>He's not making a threat of any kind, he's making an empirical observation that countries that trade with each other tend to go to war less.

That's more wishful thinking though. Many touted the same thing in early 20th century: that the increased trade between European powers, economic interdependence, etc. will mean the end of war.

Then WWI and WWII came along.

Trade is itself a kind of soft war (for resources, for markets, etc) and can easily be extended to full war when those are not ample enough.

Yet there is evidence that larger trade agreements that bind economies together and create some sort of codependence have a function in reducing the likelihood of going to war.

Ma is maybe guilty of conflating individual agreements between nation states and these kind of larger partnerships like Nafta, EU, Euratom etc (or not being sufficiently nuanced for effect).

Of course, these large supranational agreements (rather than trading agreements per se) seem to be what Trump is opposing.

Seems like we've somehow forgotten that before Trump came to power to denounce those agreements, every leftie and liberal, that is, all non corporatists, were also against NAFTA, TPPA, etc (and rightly so).

In the US, maybe. The Eu enjoys broad support on the 'metropolitan' centre-left across Europe - only being opposed really by the extreme left and the centre to far right.

Also, maybe the US should be careful what it wishes for. The UN, for instance, was set up post WWII to project US / Wilsonian values around the world. While trade deals / supranational agreements are inconvenient sometimes, the US may end up missing them when they're gone and the US has to deal with a truly multipolar world again.

>In the US, maybe. The Eu enjoys broad support on the 'metropolitan' centre-left across Europe - only being opposed really by the extreme left and the centre to far right.

Same in the US I think. I wasn't talking about democrats (the US "centre-left", but about the actual left.

>Also, maybe the US should be careful what it wishes for. The UN, for instance, was set up post WWII to project US / Wilsonian values around the world. While trade deals / supranational agreements are inconvenient sometimes, the US may end up missing them when they're gone and the US has to deal with a truly multipolar world again

Let it come, I say!

Incorrect. His comments are coincidental with Chinese military announcements that smell like a campaign to manufacture a crisis that gives Chinese negotiators an upper hand in trade talks and US legislation to come.

"Manufacture a crisis" wait which side are we talking about here?

When, in the past 50 years, has the United States threatened war as part of a trade negotiation?