Talking is Good?

With the surprise announcement that we will have a high level meeting with North Korea between the heads of state, we seem to be making progress.

Discussions are better than simply tweeting back and forth and possibly some real progress will be made.

It should be noted that getting the American President to meet with this dictator on equal terms is a great prestige builder for him but if it eases the chance of a nuclear war, so be it.

It should be noted that while we pay a lot of attention to it, North Korea is an economically distressed dictatorship that has managed to scrape together something of a nuclear program.

Still its a promising sign.

We also have the watered down steel and aluminum tariffs that exclude Canada and Mexico now.

The end result of these is undetermined, but its unlikely to end well.

Hopefully saner minds will prevail and its likely he is doing it to appeal to a part of his base that has been hurt by loss of these jobs.

The greatest growth opportunities for business is in the developing world and pursuing those opportunities involves a favorable trade environment.

Of course we also need to be competitive in what we offer, but creating trade barriers or withdrawing form trade agreements will hurt those opportunities.

Yes, it allows trade in both directions, so it creates winners and losers.

Of course cheaper prices are good for everyone ultimately.