Yes, he is really this dumb

Yes, he is really this dumn

by digby

Yes, of course he is:

Several Japanese automobile industry firms have been really doing a job. And we love it when you build cars — if you're a Japanese firm, we love it — try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over. Is that possible to ask? That's not rude. Is that rude? I don't think so. (Laughter.) If you could build them.

He did acknowledge in his usual jumbled rhetoric that the japanese already build cars in the US, so he remembered that he'd been briefed about the fact that they do "contribute" to our economy.

But this comment betrays something he deeply believes and it informs his ideas about trade, such as they are.

Here he is talking about the same issue in 2016 in an interview with Bob Woodward:

DT: You look at Japan. They send their cars in here by the hundreds of thousands. You go to Los Angeles, you look at those docks, and these cars get driven off those boats at 40 miles an hour. You’ve never seen anything like it. They just come pouring into our country. And yet when — you talk about an imbalance, when it comes to us selling to Japan? They take very little.

This is the man everyone looked to as the big expert on "trade" who was going to bring back manufacturing jobs to America. He's a dunce. But you knew that.

Also, his mention of being "rude" has particular resonance in Japan which places great store in manners. Again, he was briefed on this so he had to mention it. He's unable to behave like a normal adult.

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