It seems that China has the upper hand for now, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Watching these people discover where the world's rare earths come from is equally amazing and terrifying.
There are reasons that the Chinese (government) want so many dollars, and the external funds are not easy to replace (or they would have done it already). This is not to support the current trade ‘war’, but just to point out that it’s a bit more complicated than you can describe in a pithy comment.
Yes, sounds like something that should be changed to increase the strength of the US. China has protectionist economic policy and trade barriers. If that equals strength why shouldn't we do it too?
Tall order to prove this. Does it actually equal strength? What is strength and does China actually have said strength? None of this is defined.
Additionally, China has economic policies that if the US followed would be very, like the games they play with their currency valuation for example. They also have stringent capital controls, many of their largest businesses are the government has a large slice of the ownership, they subsidize export corporations to a much broader degree etc.
Are you also arguing for those things as well? Because its not simply tariffs that mark the only difference in economic policy between the US and China
The other asinine thing is we implemented tariffs against all countries, without a plan, and without a definitive proven reason as to why. As many economists have pointed out, the trade deficit is very deceiving and does not equate to there being a problem for the US inherently.
profound, comprehensive stupidity
Actually righting the severe damage done to our industrial base would take constructive direction by the government to build it back - once again the complete opposite of what they're actually doing by attacking our still-existing educational/research institutions.
At best high tariff taxes are just closing the barn door long after the horse ran away. But really it's just the same old pattern of the same type of hollow politicians using pent up frustration about the last scam to drive support for their next scam.
It also needs a plan for mining rare earth minerals as well as a plan for processing them.
On the flip side the deal with Ukraine for rare earth minerals might just end the war, if not Russia see this as an opportunity to get all of the territory it currently occupies.
In all seriousness though, China is also not some young slick economic powerhouse. It's largely propped up facade with serious structural issues that the US doesn't have.
Also keep in mind that while countries are annoyed with the US, that doesn't mean they are going to welcome Chinese ships into their waters.
I think the answer fairly conclusively in the global south is that, yes, yes they will let Chinese ships in their waters.
It will be bizarro-land if we have people in Kenya, Colombia, South Africa, and Peru driving around in 10000 dollar Chinese EVs and using 5000 dollar Chinese robots to clean their homes. While we pay 5 to 10 times that for the same conveniences.
I seriously think there's a really good chance the world 25 years from now may have a fundamentally different structure than it has had for the past 100 years.
Yes, their housing market is messed up and that causes problems in the financial sector, but it's a real stretch to call everything else in the country "propped up".
Other countries simply don't have the same supply lines and trained workforce. There are no other countries with anything even remotely comparable to something like Shenzhen's electronics market, for example. Who wants to go to a different country when your product will take longer to ship, will have a worse quality, and will be more expensive to manufacture?
Besides, the US doesn't have a stable foreign policy. Moving your manufacturing to a different country takes years, why would anyone start that process when there is zero guarantee that the same tariffs will be in place a month from now, let alone a year or two from now?
And where would you move to? Any country which attracts a significant amount of manufacturing is pretty much guaranteed to be hit with the same kind of tariffs. The only safe option is the US itself - but it's often cheaper to just accept the tariffs!
I bet a lot of companies are just going to accept the revenue loss and wait for the US to stop acting crazy. The tariffs are only just starting to hit and people are already getting mad. This won't last forever.
This is tempered, isn't it?
1) the whole advantage of China that we exploited WAS a large untrained uneducated workforce. That wasn't worth it anymore and things like textiles have already largely moved.
Of course, this doesn't apply to a number of sectors like electronics. But:
2) anyone educated and/or with money is scrambling to leave China, and this is nothing new.
I was Peru last year and saw nothing but Chinese made electronics, especially phones, and a lot of cars. I see more and more Chinese electric cars in Mexico too. Talking to the locals they seem to like Chinese tourists just wish they spent as much as Americans.
Sounds like high IQ statesman's behavior.
> He just skull fucked Chinas economy.
There, we get high IQ commentary as well... seems like, we're lucky today.
The brightest people in the world want to come here and contribute to our economy and spend the money they earn here at your businesses. That’s a privilege, and it’s too bad we don’t value it more.
Not any more. Not the women, the queer, poc...
And in many cases, these products are neither cheap nor expensive, they’re simply the only option, because no one else in the world manufactures them. So, what exactly are we comparing them to? And if the assumption is that producing the same goods in Europe or the US would be more expensive then that’s likely true but only because we still expect to earn a living wage, even in factory jobs
This is exactly it. And even if an item can be US-supplied, it's components are only available from China.
Tariffs are how we get it to stop being built in the US.
