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President Donald Trump announced in a Wednesday interview with The Wall Street Journal that he would not try to label China a currency manipulator.

It was one of several recent about-faces on policy from Syria to NATO to the Federal Reserve hailedby mainstream political analysts as evidence that Trump is finally walking back some of the more unorthodox stances from his presidential campaign.

But some economists who agree that China is not presently depressing its currency nonetheless worry that Trumps evolving thinking could signal a diminished appetite for tackling the broader issue of Chinas currency policies and the closely related issue of its massive global trade surplus.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, welcomed Trumps recognition that China is no longer manipulating its currency as an indication that the president is being more connected to the reality of the situation than he was.

He is nonetheless concerned that Trumps comments could reflect the rising influence of Goldman Sachs alumni such as National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell who, by virtue of their backgrounds, are more sympathetic to the status quo.

There is still the potential for significant and distortionary imbalances in international trade and finance. One worries that the Goldman [Sachs] wing of the White House is kind of assuming that away, said Bernstein, who was former Vice President Joe Bidens chief economist from 2009 to 2011.

Former finance executives are less likely to view rebalancing trade with China and other trading partners as an urgent priority, since making it easier to import cheaper foreign goods has fattened the profits of companies they invest in, Bernstein argued.

If you are a multinational corporation your stakes in the game are pretty different than a family in a manufacturing community in the Rust Belt, he said.

As Bernstein noted, Trump was technically correct when it comes to Chinas current behavior.

Currency manipulation is when a country uses foreign currency it earns from exporting goods to buy up assets denominated in that currency. By stockpiling foreign currency, such as U.S. dollars, the purchasing country can raise a currencys value on the global market, thereby making goods sold in that currency more expensive and less competitive.

The exact criteria used to determine whether a countrys currency policies have crossed the line into manipulation vary.

It is clear though that China has not been manipulating its currency in a way that would advantage its exports for a few years now. In fact, for over a year and a half, Chinas central bank has been propping up the yuan by steadily selling off its foreign currency reserves. It now holds some $3 trillion in foreign reserves, down from a peak of almost $4 trillion in 2014.

Of course, China is acting to stave off a precipitous drop in the yuans value as an economic slowdown prompted its citizens to move their money overseas. Its actions have not resulted in an appreciable rise relative to the dollar. The yuan has roughly the same value relative to the dollar that it had in 2010.

Some centrist and liberal economists who disagree with Trump on other matters, however, were sympathetic to his insistence that the U.S. needed to reduce its trade deficit with China even when they disliked the way he went about saying it. From the early to mid-2000s through about 2013, China was indeed manipulating its currency, the largest of several techniques it used to become a net exporter of goods to both the United States and the world.

A broad array of experts now agree that these practices contributed to a massive loss in U.S. manufacturing jobs that harmed the American middle class. A January study released by Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, estimated that trade with China cost the U.S. 3.4 million jobs from 2001 to 2015, the vast majority of them in manufacturing. An academic study using more conservative assumptions concluded that Chinese trade deprived the U.S. of as many as 2.4 million jobs from 1999 to 2011.

Economists who believe the trade deficit should be smaller argue that Chinas accumulated surplus of foreign currencies still tilts the scales for its exports.

While it may be technically true that China is no longer acquiring dollar-denominated assets, they still hold more than $3 trillion in foreign currency reserves, and probably $1 trillion in other investments, Scott said. It is clear that Chinas currency needs to rise in value.

The yuan would need to rise in value by 25 to 30 percent to reasonably rebalance global trade, he estimated.

Few dispute that China needs less than the $3 trillion in foreign currency reserves it currently holds to withstand a major financial shock.

In fact, it needs no more than $2 trillion and probably significantly less, according to Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the centrist Peterson Institute for International Economics who has co-authored a book on currency manipulation due out in June, Currency Conflict and Trade Policy: A New Strategy for the United States.

Gagnon agrees with Scott about the need for the U.S. to rebalance trade with China, albeit for different reasons. He maintains that importing so many goods from China and other nations is financially unsustainable for the United States because of the private and public borrowing it requires.

But Chinas steady drawdown of its currency reserves in recent years has convinced Gagnon that Trump should not pressure China to further reduce its stockpile at this stage.

