This will cost us.

[Arkady]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

 

[Capitalist]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanted to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Arkady]

Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. Any thoughts on the matter?

 

[marvin martian]

You're welcome. Any thoughts on the matter?

Why don't you just look at the comments section wherever you plagiarized this from?

 

[Arkady]

Why don't you just look at the comments section wherever you plagiarized this from?

Oh, poor little Marvin. He can't imagine that I thought of something like this on my own, because he's much too dumb to have done so.

 

[Arkady]

Why don't you just look at the comments section wherever you plagiarized this from?

Just in case anyone here is stupid enough to think you're right about me plagiarizing it, I'd invite you to do a search of the phrase "Pew Global Attitudes Project" in this forum. You'll see I've repeatedly explored this interrelationship between US approval ratings abroad, the value of the dollar, and export results. Here's an early one:

https://www.politicaljack.com/threads/federal-tax-levels.26751/page-3#post-379632

 

[Capitalist]

Just in case anyone here is stupid enough to think you're right about me plagiarizing it, I'd invite you to do a search of the phrase "Pew Global Attitudes Project" in this forum. You'll see I've repeatedly explored this interrelationship between US approval ratings abroad, the value of the dollar, and export results. Here's an early one:

https://www.politicaljack.com/threads/federal-tax-levels.26751/page-3#post-379632

Again, thanks for sharing.

 

[Arkady]

Again, thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. Did you have any thoughts on the subject?

 

[Drumcollie]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

All this because your a sad little wee of a man who can't accept that you lost an election.

How about this:

How about you tell us how to pay back Obama's 10 trillion of debt or...

Maybe you could explain why Obama lost 4 million plus jobs by this time in his Presidency?

BTW...I am really concerned about Tanzania not having a favorable view over the U.S....What should we do?

 

[Corruptbuddha]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

Been reading some polls, have you?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...the-world-hates-trump/?utm_term=.bf0dac747f4a

LOL

 

[RickWA]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

Serious navel-gazing dude...but, as always, it feeds your predetermined partisan conclusions. When in doubt, offer speculative condemnation in service to your party. :-/

BTW: No legacy negative stigma for "Volkswagen" whatsoever...

 

[Spamature]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

Remember we were shipping our manufacturing out of the country like gangbusters during the Bush years.



So it might not have been a case of not wanting American products but also the fact that we stopped making a lot of American products.

 

[justoffal]

During most of the Bush era, the dollar fell apart. Relative to a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the greenback lost about a third of its value between his inauguration and mid-2008 (it rebounded a bit in those last few months of his presidency, as global panic about the financial meltdown scared people into moving their money into Treasuries). Ordinarily that kind of massive currency devaluation would have positives and negatives. On the negative side, it means Americans are poorer -- for those who traveled abroad in that period, the sticker shock was awful -- gone were the days when a middle-class American could live an upper-class lifestyle abroad. But on the positive side, a weak dollar is supposed to make US products cheap abroad, helping our exports, resulting in strong job creation. Yet, even as the dollar slumped, so did net exports, and it was one of the worst periods for job creation in American history. Our products were getting cheaper and cheaper, but nobody wanted them.

This was a bit of an economic mystery, but I think one plausible explanation is that US-branded products were increasingly burdened, in the Bush years, with a stigma caused by US behavior. From, say, the perspective of a Norwegian considering the purchase of a substantially similar Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota, the Ford came pre-loaded with the baggage of US warmongering, torture, and climate change denialism. That made the Volkswagen and Toyota look like better options. Who wants to drive around in a Gitmobile?

It wasn't as conscious as, say, the "Freedom Fries" BS (when Republicans rebranded French fries to protest the French not wanting to invade Iraq until we were sure of our WMD suspicions). But in the same sense that a company's overall branding will impact the desirability of its products (e.g., causing you to pay a little extra for an Apple phone, or causing someone to steer clear of Ivanka fashions), a country's branding can do the same. Bush's America had enough of an image problem that we weren't able to capitalize on the usual benefits of a weakening dollar.

I worry that we'll face something similar today. After years of getting stronger under Obama, the dollar has weakened a bit under Trump (around 3%), but it looks like net exports are down. As in the Bush era, the US image among our key trading partners has gone to crap:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

The biggest buyers of US exports are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the UK, and Germany. Our image has gotten much worse in all of those that Pew surveyed:

The only place our image has gotten significantly better is Russia, which is a poor country that buys relatively little from the US -- to put it in perspective, Canada buys 46 times as much from us as Russia, so a shiny new image in Moscow isn't going to be much help for US exporters, whereas if America's image problem causes Canadians and Mexicans to look to European competitors, that will cost us.

Trade is almost never politically driven... The one exception might be an embargo as in a Prelude to war.
Even then merchants and high-stakes players usually find a way around them. Customers will buy where it makes Financial sense regardless of their politics and those who put on a show for political correctness are usually full of s***double-dealing in the back.

America is no longer the premier manufacturer on the planet... The world's population has changed in many ways.. gone are the days where we could rely on supply and demand as a simple foundation for economic and currency strength.

I will never believe that a corporate Chief will allow himself to be molded by political patrons unless there is something financially gainful in it for him or her.

Jo

 

[Arkady]

Serious navel-gazing dude...but, as always, it feeds your predetermined partisan conclusions. When in doubt, offer speculative condemnation in service to your party. :-/

BTW: No legacy negative stigma for "Volkswagen" whatsoever...

