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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

You have to analyze the costs & benefits to all relevant parties when thinking about that sort of thing. I think you've only analyzed the costs to one party in that analysis.

"Cutting off all US supply chain in China" is on the table, but definitely way down the list of what China wants to do. The US decoupling from their economy isn't their big winning play, it's a nightmare scenario for them. If it was a big winning play right now for them, they'd already have done it.

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"Cutting off all US supply chain in China" is on the table, but definitely way down the list of what China wants to do.

Exactly. It's one thing for China cut off the supply of microchips to the United States. The U.S. would have to make a massive investment in building new supply chains domestically and with other countries.

It's another thing if the United States cuts China off from $6 billion in soybeans each year. China's population will start to starve long before a microchip shortage really hurts the U.S.

China has already stopped importing large amounts of US agricultural products, including soybeans. The US gov is now subsidizing farmers to make up for this loss to the tune of $28 bil in direct payments to US farmers so far...

I don't really understand why people think most large nations can't feed their own people. China can easily do so, albeit with some changes to their diet. China is the top producers in the world of many crops: wheat, rice, potatoes, grapes, apples, tomatoes, watermelons, hogs, sheep, etc. and #2 or #3 in many others: corn, bananas, beef, chicken, milk, etc. Sure they import a huge amount of food as well. But so does the USA.

Do you really believe China depends on US soy to feed their population? Where did you get that from?

they use it for pig feed and it's use as a component in many food products. I don't think they technically depend on it, but they depend on it and have to import huge amounts. If they didn't, they'd either have to make a domestic source (they have had trouble with this) or switch to other protein sources.

Or buy them from Brazil. Like they are now since the tariffs happened.

Or buy them from Brazil. Like they are now since the tariffs happened.

It's not a question of switching to Brazil. China was already buying from Brazil. But Brazil doesn't have the capacity to make up for a cut-off of American supplies.

Further, soybeans are seasonal. The reason that China buys from both the U.S. and Brazil is because they have harvests at opposite times of the year. Even if Brazil managed to magically ramp up to fill 100% of China's need in each Brazilian growing season, what is it going to do the other six months of the year?

>It's not a question of switching to Brazil. China was already buying from Brazil. But Brazil doesn't have the capacity to make up for a cut-off of American supplies.

This literally already happened as another poster said...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-05/china-ask...

Many of the pigs are dead thanx to ASF, so they won't be needing huge amounts this year. Also, they have rented vast amounts of land in Ukraine, Africa.

Trump wants a trade agreement with the EU for soy and beef in exchange for not imposing tariffs on cars. It probably won't happen, as the EU is too slow to act and most likely won't accept hormone treated beef.

Soy is primarily used for pig feed. Brazil is razing forest to fill demand in coming years. US isn't going to starve China which is nominally food secure, as in no one is going to starve because of it. It has potential to make people pissed, current raising pork prices due to disease is already causing strife. It's also somewhat opportune timing however, China wouldn't have the soy card to squeeze Trumps farmers base if disease didn't dramatically reduce demand for soy.

Also China depends on US for IC (and airplane engines).

Bringing (automated) manufacturing back to the US and ensuring the security of our supply chains while also doing economic harm to an authoritarian government while they're in a precariously unstable economic situation? As a US citizen, I'm fully onboard. Call China's bluff. Monetary policy (cheap money) is in a phenomenal place to support the necessary infrastructure investments (roads, rail, energy, etc), and that spending will keep the US economy humming while further decoupling us from China's.

What good are values as a nation if we're willing to trade them for profits and cheap goods from China?

The manufacturing won't come back it'd move to other Asian countries like Vietnam first.

It's ok for that manufacturing to go elsewhere, it's still a huge win for the US in the case in which the conflict with China continues to worsen (likely). It's the ideal approach to dealing with them: drain their economy of its manufacturing & exports and incubate a dollar-caused stagnation as they're unable to transact at the required scale with the rest of the global economy without a massive, endless supply of dollars (the Yuan has a trivial share of global foreign trade). They're already starting to suffocate under the lack of dollars right now, as their current account balance is shifting permanently negative. I'd expect them to begin increasingly restricting their citizens from foreign tourism, as it's a sizable source of dollar bleed, it's a luxury they can't afford much longer. They'll do it under the guise of the need to reinvigorate the Chinese spirit at home and to stop importing negative foreign incorrect values (some party b.s. like that).

It's perfectly fine to redirect all US->China manufacturing into other nations such as Vietnam. Not only is that great for helping other nations develop (many of which are regional competitors of China, so it's further ideal that those nations become stronger vis-a-vis China), it reduces China's position of strength.

>What good are values as a nation if we're willing to trade them for profits and cheap goods from China?

And yet you promote Tesla, cozying up to the CCP and telling us that "China is the future" so that he can build some cheaper cars and get around tariffs? Whatever helps "the mission"?

https://www.wraltechwire.com/2019/09/02/teslas-elon-musk-i-r...

Are you kidding? US foreign policy regularly ignores "values" for other interests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s

True, but the U.S. has hardly any official values.

That's begging the question in an important sense though; what is under discussion is precisely a history of ignoring "values" for our other interests in China, the result that has created which did not match the stated goal of the previous policy, and the question of whether we should continue with that previous policy.

It would be a particularly perverse deployment of "whataboutism" if one argues that honoring our values over profit is not something we should do now, because whatabout the fact up until quite recently we weren't?

> It would be a particularly perverse deployment of "whataboutism" if one argues that honoring our values over profit is not something we should do now, because whatabout the fact up until quite recently we weren't?

You don't even have to go until "quite recently," we can demonstratively saying we're--today, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future-- aiding the yemeni genocide. "Whataboutism," is a complete spook that, oddly enough, details conversations because OP is likely not pointing out that we should ignore our values, but rather that the USA has no values to honor in the first place.

Well said.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

> As a US citizen, I'm fully onboard

To be the advocate for devil, US salary is too high and regulation/labour too tight, protests too many.

In other words, not 'business friendly'.

I disagree. Wages have stagnated for decades. Regulation too lax, especially with regard to predatory financial practices and environmental damage. Protests, too few.

The US is the most business friendly developed nation ever to exist. It is a corporate welfare state built upon the exploitation of the laborers.

That's a very limited concept of 'business friendly' and inaccurate in any case with regards to the US.

The US decoupling her economy from China isn't the nightmare scenario, it's losing her global prestige. Imagine all of our allies suddenly realizing that the US is in an untenable bargaining position and all tariffs are raised all over the world, all at once. That's the nightmare scenario.

Trump's a dealmaker, he's shown himself to be less than utterly stupid in regards to foreign policy. But building a coalition against China might be more than he can handle.

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