They can't tell businesses "Look, we've dramatically increased your cost of doing business, made your products more expensive (which will likely lead to lower sales) and we're forcing you to spend extra capital by paying tariffs on your products... Now all you need to do is come up with billions of dollars to build the factories that build your product and eat the high costs for the 5 - 10 years it will take to build the factories. We don't care if you're a small business that only sells $1M of product a year, if you want to reduce your costs, you need to build the factories."
Of course, the question is whether Americans really want those factory jobs -- do parents aspire to have their children work in a factory assembling iPhones? There's only so many Robot Technician jobs to go around (despite the promise of unlimited high paid technician jobs, for the forseable future there will be plenty of menial factory jobs)
Perhaps you’re calling bullshit and proposing that something else is going on.
Calling that out specifically would be beneficial.
And indeed some of their actions don't even line up with bringing manufacturing back to the US as a goal; like the whole concept of 'reciprocal' tariffs being different country-by-country. And making a big deal out of 'making deals' with countries to lower tariffs.
Not to mention that if bringing manufacturing back to the US was really a primary goal, there are better ways to accomplish it than forcefully and recklessly driving the US into a deep economic contraction -- because it'll mean investing a lot of capital in building a lot of manufacturing capacity, and business doesn't like investing huge amounts of capital during a downturn, and we're on the cusp of the mother of all downturns because even if capital gets sank into rebuilding domestic manufacturing, it's going to take years before it can come online.
What I think is really going on is that a lot of wealthy people got wealthier by exploiting opportunities that arose from the 2008 crisis; and they want another bite at the apple, so one is being manufactured.
P.S. I love sherlock holmes, and from that have some fascination of Victorian England, I just never thought we would go back to it. It was great if you were a noble and/or rich, but most of the populous wasn't either and suffered. All from my understanding, so historians or just more historically knowledgeable people can correct me.
I still think this approach to addressing that issue is complete madness.
Not only is there no coherent plan for how that reliance will be reduced, but we’ve now crippled ourselves in the meantime.
And their approach is to cripple our own government.
> I still think this approach to addressing that issue is complete madness.
You're assuming the 'total reliance' argument and corresponding actions are being done in good faith. The original 'emergency' declarations justifying large initial tariffs in February were because of a 'fentanyl crisis'. Which then morphed in to 'well, we should be manufacturing here for defense purposes' and assorted other arguments along the way ("we're getting ripped off!", etc).
There's a danger in being cynical about this, but also danger in taking everything at face value. There's been no coherent communicated policy with justifications and expected outcomes or timelines ever put forward the same way twice from this administration.
To clarify, I’m not assuming the administration is acting in good faith.
But in casual conversation, I try to assume the person who worries about total reliance is acting in good faith, so my reply was primarily directed at the comment itself which I have to assume comes from someone who may believe the administration is actually attempting to address the issue.
I think there are numerous ways to split this:
- The reliance concern as a standalone consideration
- How the current administration sees/uses this concern
- How the public perceives this concern
- How the current administration claims they’re addressing it
- Whatever the current administration’s true goals are
The incentive for their companies is that they can access US markets. But their government is a bit different. That government has clearly been serious about 2 things for the past couple of decades, one is developing an internal market. (Which, prior to our imposition of tariffs, they were failing miserably at). The other is their pivot to the global south. (Which, prior to our imposition of tariffs, they were wildly successful at).
Now that we started a trade war, they will be more successful at both. Especially the pivot to the global south. I guess I just can't see why the government of China feels more urgency to talk with us, than it feels to accelerate their pivot to, and development of, markets in the global south for instance? Why is talking to us the better choice for their government strategically speaking?
I mean, if I were sitting in their shoes, I'd just be like, "Man, this is be the perfect illustration of why it was so important to pivot to the global south in the first place."
The source thinks the opposite. You can complain directly. I don't think it gives a flying fuck
We can buy goods by printing money, which no other nation can lay claim to, because the U.S. Dollar is the default world currency. Everyone accepts USD, and wants USD. Every other nation on Earth in fact is always looking to buy dollars, because dollars are what everything is purchased in. Further, our standing in the globe and favorable geographic location means we can import anything from virtually anywhere, but most especially China, Korea, and Japan.
Yeah we don't "make things" here anymore, the pundits say, apart from dozens of product categories over hundreds of industries. "Everything comes from China!" Okay, and? I don't want a job in a factory and I suspect a shitload of other people here also don't, and my source for that is every factory and logistics center near me is constantly trying to hire people and seemingly being unable to.
