Last week began with President Trump labeling China a currency manipulator in his tweets about levying new tariffs on that country, causing an overall escalation of trade tensions.

The way it was done — and the way the wizards of Wall Street and many politically bent pundits interpreted it — was shameful.

For starters, the president’s tweets overmagnify the importance of a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion, which is $30 billion — nothing to a $20 trillion economy like ours.

The reactions by the financial pundits and Wall Street “geniuses” were as pathetic as they were laughable, and unsettled Main Street needlessly.

China doesn’t play remotely fair, so kudos to the president for standing up to it. But it’s time to negotiate in a productive fashion, understanding that we do not need the “perfect” deal. We just need a good deal that begins to move the ball down the field and back in our favor.

And, by the way, the tariff war really has nothing to do with interest rates. The president has clearly conflated the two in order to move the Federal Reserve along on correcting its unrelated oversteps.



He should resist that temptation. Our economy is fundamentally sound and strong, although the Fed must continue to alter its path due to the fact that rates are negative in Europe’s economies.

A more disciplined approach would benefit all — especially confused individual investors.

We have the power of the purse, and can negotiate this predominantly in private, from a position of strength.

The markets can then focus on the fundamentals of the economy, and businesses both large and small can budget intelligently and plan their future growth.

With a few less inflammatory tweets from the Oval Office — and some smarter guests on financial TV — there would be a lot less fear in the markets.