I don't have time to respond now, but I’ll likely get back to you tomorrow. Btw, even though Trump pretends to be 'America First,' the fact is he is also a globalist.
@Sharma Ji , please bear with me, I know it’s a bit lengthy, so grab a cup of tea and settle in. Or, if tea’s not your thing, maybe a strong coffee, because we’re diving deep. Hope you’re ready, lol
Since entering politics, Trump has portrayed himself as an "America First" nationalist, yet his business history reveals a deeply globalist strategy. Before launching his 2015 presidential campaign, he had a successful clothing business featuring Trump-branded suits, ties, and shirts, much of which was manufactured overseas, including China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, to name a few. However, after making controversial remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, and other groups, major retailers dropped his merchandise, citing declining sales and (Tesla-like boycott) consumer boycotts.
During his first term, his daughter Ivanka Trump applied for multiple trademarks in China, just one day before officially becoming a (Nepotism, Third-World-country style) White House adviser. By 2019, her company had received a total of 41 trademarks, and reports indicated that her trademark requests were processed significantly faster after her father’s election. Meanwhile, Trump's fashion brand collapsed, disappearing as he pivoted to his America First messaging.
Learning from his clothing business losses, he changed his overseas business strategies. Instead of relying on common consumers, he now primarily caters to an exclusive class of wealthy clients who are generally less influenced by political noise. This shift has allowed him to continue profiting internationally while publicly pushing an America First agenda.
Despite his rhetoric, he continues to operate global businesses, particularly through the Trump Organization, which includes real estate, luxury hotels, golf courses, and licensing deals across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Even within the U.S., his golf courses employ temporary workers from Mexico and other Hispanic countries, contradicting his hardline immigration stance.
During the 2024 election campaign, he sold various merchandise, including shoes, watches, colognes, and even Bibles, many of which were manufactured in foreign countries, including China. Meanwhile, tensions erupted between Musk and Trump’s MAGA supporters, such as Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and Laura Loomer, over H-1B visas and Indian IT immigrants. While Bannon, Kirk, and Laura Loomer opposed increasing foreign workers, Musk labeled their stance racist and vowed to fight them. Surprisingly, Trump sided with Musk, ignoring his core supporters who had championed his America First agenda.
His latest globalist venture is cryptocurrency, where his firm secured a two-billion-dollar investment deal with an Abu Dhabi-backed company. Many of the top investors in his crypto business are foreigners, mostly Arabs and Chinese.
Despite his global business dealings, he insists that American companies must bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. While this sounds patriotic, the reality is far more complex and impractical. Take Apple, for example:
Apple iPhones are sold at prices between $900 and $1200 in the United States because they are manufactured overseas. If Apple were forced to manufacture iPhones exclusively in the U.S., costs would skyrocket, potentially exceeding $3000.
Apple relies on suppliers from over forty countries, including:
Processors and chips designed by Apple but manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan
Displays supplied by Samsung and LG in South Korea
Glass made by Corning in Kentucky, USA
Batteries mostly sourced from China
Camera sensors provided by Sony in Japan
Gyroscopes and motion sensors produced by STMicroelectronics in Switzerland
Rare earth minerals mostly sourced from China and Mongolia
Assembly mostly done in China, though Apple is expanding production in India
Simply shifting all these components to the U.S. would take years and drastically increase costs, making iPhones unaffordable for most Americans and impossible to export globally.
There's another huge problem with Trump's push for manufacturing in the United States. At present, there are close to half a million job openings in manufacturing, and if you ask most manufacturers, they always struggle to find employees. The reason is simple, most Americans, especially younger generations, prefer careers in healthcare and technology over manufacturing jobs. Many young workers view manufacturing as physically demanding, outdated, or less financially rewarding compared to high-tech industries. Even if he succeeded in bringing manufacturing jobs back, who would actually want to do them?
Given the complexity of global supply chains, his insistence on forcing American companies to manufacture everything domestically appears to be more of a political slogan than a serious policy proposal. While high-tech industries, such as semiconductor manufacturing could benefit from Biden’s approach to reshoring, attempting to force small-scale component production into the U.S. would be disastrous.
Trump’s personal business success has always relied on globalization, yet he continues to campaign on an America First agenda, despite outsourcing jobs, hiring foreign workers, and profiting from international investments. His policies seem contradictory, designed more for political optics than economic practicality.
