Trump 'orders' firms out of China

China issued new retaliatory tariffs this morning on American goods. The president then posted a retaliatory tweet in which he “ordered” US firms to stop doing business with China. That, as a result, spooked Wall Street into a nosedive. It’s rare when cause and effect are so clear in the market.

Donald Trump can’t order firms to do anything, but he can, as the president, make life hard for corporations that make him look bad by not doing what he wants them to do. This is why Trump’s actions here aren’t socialism, though one GOP-sensitive journalist said it is. They’re really fascism.

In socialism—I mean real socialism, not the soft form of democratic socialism—the government would take ownership of a private enterprise, nationalize it, and redistribute value “to the people.”

What Trump’s saying is far more dangerous, because he’s expressing a willingness to push private enterprise around, either by barking at it on Twitter or mounting the full-force of the US government against corporations that “reward” China but “humiliate” the United States (that is, Trump).

However bad real socialism is, it has a goal in mind.  A project. Fascism doesn’t have a goal or a project, except accumulating power. It’s far more insecure, chaotic and uncertain. Just like Donald Trump.

Wall Street is right to be worried. —JS