[Mariner]

“President Trump is NOT weak.”

I agree.

But he is projecting weakness, for whatever reason.

When he said he was postponing tariffs on a large basket of goods because he didn’t want to hurt the American consumer, he projected weakness.

He should have been talking up a 50-100% tariff instead. Or even embargo. Letting the Chinese know he would exercise all National power at his disposal to win.

From their point of view, OF COURSE they believe they’ve already won.

Maybe Xi miscalculated. Maybe he didn’t. But he doesn’t have to stand for reelection next year so he’s raising the stakes.

That’s the reality, whether it hurts your sentiments or not.

[tired&retired]

“President Trump is NOT weak.”

I agree.

But he is projecting weakness, for whatever reason.”

No. Trump is purposely being unpredictable. A very good negotiation technique.

[Alas Babylon!]

I do not think he’s projecting weakness at all.

We’re just at a point of time where it appears so to the impatient.

Frankly, he sounded pretty pissed off today. The next few days, I expect he’ll start hammering.

[Zhang Fei]

[But he doesn’t have to stand for reelection next year so he’s raising the stakes.]

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Chinese leaders may not have to stand for elections, but they do get removed by their internal rivals when they are perceived as weak, due to problematic domestic conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Gao#Coup_following_Qin_Shi_Huang’s_death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yang_of_Sui#Late_reign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Guofeng

If you’re looking strictly at communist countries, there’s also the examples of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_Muhammad_Taraki#Assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu#Death

But I’d argue that *all* communist countries merely replaced absolute dictatorships/monarchies with the fig leaf of Marxim/Leninism - an excuse to gain and retain the royal scepter more than anything else.