Ms. Mandaville, You stated, "Until and unless the proverbial excrement hits the whirling turbine, and congress decides the camel’s back is broken for good, maybe our theory, or some variation thereof, isn’t so far-fetched after all?" Yes it is, please take care you are joining the tinfoil hat crowd. Seeing collusion behind every tree is not healthy and a bit over the top.

After reading some of the responses, I can honestly conclude that some think stating facts and asking questions regarding the tariffs levied on 1,300 goods imported from China by our current POTUS is tantamount to hating the USA or hating the current POTUS. What the author asked is reasonable. To date (July 21, 2018) there are 1,300 Chinese products that are the now more expensive to U.S. companies and individuals than they were in the first quarter of 2018. None of those tariffs are on clothing or footwear that would include Ivanka Trump’s fashion lines, MAGA ball caps like the President wears, the Trump Collection of Men’s wear of suits, dress shirts, ties, the Trump Home collection of furniture, lamps and chandeliers or on textiles the Trump Organization uses at its 17 golf resorts and hotels bearing the Trump name where the Trump Organization maintains control of supplying sheets, towels robes, table clothes, napkins etc. We also have seen tariffs put on what have been our allies who are also in NAFTA, Canada and Mexico. None of those have any significant effects on the Trump Organization or Ivanka Trump’s companies that operate under the umbrella of the Trump Organization. My own conclusion is based on Donald Trump’s actions since 1987 when he visited Moscow, then capital of the former USSR. Days after Trump returned from that trip, he took out full page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune taking a stand that Japan and Saudi Arabia were taking advantage of the U.S. Since that time he has kept the same message, but recently we’ve added China and more recently Canada and Mexico to the list. Since 1987, when Donald Trump started making public statements on the global stage, he’s never been critical of the USSR and now, Russia. Not when Russian troops rolled into Crimea and annexed what was part of the Ukraine. Not when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Russia when it was clear was a Russian ground to air missile was used and the Russians kept investigators from the crash site for days, “sanitizing” the site. Not when Russia was supplying advisory troops and weapons to Ukrainian insurgents seeking close relationships with Russia. Not even when, while he was insulting Canada at the G7, while Putin was in China signing a $3B trade deal to sell nuclear power plant components and engineering to China and praising China’s President Xi. Do I think there may be a tape of Donald Trump in a compromising position? Maybe, but with the loyalty of the Trump base, including evangelicals and other religious groups that have forgiven him for his divorces and his philandering while married to all three of his wives, if that was all there was they would overlook it. Donald Trump wouldn’t care. We know The Trump Organization had a tough time raising capital from U.S. banks after its multiple bankruptcies. We know that the Trump Organization started using the German-based Deutsche Bank as its main lender when U.S. banks stopped lending to him. We know that Deutsche Bank paid over $740M in fines for laundering $10B of Russian oligarch money. We also know there has been heavy investment by Russians in Trump properties because of records and Eric Trump’s admission in 2014 when he told Boston based journalist James Dodson that “ Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” when explaining how the Trump Organization got funding to buy golf properties when money was tightening up going into 2007-08. Mrs. Mandaville, I don’t you don’t hate America or even hate Republicans. You are simply asking questions that many people who support President Trump don’t want asked or investigated. Life is simpler when you just believe whatever comes from President Trump’s mouth along with accepting his excuses and ignoring claims like he couldn’t change border policy without Congress until he did. Very quietly with no photo op on a Friday afternoon. Crying WINNING and MAGA is enough for some. There was a time, like in the mid 1970s when American legislators were Americans first and were Republicans and Democrats who didn’t cower when Nixon was investigated and ultimately forced to resign. Sadly, that’s not the case in 2018. And so it goes.