An increasingly erratic Donald Trump has said that he will make China pay for the next US financial stimulus as it was their fault the United States is in this position in the first place.
A financial stimulus is when the government pumps money into the economy to keep financial markets afloat. In this case, such a move is needed in the midst of the CoVid-19 pandemic.
In an interview with Fox Business, the President said:
"I would [go higher] because this was not caused by our workers and our people, this was caused by China and China will pay us back in one form or another. The Republicans are willing to do it. I'd like to see more money, because it comes back. It's going to come back anyway. We're gonna take it from China. I tell you now, it's coming out of China. They're the ones that caused this problem."
When the reporter asked him how he would make China pay, Trump responded:
"There's a lot of ways and I'll figure every one of them out. I already have them figured out. You know we've taken billions and billions of dollars for China over the last couple years."
There has been an increasingly tense face-off between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the stimulus, and Trump himself has not denied that there should be further stimulus, rather it appears he is opposed to the stimulus being dictated by the Democratic party. He added:
"We like stimulus, we want stimulus, and we think we should have stimulus, because it was China's fault. She's asking for all sorts of goodies, she wants to bail out badly run Democrat states and cities, she wants money for things that you would never, you just couldn't, your pride couldn't let it happen."
Trump's call to 'make China pay' was similar to his boasts before the 2016 presidential election that he would build a border wall between Mexico and the United States and 'make Mexico pay for it', something that has clearly failed to happen.
The US and China have been engaged in a long trade war since Trump came to power, mainly over tariffs and over the use of intellectual property. However, this didn't stop his daughter Ivanka having clothing from her fashion line produced in China.
This may be Trump's last act of impotent bluster before the November 3rd election for which voting has already begun, and during which he is badly trailing behind the Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
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