Trump's "Mini Me", new US economic tsar Larry Kudlow, accuses China of thievery, cheating but says "No Trade War"

Last month America lost one of the last moderating forces on Team Trump's economic policy when former investment banker Gary Cohn left the White House. The respected investment banker's resignation came in the wake of president Donald Trump's decision to introduce tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Predictably, Cohn's successor as director of the US's National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, thinks very differently. In many ways Kudlow is a Trump clone. Neither have any academic qualifications in economics and both have no truck with anyone questioning their simplistic belief that the elixir for economic growth is cutting taxes and accelerating deregulation. Interestingly, they are of a similar age (Trump is 71, Kudlow 70), have both been married three times and achieved their fame through television, Trump on "the Apprentice" and Kudlow by hosting long-running CNBC shows on politics and economics. As this feisty interview reveals, just like Trump, the self-assured Kudlow happily exposes himself as an emotionally driven being operating in a field where rationality enjoys a decided advantage. Beijing is surely chuckling.