China Hits U.S. With Higher Tariffs on Soybeans, Cars, Oil

I feel like there is too much misinformation out there for any person to be informed these days. Any effort to wade through that should be a currency worth more than gold in my mind, and easily sharable, reference-able, tamper-proof (immutable/signed/etc), and easily remembered.

Information is tough these days. We need to find ways to adapt, because misinformation seems to be winning by leagues.

With successive globalization more and more nations got interconnected with multiple layers of mutual import/export of raw material, parts or finished goods and services. If its made in USA or China does not mean it's completely made in USA or China, the components or raw material for it might come from multiple nations. This trade tariffs and war is taking us to old century where we had closed borders and middle man charge a premium to get products and services in and out.

Eventually it will be a loss for everyone not just for any specific nation.

It's not clear to me that is the case as much as the recession was a long time in coming anyway.

Economic predictions have been all over the map. The stimulus after the events of 2008 was supposed to bring in a lot of inflation, some folks seemed very sure of that ... didn't happen.

* Certain sectors of US industries are being disproportionately harmed by the trade war: steel, agriculture, and similar.

* Other sectors of US industries, such as service and retail, are less affected, and are posting strong numbers. This, along with a tight job market, point to a generally strong economy even if specific industries are suffering.

* China is difficult to understand due to the government being known for opacity in their finances. Therefore, we can generally only speculate on second or third order effects of trends, eg. what does the currency floating mean? It means China is shifting financial strategies for X or Y. But we have no idea the X or Y reasoning, only speculations of possible reasons.

* There are several indicators of a recession coming on, including significant day-to-day dips and yield curve inversions and slowdowns in other regions like Europe. However, recessions can't be known until the numbers come out and womp womp we're in one.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump...

No.

Typical macroeconomic indicators often don't result in undisputed broad characteristizations of conditions (good, bad, teetering on the edge of recession), and, even moreso, don't tell you how they would be different if you changed a particular factor (e.g., the trade war.)

And being a head of a giant country, the man just can't avoid doing that from time to time, unlike the head of some tiny banana republic.

This idea is one that has me slightly less pessimistic about the chances of the world actually doing something about climate change. We don't have to have 195 countries agreeing to a plan and have huge advantages accrue to cheaters who don't follow the plan. We can start with a small but significant number and it's the cheaters that lose out.

I think China is targeting specific products, not thinking of this the same way I think you're thinking of this.

This move is also available to Trump, but there's no way he'd ever take it.

It'd also be a genius tactic to adopt by the Democratic presidential candidate's. Trump's trade war is quite popular with the American public; the presidential candidates could be hurt quite badly by opposing it directly.

They just import it without pollution in China, but it's happening elsewhere.

So a carbon tax like you suggest would do more harm.

In the meantime every tariff they add just serves Trump's goal of keeping jobs in America ( or at least that is how he will pitch it). Were already seeing plenty of companies pack up shop in China.

I'd say there is no plan and it is just the randomness of a capricious old man.

That's a glib take I admit, but I really think that all indications are we're dealing with a very glib president.

I think the China tariffs are different. Both sides have doubled down, then doubled down again. It’s even possible both Trump and China see this as an opportunity to reduce their dependency on each other.

China also may calculate thus could take some excess heat out of their economy. If there is a down turn, which many observers have been predicting anyway, they can blame Trump and make enduring austerity a patriotic issue.

A similar dynamic is playing out with Brexit. A no deal exit may be hugely damaging to both sides. But they each calculate they can blame it on the other side, and even paint anyone complaining about the effects as unpatriotic. That won’t necessarily persuade the complainers, but as long as it plays well to the politicians own support base that may not matter enough electorally.

HN readers are hip to the reasons why this needs to happen. Internally, China is destroying its people's savings, purchasing power, environment and health to achieve China's 'great destiny'. Externally, China has created all manner of artificial economic inefficiencies. This includes debt enslavement of African and central Asian nations, dumping of goods, and theft of IP at a monolithic scale.

It's true that the full case has yet to be made to the American people. It's also true the US cannot do this alone and the EU (China's largest trading partner) may have to join the fight. And, it is the case that a 'trade deal' may be reached between Trump and China that falls short. None of this is going to alter the larger national (global) security objective of 'helping' China compete for resources in a less zero sum manner.

and while xi is president for life, he doesn't want to risk mass unrest in his own country.

But if Trump is re-elected...

So by playing it cool and letting Trump get in a few rounds of tit for tat, China is expecting not to have to take more drastic measures in order to win.

I expect that China's restraint will pay off, as the trade war has already sent the economy into the early stages of recession, and China still has a year to let Trump dig his own grave.

>Just a plain clothing embargo would send all and every American retailer scrambling. There will be not enough merchandise in all India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam combined. And it will be even worse if Chinese factories in those countries would also join the embargo.

>For things like regular household goods will also be no real alternatives as even export oriented economies like Vietnam import god knows how much plasticware from China just because it is often cheaper than manufacturing locally.

I am confused.

No countries that I know of apply tariffs and embargoes on exports of goods, except stuff that's national security sensitive like military tech. They do the opposite, i.e subsidize exports, which is at the core of this mess, i.e Trump thinking that China is subsidizing too much and devaluing their currency.

Are you advocating that China apply tariffs and embargoes on exports to the US? Isn't that what the US exactly wants?

Also embargoes mean that, in the future, after this is resolved, importers will be very vary of trust Chinese exports and will prefer other countries even if somewhat more expensive, just for stability.