>I heard him tell the EU he wants truly open trade with no barriers or subsidies. Which of the "open trade" scolders took him up on that? Nobody. Because when they preach about "open trade" they mean "we'll subsidize our own production and erect barriers, but you mustn't, because we make billions from the status quo."
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I honestly would have preferred our clowns to go that route - but not in "trade" only, but at least in "trade and services" (Handelsbilanz versus Leistungsbilanz), where a big part of the imbalance evaporates. I have not thought through the argument that earnings should be summed up with the country of stock owners, but if such a way of counting makes economic sense, the imbalance shifts to the other side ;-))

While quite a bit of my earlier wait and see attitude evaporated, I still have no problem acknowledging some parts of his ramblings, like the part where he points the finger to abysmally low military spending in some EU/NATO countries, Germany being one of the worst offenders.

Trump was also more correct in pointing the finger to EU migration being a time bomb than our Mama Merkels somewhat stiff necked "Wir schaffen das". Although armchair-general me insists that it is NOT immigration per se that is the real problem, but the helplessness of countries to kick out clearly unwanted subgroups or individuals of those having crossed the border.

Some of the more blatant/stupidly wrong Trump utterings are hard to classify as border setting attempts for further negotiations for me, but seem to work in those elite political cycles for the moment.