Cramer: Trump's remarks on China mark latest case of breaking protocol
President-elect Donald Trump's recent public insults against China mark his latest departure from "the formal way things are done," CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday.
The president-elect in a series of tweets on late Sunday lashed out at China, accusing Beijing of manipulating its currency, unfairly taxing U.S. products and militarizing the South China Sea.
"I think Trump is breaking with all sorts of protocols, whether it be State Department, whether it be environment," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street." "And this is all a part of it. It's a way to be able to state your case that China can't take the jobs."
On Friday, Trump splintered "protocol" after he accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that broke with nearly four decades of U.S foreign policy in which the U.S. has embraced a "One China" policy, under which China views Taiwan as part of China.
In his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to go against the Washington political establishment and keep jobs from leaving the U.S. Cramer said the U.S. is beginning to see the kind of Trump that will take over the Oval Office in January.
"It does seem like right now we have two issues of Trump," he said. "We've got the repatriation lower taxation issue. And then we've got the, 'Listen, we're defending the working person.' And I think that Wall Street's going to be a little surprised about the real defense of the working person."
"I think people felt that maybe that wasn't sincere," he said. "Well, these actions are certainly sincere."