I would be hard-pressed to justify asking China to do more than its already been doing in the past two years on the currency, said Gagnon, a former economist at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. To fault them right now would be insane because it would be punishing good behavior.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Trade negotiations are always a give and take between the different parties, however. Eswar Prasad, a Cornell professor who led the International Monetary Funds China desk in the 2000s, told The New York Times that the United States was aware of the currency manipulation issue at the time, but obtaining greater market access, better intellectual property rights protection, easier access to investment opportunities were simply higher priorities.

Prasads comments support the belief of economists such as Dean Baker, co-director of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research, that putting more emphasis on issues like currency that affect workers could lead to significantly different outcomes.

The trade-offs to date have been in favor of the pharmaceutical industry, the entertainment industry, the software industry, the financial industry, and against U.S. workers. And Id flip those priorities, he said.

Trump seems to have a different type of bartering in mind when it comes to U.S.-China commerce. He tweeted on Tuesday that he is open to relaxing his trade-related demands on China if it would help defuse tensions with North Korea.

The comments disconcerted Scott of the Economic Policy Institute.

I am increasingly concerned that Trump is going to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and not sanction China for currency manipulation and trade off the interests of working Americans for other vague foreign policy goals like convincing the North Koreans to slow down production of nuclear weapons. It is a serious mistake, Scott said.

Trying to achieve geopolitical goals through policies that enable offshoring of manufacturing jobs rarely works, he added.

Asked whether Trump still views Chinas currency value as problematic and plans to take steps to address it, the White House referred The Huffington Post to press secretary Sean Spicers comments about Trumps currency manipulation pivot on Thursday.

Its a very complex issue and Im going to leave it to the president to specifically answer that, Spicer said. The president is going to continue to make significant progress when it comes to that issue and to how our relationship is with China.

Spicer also dismissed the notion that Trump had dramatically changed the policy positions that he campaigned on.

If you look at whats happened its those entities or individuals in some casesor issues evolving toward the presidents position, he said.

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Critics Fear Donald Trump Is Backing Off China Trade Crackdown - Huffington Post

Every court has its clown.

But since our President is already a clown, that makes Sean Spicer a talking balloon animal.

The White House Press Secretary tried to justify Donald Trump's decision to airstrike Syria last week and, in doing so, essentially told the entire press corps that he flunked World History in high school. (Sad!)

On Tuesday, Spicer painted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as a villain more sinister than Adolf Hitler by proclaiming the Nazi leader "didn't even sink to chemical weapons" on his people like al-Assad has been accused of.

We guess he forget about the millions of Jews who were killed in gas chambers during WWII but thankfully, White House reporters (and the Internet) were quick to remind him.

Sadly, this isn't Spicer's first perplexing moment at the podium. Relive the press secretary's most profound snafus (below)!

CLICK HERE to view "6 RIDICULOUS Sean Spicer Moments!"

CLICK HERE to view "6 RIDICULOUS Sean Spicer Moments!"

CLICK HERE to view "6 RIDICULOUS Sean Spicer Moments!"

CLICK HERE to view "6 RIDICULOUS Sean Spicer Moments!"

CLICK HERE to view "6 RIDICULOUS Sean Spicer Moments!"

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Donald Trump News and Photos | Perez Hilton

Various Trump officials for instance struggled to get on the same page Tuesday over the question of whether Russia knew in advance about the chemical weapons attack by its ally President Bashar al-Assad's government that killed more than 80 civilians.

The apparent contradictions were symptomatic of the Trump team's failure to agree a public line on its first big national security test. Haley's comments and a string of other seemingly jarring interventions by officials are raising questions about the coordination of the foreign policy process between the National Security Council, the State Department and the Pentagon and may reveal a lack of basic strategic planning and messaging in the still understaffed administration.

The last few days have seen a flurry of gaffes, walk-backs, vague, sometimes conflicting statements and off-the-cuff policy making by President Donald Trump himself, Tillerson, Haley and Spicer.

A similar realization is now becoming evident on foreign policy.

Yet his heartfelt response to horrific images of gassed children in Syria, and decision to launch military action, appeared to completely reverse his stated foreign policy intentions. His instinctual move to order his first major military actions of his presidency also raised concerns that he was basing military action on emotion before arriving at a strategic long-term determination of next steps or the consequences of bombing Syria.

Tuesday was yet another dizzying day for America's allies, enemies and analysts as they try to arrive at clarity about Trump's intentions.

Attempts by the administration to explain its strategy on Syria and to shame Russia for its backing of Assad were blown out of the water by a huge blunder by Spicer.

Trump's spokesman reached for an unwise comparison by saying that even Adolf Hitler had never used chemical weapons against civilians during World War II, despite the gassing of millions of Jews and other minorities in death camps.

