If Trump loses in November it won't be due to his handling of the coronavirus. It will be due to his trade and foreign policies which have weakened the relatively healthy American economy he inherited. It's now acknowledged that Trump's tariffs have cost far more jobs than they created and that U.S. GDP has taken a hit as a result. Plus, like every good National Socialist, Trump's now taxing everyone else to subsidize industries damaged by his trade policy.

But the real damage has been caused by his foreign policy in the Middle East, and especially toward Russia from whom he has fostered great enmity by increasing sanctions in response to the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline. Those sanctions are intended to maintain Europe as a captive market for U.S. natural gas by punishing those entities that participate in Nordstream 2 construction and financing.

Trump's strutting and taunting over America's record oil production hasn't helped matters either. While such behavior plays well with the WWE intelligence level of his fan base, it also begs for a healthy dose of comeuppance. The trouble is that U.S. oil production depends entirely on an oil price above $60 a barrel to service the producers' massive debt loads. At $30 those producers will lose YUGE money on every barrel they pump.

Enter the current COVID-19 fears bringing further damage to world trade, and to oil demand in particular. Followed by Vladimir Putin's refusal to cut oil production levels in the face of falling demand combined with MBS's decision to maintain or increase Saudi oil production to preserve market share. Witness the resulting plunge in oil prices that threatens to bankrupt U.S. oil producers should the price drop be sustained for an extended period of time. OPEC+ is dead, long live OPEC+

Naturally Trump's proposed solution is to have taxpayers subsidize the oil patch as well. I broke it, you buy it.

This is all just the inevitable blowback from Trump's foreign trade policy, not to mention his childish and tiresome braggadocio about how he's making America great again by kicking everybody else's ass. Even America's ostensible allies in Europe seem fed up with him, let alone Putin who just delivered a wicked uppercut to Trump's glass jaw. Smoot & Hawley will surely chuckle in their graves as the punch drunk Trump falls unconscious to the mat.

Just another roped dope who never saw it coming.