Guess Whose Business Won’t Be Hurt by Trump’s Trade War?

Well, isn’t this convenient?

I’ve been telling you about the pain being felt by pork and soy farmers, nail manufacturers, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and others, all victims of President Trump’s ill-advised, absolutely NOT conservative trade war against our allies.

China is a another deal, all together. I suspect President Trump is desperately conflicted. On the one hand, he openly admires how Xi Jinping has been able to wrest away control of the nation, effectively making himself president for life.

Such a move appeals to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions.

Otherwise, the trade war with China could be the most destructive, yet. On Friday of last week, he implemented tariffs on over $34 billion in Chinese goods.

Boats, medical supplies, and auto parts all felt the axe. China retaliated with tariffs of equal value on American goods.

Do you know what sort of products didn’t get taxed?

Hint: Favored child Ivanka won’t be forced to tighten her designer belts.

While Trump rails at Harley-Davidson motorcycles for moving some production to Europe to dodge EU tariffs, the first daughter and senior White House adviser has never manufactured a single product for her Ivanka Trump brand on American soil.

And those products, manufactured in China, will not be touched by Daddy Trump’s trade war.

That means Chengdu Kameido Shoes in Sichuan province can continue to supply shoes for the Ivanka Trump brand as it has in the past. It’s currently bidding for a new contract to manufacture 140,000 pairs of shoes for Trump’s company, a spokesman told The South China Morning Post.

Oh, my. How convenient.

All of Ivanka’s products had been exclusively handled in factories located in China and Hong Kong up until 2017. Some production, however, has been relocated to factories in Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam

Some. Not all.

Tariffs and pain for thee, but not for me.

Other enterprises and workers in the U.S., meanwhile, are already feeling the heat from a trade war. China’s retaliatory tariffs have targeted U.S. seafood, soybeans, dairy products, cars, apples, whiskey, pet food and cigarettes, among several other products. Farmers are fearful they won’t be able to sell products they had earmarked for China. They also worry that suppliers from other countries will pick up the valuable market — for good — that they have worked for years to cultivate.

“Soybeans are the top agriculture export for the United States, and China is the top market for purchasing those exports,” Iowa soybean grower John Heisdorffer said in a statement. “The math is simple. You tax soybean exports at 25 percent, and you have serious damage to U.S. farmers.”

It would appear that Trump’s faithful are the ones who will feel the pinch.

Ivanka isn’t the only hypocrite in the Trump family. Despite President Trump’s “America first” act, the bulk of Trump-branded products are manufactured in foreign factories.

The president even continues to profit from partnerships involving the Chinese government through state-supported companies and investments, including in developments in Dubai and Indonesia, notes the Washington Post. Ivanka Trump won a number of valuable trademarks in China just as her father was pushing to lift U.S. sanctions against Chinese telecom company ZTE, over the objection of congressional leaders. Trump announced his support for ZTE 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put half-a-billion dollars into the Indonesian project. The deal raised “serious ethical issues,” the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said.

None of this is shocking to those who knew about Trump’s long history of grifting. What we’re witnessing is a long con, and when the dust settles, the American people will not be the winners. Only the Trump family business is benefitting.