Donald Trump is demanding his cut in every deal. This is true with both the shooting war in Ukraine and the trade war with China.
In his lopsided trade deal with the European Union, the US president has boasted that the bloc will be required to buy “vast amounts” of American weapons worth “hundreds of billions”. Even before the deal, Vice-President J.D. Vance declared that if Europe wanted to continue the war in Ukraine, they would have to pay for it by buying US weapons.
Brussels has denied that it is required to do so under the new deal, but there is no doubt it will end up buying a lot more from the US weapons industry, that is, whether it continues the war in Ukraine and/or rearms Europe against Russia.
Trump really wants other people’s money to pay for his tax cut for the rich.
Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will be exempted from export restrictions and allowed to sell lower-performance chips to China, but only after both firms agree to hand over 15 per cent of any future sales to fill the US government’s coffers. But weren’t those chip curbs supposed to protect America’s “national and economic security”, because those chips could help advance China’s military and intelligence capabilities? Well, money talks.
The “Export Clause” in the US Constitution does not allow any export tax on American firms like the 15 per cent levy to be imposed on the two US chip giants. But who bothers with the Constitution in Trump’s Washington these days?