal from so they can add to their empire and we all act like this is a wonderful thing. We act like we should be grateful their great leaders allow us to talk to them.

This is simply NOT a sustainable arrangement. The second we no longer become useful to China, Taiwan is going down anyway. We are allowing them to play a 200 year long con, bankrupt our country and then they'll do what and we'll be at war.

This policy is important to China too. Massively important. Anyone acting like it isn't is out of their mind. (If it wasn't, they'd have just taken Taiwan 20 years ago and shut up shop like North Korea) We can and should make them uncomfortable and make them get to the table to answer for their crimes against Americans. The goal isn't war or to shut down trade or to kill people. Hell, it isn't even to get a completely equitable deal. The goal is to get a better deal and let the other party know there are two people in the game, not one.

Trade, espionage and IP issues aren't connected to the One China policy. I'm fine working on those issues, but using One China as the tool to do that won't work. They won't negotiate over that, so how will it help us achieve our goals?

They will damned well negotiate over that. it's beneficial to them as well. The continuation of that policy is important to them. Everything needs to be put on the table. Even if internally we would never go away from the policy, we can't let them know it. Again, this is about setting terms that are better for both parties, not just one. When you do that, the entirety of every deal you have goes on the table.

They'll use our debt against us. (as they should, it's a powerful bargaining chip) They'll throw every bad thing we've ever done on the table. We need to be prepared to do the same. In fact, that's probably what gets this to the table to begin with. Why would China get to the table without the threat of losing anything?

US: "I'd like to talk to you about the billions of dollars a year in IP you have been stealing and the blackmaililng of American corporations."

China: "What exactly are you going to do about it"

US: "Well, I'm gonna stand over here and jump up and down and waive my arms in the air and hope you stop, k, thx, bye"


No. No. Just no. You say "If you don't do this, we are changing our policy towards you. You can make changes and we can all live happily and profitably or we can both go into deep recessions, but we aren't going to allow you to bankrupt us. The long con stops and it stops now or everything gets changed."

Obviously, I wish we had a president with less of a twitter presence to handle this. But none of the other ones seem to give a crap about it. I'm sure Trump will screw this up. I'm sure he's going to screw everything up.

I just happen to think he's right that China isn't our friend and it's time to change the terms of that relationship.

Maybe you should ask why that (the bolded part) is? Something about battles and wars comes to mind.

President Obama, of course, was in the process of economically isolating China in Asia... it was called the TPP.