What's next for the Trump Administration? Todd Sheets explains

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now economist Todd Cheats to talk about what's
happening with everything going on around the globe, not all
these all these wars, but the impact it has economically
in what Trump's trying to do with all the great
deals with China, obviously in Russia, and even I ran, hey, Todd,
welcome in, Thanks for being.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here, John, Thanks for having me this morning. This is
J T.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
I don't know who John is. Oh, John's our boss.
Who booked you? That's right?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, well but you gotcha. Okay, sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
No, you're good. You're good, Todd. So I mean, here
we are. You've got these deals going on on one
side of the fence here, and on the other side,
it's like, okay, we're going to bomb you now, Okay,
stop doing this to other countries. Okay, we're threatening you. Okay,
let's get back over here and talk about our doing
our business together.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Wait.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
What a tough dichotomy that is.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, it is a tough thing to go through. Unfortunately,
it's something that you know, we have no choice but
to deal with. And as I've argued in some of
the recent pieces that I've put out, you know, I
think we should be kind of going through a fairly
simple but straightforward approach of say, you know, these are
our allies and these are our enemies, and that's not

(01:04):
based so much on you know, their form of government,
what they say during negotiations, or even whether they've adopted
our value system. It basically comes down to what their
long history and track record has been of either being
a peaceful nation or not, or being one who engages
in commerce, you know, under the rule of law and

(01:28):
the standards that have worked for Western societies and listed
millions of people out of poverty for the last couple
hundred years. So you know, on that basis, I think
we've got to take these countries like China, Russia, Iran,
North Korea. We need to isolate their economies as much
as possible, and not in the on again, off again

(01:49):
way that we've done for too long, where you know,
it's like, you know, the restrictions are there, and then
the administration changes and somebody negotiates a new dale and
they back off, and then you know, three or four
years later, back to the old Shenanigans of that kind
of thing. You put them on and you keep them
on a kind of maximum levels, and then with our allies.
You know, we do need to renegotiate trade agreements that

(02:11):
have for too long been unfair to American workers, hopefully
with the idea of getting to a balanced environment that creates,
you know, mutually beneficial growth and relationships for both sides
of the transaction.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
One hundred percent, and I like your point, keep the
pedal of the metal ones. These plans are set that
benefit the United States and America first. You can't allow
it to change every time. Think back when Obama was
in office and he sent that palette of cash to
the tarmac for Iran and just kind of re bolstered
their economy as well as their attacks in their terrorist

(02:45):
world they live in. So you've got one administration that's
all about America first, and then you've got another administration
that wants to be globalist. I mean, how do you
prevent it from happening every time there's an election.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, I think you know, one, we've got to get
the word out and talk about how much damage has
been done by these approaches. And it's you're exactly right
with what happened with Iran on an even bigger scale.
You know, it's happened with China here where for far
too long, you know, we've been extending this economic olive
branch of Hey, you know you can trade with us,

(03:18):
This will help, you know, lift these you know, hundreds
and hundreds of millions of people up out of the
poverty that you know, their failed communist command and control
systems created. And this was all again with the expectation
they were going to play ball under you know, reasonable
standards of law and become a global ally, and just
the opposites happened. And yet, you know, it's like every

(03:41):
administration has been afraid to do something about that and
tell the one that we have now, which you know,
fortunately in the first Trump term, you know, he raised
tariffs on China from around three and a half percent
up to about an average of roughly twenty percent, and
now it looks like we could be going up potentially
as high as fifty percent, which now, again I think
this is exactly the right thing we have to do.

(04:03):
And then future administrations have to learn these lessons, you
know that we just can't keep swinging back and forth
with these different players.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, Todd, I know it's hard for us as Americans
to even conceive the notion that they don't want to
have a strong economy because they don't want people getting
independent and getting you know, flexing their muscles. The citizens
they like having the control the dictatorship that exists there,
and if we keep them you know, down and dependent
on us, you know, we'll have more control of them

(04:31):
over them. So how much of that comes into play, Well.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know, a ton of significant amount of that comes
into play. That's that's effectively the core issue You've hit
the nail on the head here is I think I've written,
I write these substack pieces on wealth and progress, and
in one of them I wrote it was called a
Tale of Two Empires, where we isolated the Soviet Union
and defeated them. But then unfortunately, we started engaging with

(04:59):
China's Communist Party under the hope that they would move
in this you know, more positive direction. But what we
missed there and we've continued to miss was what I
called the writing, you know, the bloodstains on the wall
of Tienman Square, where you know, in the late nineteen eighties,
when China was starting to move down this path of

(05:22):
becoming more capitalist, more oriented towards free markets, which they
had to because you know, so many people had died
as a result of famines under the communist system. You know,
they started to move in this direction. But then when
those protests in tianam And Square started, you know, the
Chinese Communist Party rolled the tanks in you know, killed

(05:42):
thousands of people and basically sent the message, we will
only let these reforms happen as long as they continue
to be in the interest of the Chinese Communist Party.
You know, it wasn't that they were concerned about their citizens,
and unfortunately we missed that message, and we continued to
miss it. But I think fortunately, you know, now we're

(06:03):
starting to move in the right direction in terms of
our relationships.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
All right, very good economist, Todd Sheets Todd, thank you
so much. I sure to appreciate you this morning.