Spicer appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Tuesday to apologize for the Hitler analogy.

"It was a mistake, I shouldn't have done it. I won't do it again. It was an attempt to do something that should not have been done. There really was no explaining it," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Former Bill Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, who served another Democratic President, Barack Obama, as CIA chief, praised Spicer for apologizing but said his comments were a damaging distraction for the administration.

"When he says the kind of stupid things that he did today, it hurts the administration, it changes the story," Panetta said.

Spicer is not alone in muddling the administration's message and fogging perceptions of the Trump administration's Syria policy.

The President himself also weighed in on Tuesday, blaming the previous Obama administration's failure to enforce a US red line over the use of chemical weapons -- though did not bring much clarity to the situation.

"We are not going into Syria," Trump told Fox Business Network.

It was left to Mattis, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, to clarify that America's policy was still primarily geared towards destroying ISIS and not regime change. He said the missile strikes were a separate attempt to outlaw the use of chemical weapons.

"There is a limit, I think, to what we can do. And when you look at what happened with this chemical attack, we knew that we could not stand passive on this," the former general told reporters.

"But it was not a statement that we could enter full-fledged, full-bore into the most complex civil war probably raging on the planet at this time."

Mattis however, in his sober way did make clear to Assad that using chemical weapons again would draw a response, but did so in a way that avoided putting the administration's credibility on the line and highlighted the lack of precision and restraint evident in other administration statements.

But the Syria confusion is not only unfolding example of the administration learning that events have a way of quickly testing an inexperienced White House.

Events of the last few days appear to have completely reshaped the assumptions that Trump brought into office about improving relations with Russia that have pitched to their lowest point since the Cold War.

"If we got along with Russia and Russia went out with us and knocked the hell out of ISIS that is OK with me folks," Trump said at a campaign rally in October. Then-candidate Trump expressed his admiration for President Vladimir Putin many times, including in an NBC interview in September.

"If he says get things about me, I am going to say great things about him," Trump said. Back in August, Trump told supporters: "there is nothing I can think of that I would rather do than have Russia friendly."

Trump's room for maneuver with Russia was already curtailed by allegations that some campaign aides had links with Moscow at a time when it was accused of interfering in the presidential election.

The aftermath of the missile attacks ordered by Trump have appeared to have alerted the administration as never before to the geostrategic factors that make any rapprochement between Moscow and Washington a long shot.

Even members of his own administration appear to be undermining the President's hopes of improving relations with Russia, which sees Syria as a crucial Middle Eastern ally and props up Assad's government to maintain its influence in the region.

Tillerson, who was once branded by critics as too close to Moscow, owing to his business deals in his former job as the head of ExxonMobil, talked tough before arriving.

During a stop in Italy, the top US diplomat blasted the Russian government for supporting Assad and other US enemies.

"Russia has really aligned itself with the Assad regime, the Iranians and Hezbollah. Is that a long-term alliance that serves Russia's interests?" he said.

Back at the White House, Spicer effectively gave Moscow an ultimatum: choose better relations with Trump administration or its relations with nations that pursue policies contrary to US interests.

"It's no question that Russia is isolated. They have aligned themselves with North Korea, Syria, Iran. That's not exactly a group of countries that you're looking to hang out with," he said.

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Donald Trump's on-the-job training - CNN

The thinker.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Last week, I wrote about how the centerpiece of Paul Ryan's tax reform plana border-adjusted corporate tax, or BATappeared to be all but dead thanks to overwhelming opposition from key senators. On Wednesday during an interview on Fox Business Network, however, President Donald Trump left open the possibility that he would support the idea, and even suggested that a little creative rebranding could revive its prospects.

Jordan Weissmann is Slates senior business and economics correspondent.

Unfortunately for Republicans hoping that the president might be able to play a useful role in brokering a tax reform deal, Trump's comments demonstrated that he is either illiterate on this particular policy issue, or thinks that he'll be able to skirt by peddling incoherent talking points that anybody with a passing familiarity with the subject will see through.

To quickly recap, the House GOP's tax reform plan would effectively put a tariff on imports and subsidize exports. It has met furious resistance from retailers like Walmart who sell lots of goods made overseas and are afraid that the proposal would hurt their business by forcing them to pass on higher prices to their customers. Economists have suggested this wouldn't be the case, because foreign exchange rates should theoretically adjust to cancel out the effect of the new import tax. But that promise hasn't pacified the idea's opponents, because what retailer would bet their business on an academic theory about currency markets?

