Diluted Brinksmanship Politicians do not usually make unpleasant decisions until and unless they are forced into a corner. That is the whole point of brinkmanship in politics - to force a change in position. However, the two current and most prominent efforts at brinkmanship, the U.S. trade war with China and the government shutdown in Washington over a border wall, have more holes than a slab of Swiss cheese. The Trump administration has been handing out exclusions from its steel and aluminum tariffs, and now USTR is promising to grant more of them if it is forced to impose an additional $200 billion in tariffs in early March should negotiations with China fail. Does China grant exclusions to its counter-retaliatory tariffs? Meanwhile, t...

TAGS – China, Europe, North America