If we assume China is an adversary, then I would say it logically follows that the vast majority of American executives are in fact collaborating with the enemy, because they played critical roles in getting China to where it is today.
Free markets don't care about moral concerns like that though, just what's most economically efficient. And in the absence of tariffs, trading with China is very economically efficient.
As opposed to an authoritarian, Democratic regime making military threats against neighboring free, democratic nations (Canada)?
> If everything stayed exactly the way it is today, except the Communist party rulership were dissolved and replaced by a multi-party constitutional republic with representatives appointed through free, open elections I don't think the US would have nearly the same incentive to divest from China.
Why does the U.S. have the right to declare unilaterally what forms of government are acceptable and what aren't? And no I'm not saying we have to necessarily trade with them, obviously, apart from the fact that the CCP came into power in 1949. We're a bit late to suddenly have issues with their government NOW after nearly half a century spent working with them in the open, and giving them shit tons of money.
Our right to declare that rule apart from the consent of the governed is unacceptable comes from the fact that it is unacceptable, not because the US has any special rights to declare it so. We hold these truths to be self-evident, now just as we did then.
The US has always had that same fundamental issue with China's government; we've just chosen to react to that reality in different ways over the years. China being more of an economic powerhouse now makes it a larger threat to human freedom than it has been in the past, so there are valid reasons to re-consider the status quo.
They are different. In the same league
* Iraq
* Vietnam
* Cuba
* Panama
* Grenada
* Gaza
That is just recent times, and I missed quite a few
The USA is a big bully, destroying lives and livelihoods all over the world since the genocide of American Indians stopped in their own backyard
Trump is making plain what every body with any brain worked out in 1962: The USA is a rouge nation
I would include:
* Korea
* Japan (the use of the atomic bomb was controversial even then as it was after it was obvious the empire was finished and it was merely a matter of paperwork)
* Laos
* Cambodia
* Afghanistan
* Puerto Rico
* NEARLY Honduras, over fucking bananas of all things
> The USA is a big bully, destroying lives and livelihoods all over the world since the genocide of American Indians stopped in their own backyard
And even the notion that the genocide has stopped is dubious. We may no longer be openly killing them, and I guess that isn't nothing, but their cultures are irreparably damaged and most natives in the States live lives of poverty and suffering.
On that subject though, the US has generally been a force for good around the world. Iraq was briefly a liberal democracy until the US military pulled back out and a theocratic regime took over again by force. Vietnam was a well-intentioned but bungled attempt to stop the spread of communism. When the US lost and pulled out the country turned into a one-party dictatorship. Other political parties there are outlawed. That's who the US was fighting against. The fact that these interventions ultimately failed doesn't make the attempts any less noble, though you can certainly make the case they were foolhardy to even try. Or perhaps if you're a pacifist you could argue any military intervention, even in the defense of human freedom, is immoral. I have mixed feelings on that subject myself, but it's ridiculous to compare anything the US did in recent history to what China or Russia are currently attempting or threatening to attempt. We never tried to conquer Iraq or Vietnam, just free them.
The US is a bully to dictatorial regimes and a friend to liberal democracies around the world. Trump's cage rattling is a tiny blip in the grand scheme of that legacy.
Then why did you cite them as the reason for China's authoritarianism becoming a problem?
> Iraq was briefly a liberal democracy until the US military pulled back out and a theocratic regime took over again by force.
You know the CIA funded the Taliban, right? We also installed Saddam Hussein.
> Vietnam was a well-intentioned but bungled attempt to stop the spread of communism.
Why is this a good thing? See previous question about "Why does the US get to unilaterally decide which forms of government are acceptable?"
> When the US lost and pulled out the country turned into a one-party dictatorship.
Or, if you were not on the U.S.'s side in this, you might be phrasing that more like: "When the U.S. pulled out, their puppet government collapsed immediately."
> The fact that these interventions ultimately failed doesn't make the attempts any less noble, though you can certainly make the case they were foolhardy to even try.
I would say they were both foolhardy and ignoble personally.
> Or perhaps if you're a pacifist you could argue any military intervention, even in the defense of human freedom, is immoral.
No pacifist would argue that.
> I have mixed feelings on that subject myself, but it's ridiculous to compare anything the US did in recent history to what China or Russia are currently attempting or threatening to attempt.
You can quibble about numbers and equivalence all you like. I'm not saying China is unambiguously good. I'm saying they are not guilty of anything the United States is not also guilty of and so the moral condemnation from said United States rings incredibly hollow and hypocritical. It feels more like the United States is upset that another country is beating it at the game it designed.
If I had my personal way, Xi Jinping and every president still living would be tried for the war crimes they are most definitely guilty of, along with dozens of other leaders from the so called "developed" world. A man can dream.