Trump has sent mixed signals on border adjustment. At one point he said it could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States. But at another, he called the idea too complicated. So given that this is still the single most talked about issue in the tax reform debate, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked the president whether he'd made up his mind on it. Trump sort of evaded the question, but then suggested the concept needed a name change. Instead of border adjustment people should call it a reciprocal tax, he argued, because really we'd just be doing to other countries what they already do to us.

As always, we need to untoss the president's word salad to make sense of this. Trump is pointing out that certain countries impose heavy tariffs on goods that the United States exports. India, for instance, really does slap a 100 percent duty on motorcycles with engines larger than 800cc, much to the frustration Harley-Davidson. To Trump, a border adjusted tax would merely be a fair and proportional response to such protectionist measures. So we should call it a reciprocal tax instead, since he views it as retaliatory. Also, we're not losers. And border adjustment sounds like something for weakling losers. Like Paul Ryan, presumably.

This is not a politically promising argument. The entire point of border adjustment, according to its advocates, is that it won't really turn into a tariff, thanks to the magic of shifting exchange rates. Retailers, and the senators who love them, oppose it because they're worried currencies won't adjust fully, and so the tax will indeed turn into a tariff. Trump is not going to win over a bunch of tariff opponents by arguing that the BAT is a tariff. He's rhetorically shoveling dirt onto its grave.

Having given Ryan & Co. ample reason to spend their morning staring despondently into their watery House cafeteria coffee, Trump moved on to suggesting that even our foreign trade partners would have to accept the logic of a reciprocal tax.

Where to even start here? First, the premise of the argument is silly. Responding to India's or Thailands or China's duty on select product like motorcycles with a worldwide, across-the-board tariff on imported goods would not be reciprocal. It would be insanely disproportional.1

Not only would China, India and the rest of the world get angry about itthey'd probably try to stop it. Right now, it is unclear whether or not Ryan's border adjusted tax is actually legal under World Trade Organization rules. But other countries are already preparing to challenge it. Germany's finance minister says he warned Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to scrap the whole thing, and has promised to call the WTO if necessary.

Trump appears to have zero understanding of the economics underlying this issue. He has just as little comprehension of either the domestic or international politics of it. If he were to try and go to bat for the idea, he would almost certainly do more harm than good.

This should deeply worry Republicans. One of the major reasons Obamacare repeal turned into such a debacle was that Trump knew too little about the subject to effectively broker a deal. He reportedly urged Republican lawmakers to forget about the little shit and instead focus on the political necessity of just passing something. But health policy is a vastly complicated issue that can hinge on seemingly obscure details. There's no way to negotiate over it without a firm grasp of the minutia.

Tax reform is in many ways just as complicated and politically unwieldly. And at the moment, the president isn't demonstrating any kind of firm grasp on the single topic that has defined the debate so far. Even if he decides not to support border adjustment, that bodes poorly for his ability to close any kind of a deal before the GOP's various factions inevitably start battling amongthemselves. Trump's intellectual vacuum could end up swallowing his whole party's agenda.

1 It's possible that Trump is conflating high duties on individual products, like India's tariff on motorcycles, with a slightly separate issuenamely that other countries rely in part on border adjusted value-added taxes, while the U.S. relies on a corporate income tax that exempts imports and hits out exports. This is a source of frustration to some Republicans, and one of the motivating ideas behind the BAT, but, as I've written it's also kind of a red herring.

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Shocker: Donald Trump Also Sounds Illiterate On Tax Policy - Slate Magazine (blog)

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a listening session on health care with truckers and CEOs from the American Trucking Associations in the Cabinet Room at the White House on March 23, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images

In an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox Business, President Trump was asked by Maria Bartiromo whether he had planned to strike Syria during his dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump proceeded to set the scene:

Its brilliant. Its incredible. Its genius. Its war described in precisely the manner a schoolchild would relay the details of a field trip to a science museum. Food, of course, figures largely. Trump went on.

After this, Trump presumably returned happily to his cake, which, according to that nights menu, matches the description of Mar-a-Lagos signature Trump Chocolate Cake provided by Caity Weaver in a piece for GQ last year. A slice is typically served with four dots of vanilla sauce. Its also accompanied by a scoop of dark chocolate sorbet and a diamond of white chocolate. The white chocolate is stamped TRUMP.

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Donald Trump, Our Kid President, Ordered Syria Strike During Dessert - Slate Magazine (blog)