Any substantive thoughts?

As for Volkswagen, yes, of course there is legacy negative stigma there. They'll be fighting that for years -- just as American products had to fight the Bush-era stigma.

 

[Arkady]

Remember we were shipping our manufacturing out of the country like gangbusters during the Bush years.

View attachment 36509

So it might not have been a case of not wanting American products but also the fact that we stopped making a lot of American products.

Yes, but the two issues interact. In some periods, "Made in the USA" is a positive brand even outside the US -- think, for example, about how people in other countries traditionally gobbled up US film, music, blue jeans, sports cars, and other pieces of Americana, partly because of America being perceived as "cool," and as an object of aspiration for less prosperous or free nations. When US products get a boost from being US products, it's easier to hold onto US jobs. When, instead, being associated with the US makes the products (and services) seem repulsive to foreign consumers, you can't get away with charging a premium relative to foreign competitors -- in fact, you might not actually be able to sell unless you have a clear discount relative to foreign competitors. That accelerates job losses, because it narrows the margin and encourages business owners to seek to cut labor costs.

 

[Arkady]

Trade is almost never politically driven... The one exception might be an embargo as in a Prelude to war.
Even then merchants and high-stakes players usually find a way around them. Customers will buy where it makes Financial sense regardless of their politics and those who put on a show for political correctness are usually full of s***double-dealing in the back.

America is no longer the premier manufacturer on the planet... The world's population has changed in many ways.. gone are the days where we could rely on supply and demand as a simple foundation for economic and currency strength.

I will never believe that a corporate Chief will allow himself to be molded by political patrons unless there is something financially gainful in it for him or her.

Jo

What I'm talking about here isn't politics so much as cultural perceptions. Ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw a Peugeot on the streets of the US. A Citroen? A Renault? Go to Europe and you'll see lots of them -- not just in France, either: they compete just fine with German and Italian cars in Germany and Italy. Why can't they compete here? I think it's largely because the image we have of France doesn't fit well with what the American consumers look for in a car. We'll buy French cheese or wine or fashion, but we don't want their cars, even if those cars, on paper, are directly comparable to VWs, Hondas, Toyotas, etc., which we have no problem buying.

Or consider South Korean cars. It took many years for those cars to win over US consumers, because we were judging not by actual reliability studies and other indicators of current quality, but rather based on long-held views about the quality of South Korean vehicles -- perceptions nearly a generation out-0f-date. They'd stepped up their game for over a decade before the US market really caught on, and even then they had to lure us in with warranty periods far beyond the industry norms, to convince us their vehicles weren't less reliable.

That's a sector-specific national image problem, but it makes sense the same image considerations can apply more broadly, as well. When America is seen as corrupt, that represents an up-hill climb for goods and services associated in the foreign consumer's mind with America. That doesn't mean foreigners will swear off US goods and services entirely. But it does appear to mean that even a plunging dollar, making US products suddenly more affordable relative to foreign competition, won't necesssarily boost sales.

I think American conservatives are usually easily able to imagine this effect when WE'RE in the role of the consumer -- they can, for example, easily picture turning their noses up at a French product when the French have done something to piss off the American right. But they have trouble imagining the same stigma working in the other direction, when the US is seen in a foreign market as distasteful.

 

[Spamature]

Yes, but the two issues interact. In some periods, "Made in the USA" is a positive brand even outside the US -- think, for example, about how people in other countries traditionally gobbled up US film, music, blue jeans, sports cars, and other pieces of Americana, partly because of America being perceived as "cool," and as an object of aspiration for less prosperous or free nations. When US products get a boost from being US products, it's easier to hold onto US jobs. When, instead, being associated with the US makes the products (and services) seem repulsive to foreign consumers, you can't get away with charging a premium relative to foreign competitors -- in fact, you might not actually be able to sell unless you have a clear discount relative to foreign competitors. That accelerates job losses, because it narrows the margin and encourages business owners to seek to cut labor costs.

That is one of my biggest concerns about having elected Trump. It trashes our reputation as a people. That and all he entails is the new American brand and to many the real American brand outside of what they might have been told in the past. He magnifies our faults and makes our past mistakes look intentional in hindsight.

 

[RickWA]

Any substantive thoughts?

As for Volkswagen, yes, of course there is legacy negative stigma there. They'll be fighting that for years -- just as American products had to fight the Bush-era stigma.

Kooky, unserious offerings (more so than usual) from you today, Arkady. PJ needs to take up a collection and spring for a box of Wheaties for ya.

 

[Arkady]

Kooky, unserious offerings (more so than usual) from you today, Arkady. PJ needs to take up a collection and spring for a box of Wheaties for ya.

Ok, we get it: you know this is well outside your intellectual depth, so you'll stick to personal insults rather daring to engage with the substance of the issue. But why call attention to you insecurity this way?

 

[Arkady]

That is one of my biggest concerns about having elected Trump. It trashes our reputation as a people. That and all he entails is the new American brand and to many the real American brand outside of what they might have been told in the past. He magnifies our faults and makes our past mistakes look intentional in hindsight.

Yep. And there's every reason this will hurt our bottom line. Republicans act like it's an unfathomable cosmic coincidence that Republican-led eras are so much worse for America, in terms of nearly every statistical indicator, than Democratic eras. But it's no coincidence. It's a predictable result of specific poor leadership choices, like Trump deliberately insulting our leading customers abroad.