SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: The Trump administration couldn't even explain to the Japanese negotiating team what they were looking to achieve with the tariffs.

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1913823474231263325

This is quite crazy. According to former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman (one of the rare senior US officials that I admire), the Trump administration couldn't even explain to the Japanese negotiating team what they were looking to achieve with the tariffs. Here's what Freeman said: "The Japanese have just been in Washington. Their experience apparently was they went to talk to the American leadership on this matter, and the American leadership said 'what are you offering?' And the Japanese said 'well, what is it that you want?' And the Americans could not explain what they wanted." Freeman also noted, correctly, that "the United States [broke] virtually every agreement it has agreed to in recent decades including the replacement for NAFTA with proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico that was negotiated by Mr. Trump in his first term." Which doesn't exactly encourage countries to make a deal with Trump: what's the point? Which is why Freeman believes that China won't go for negotiations and has instead decided to "wait [America] out". As he puts it: "What is [China's] incentive to negotiate with the US when the US has no stated objectives that make sense and no record of compliance with its own agreements? I think the Chinese have decided they will wait us out and see how Americans like Walmart and Amazon denuded of products." Fundamentally and somewhat paradoxically, that's the thing Trump the self-anointed "dealmaker" obviously doesn't get: at the end of the day dealmaking is built on credibility and consistency, and America has now neither.