Mauldin on the Trade War

John Mauldin wrote an excellent piece here on the ongoing, insane trade war with China.

The key points are:

1. Intellectual property theft is a FAR bigger problem than deficits or trade imbalances.
2. "If other nations don’t want your currency, you can’t run trade deficits without severe economic problems. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was right: The US has an exorbitant privilege as owner of the world’s reserve currency.  In fact, if you have the reserve currency, it is your obligation to run deficits so that the world has enough currency to conduct trade. (bold face mine)

We need to resolve the intellectual property theft crisis.  The trade imbalance is a side effect of owning the world's reserve currency.

https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/digging-a-hole-to-china