China annexing Taiwan wouldn't merely be "intervening in foreign affairs". When an authoritarian regime conquers a liberal democracy, the people in the annexed area are no longer free. It's the same reason we couldn't just ignore Hitler taking over half of Europe. If he'd just stuck to oppressing the people in his own territory it's possible the rest of the world would have let him and Germany might still be an authoritarian dictatorship today.
> the CIA funded the Taliban
Iraqis were hardly free prior to that. Short of direct military intervention, you often have to choose between what you believe to be the lesser of several evils. I'd agree that was probably a misguided choice in this case.
> Why is this a good thing? See previous question about "Why does the US get to unilaterally decide which forms of government are acceptable?"
See my answer to that question. Human freedom is an inherent good.
> "When the U.S. pulled out, their puppet government collapsed immediately."
True democracies can't be puppets; they're controlled by the people they govern. And it wasn't voted out by the populace, it fell to a military attack by a theocratic regime.
Fill in the blank with preferred major nation power of your choice.
Have not heard anything about 1,000 years fight for global supremacy
When this administration focuses solely on one side of that (Goods vs Services), they miss the forest for the trees. I'm not saying we shouldn't bring back manufacturing, because we should, but we can't pretend that we get the short end of the stick in this trade partnership.
China makes the cheap shit that isn't economical here, and the only way to make it economical here is to pay a tax on the cheap shit we want if it isn't made here, but the crazy thing is we could do a 400% tariff on Chinese imports, and it is still too expensive to buy American for most goods. Not even getting to the point that we don't have the infrastructure here because that also costs money, which would rise the price for American goods even higher.
Does Bill Gates mow his own lawn? No!
Does Donald Trump grill his own Big Mac? No!
Because when you hit a certain "wealth bracket" you stop doing things that are below that and hire them out. We hired China because we were too rich.
But if you do want to mow your own lawn, then do it, just expect that it will cost you more to mow your own lawn than to hire it out.
Replace "lawn mowing" with any other industry of your choice.
"Cheap foreign products are a necessity when so-called American companies don't love Americans enough to pay them what they're worth. It's the whole reason things went overseas in the first place. It's gonna be nice if we can finally get American companies to actually support America and pay citizens what they're worth."
The above sounds nice, but it's oversimplified, like a lot of political rhetoric recently. Now, if this does end up making real living wages for the American worker a commonplace thing, that's awesome, but I'm pessimistic given the history of things, how money can influence politics, and how corporate lawyers can find loopholes.
So will the American manufacturing wages actually translate to living wages or will you just be getting paid more on paper but you still feel poor because the things you want to buy are all more expensive now?
If only some things are automated, then yes those places will have an advantage when it comes to labor costs, but they will use it to pad their profit margin.
Factory X employs humans ands sells widgets for $100, but their costs are $90, so profit is $10.
Factory Y is automated and they have costs of $10. Do they sell their widget at $30, thus earning a handsome profit of $20? No, they charge $90 and earn an obscene profit of $80. The worker gets screwed, the shareholders get richer.
This whole thing only works if workers have ownership in the corporation, but that's gasp socialism and we can't have that.
if the goods are made and exported from American factories the owners of those factories will be increasing the local, state and federal tax bases, how is that not an improvement over offshoring production?
workers are currently being screwed by globalist companies offshoring production and also using that as a way to offshore profits also, i doubt any workers will shed tears if that stops.
socialism as you described is fine, not sure how its relevant in this case, its perfectly legal to start coops and they exist even in the tech world, most people dont seek them out and it appears they underperform their peers, where are all the major coop tech companies?
Posters are skeptical because prices will raise across the board for these good. You ask:
> “what if they are largely automated”
If that’s the case, and they work where they work now as you say, then Americans will just get poorer as things become more expensive due to tariffs. The factory owner is keeps all the protectionist profits. Maybe some of that goes back into the tax base but we know these types are good at paying 0% taxes.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That’s why socialism is relevant, because that’s the system under which this idea at a national scale actually helps workers, whereas this idea under capitalism helps mainly capitalists. Which is why I’m so confused because you keep talking about workers in your post, but that’s not who this is for.
I'm not sure what the answer here is, but it does seem like this is something that has existed. Consumerism was pretty rampant in the 50s and 60s when a lot more was still made in the US.
Do you think he's acting when he does things like keep preventing an interviewer from moving on because he wants to make extra sure everyone knows he entirely believes that obviously-photoshopped, not-trying-to-look-like-anything-but-an-overlay letters and numbers on a picture of someone's hand were in fact real tattoos?