My theory is that Trump is playing the Nixon madman strategy w/ regards to trade. If everyone thinks he's crazy, he thinks he'll get better deals without having to do anything painful.

And for optics purposes, all he needs is "some win", not something that materially matters.

But as with all Trumpisms, we'll see. :\

I bring up Canada and Mexico because using their shipyard capacity (especially Mexico) would be a win-win: forex investment in heavy industry for them, competitive labor costs for the US, and the US Navy gets recapitalized.

> My theory is that Trump is playing the Nixon madman strategy w/ regards to trade. If everyone thinks he's crazy, he thinks he'll get better deals without having to do anything painful.

Have you tried listening to his speeches at rallies? Not the clips or extracts, and not transcripts, but the full speeches from start to finish.

Dude is all over the place. It's often hard to tell what planet he's on.

During one of the presidential debates he went on about immigrants eating cats and dogs.

I have and watched that full debate. It's weird though, because "he's crazy" seems overly reductionist.

Or at least, he's crazy in the same way George W Bush was dumb.

Which is to say, it's a facade they play because they find it works with their base and to their advantage.

> Which is to say, it's a facade they play because they find it works with their base and to their advantage.

I do not believe it is a façade in either case (Bush, Trump).

Bush W is one of only ~10 US presidents to have an advanced degree. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Un...

It's a mistake to ignore facts because they're inconvenient to what we want to believe.

And thinking Trump only won 2 elections because of other people is an difficult fit with reality.

Just because you or I dislike someone doesn't mean we should discount them.