Trumped: Why China Will Lose a Trade War With Trump

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-ch...war-with-trump


Experts, believing China holds more leverage, ignore important realities. First, that country is growing more dependent on access to the American market. In 2016, a stunning 68.0 percent of China’s overall merchandise trade surplus related to sales to the U.S. In 2017, that figure increased to 88.8 percent. Trade-surplus countries, as history shows, generally suffer more in trade wars.

Beijing, therefore, is generally vulnerable to being pushed around by Washington. “If trade is so unimportant to China, why has China’s trade predation lasted so long and taken so many different forms?” Alan Tonelson, an independent Washington, D.C.-based trade analyst, asked, in comments to The Daily Beast over the weekend.

[theotherguy1]

I would believe everything that you are saying if it wasn’t China that you were talking about.

[the_real_Barleycorn]

One thing to think of is that China has been signing some coercive trade treaties around the world in an attempt to isolate the US. Rare earth elements necessary for high tech defense equipment.

[Tiny]

Last year, China's exports to the USA were 19% of their total exports and less than 4% of their GDP. Some of what they sold to the USA will be re-routed to other countries. For some other items like rare earth minerals, assuming they don't ban their export to us, U.S. importers and consumers will have to suck it up and pay more because we can't replace the Chinese product.

So maybe they take a 1% or 1.5% hit to GDP. They'd still be growing at 5% a year, faster than we are. One of the arguments in your article makes a lot of sense -- Xi, dictator for life, can shoulder that a lot easier than Trump who's running for re-election in 2020. They've got other ways of fighting back besides imposing tariffs of their own, like what's described in the article.

[bb1961]

They steal intellectual property and almost everything they export is junk!!
Harbor Freight sells a lot of CHEAP tools for the CHICOMS...most of what they sell at Harbor Freight is junk from the CHICOMS.
Hell a large stretch of Harwin is complete knockoff junk from the CHICOMS.
Tiny do tell...why are the CHICOMS the biggest thiefs of intellectual property in the world??

[friendly fred]

I would be happy for more US manufacturing as a result of the trade war.

Even if it costs more the benefits might be even greater.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by friendly fred

I would be happy for more US manufacturing as a result of the trade war.

Even if it costs more the benefits might be even greater.

Unfortunately it won't work that way. Most of the imports we buy from China will come from Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Korea instead. A lot of this factory work is low skilled, repetitive, marginally-profitable business we don't want anyway, like women sitting behind sewing machines all day. With 3.6% unemployment, we're better off doing higher value work.

So if you want to bring the manufacturing back to the USA then you put tariffs on imports from all countries, like we did for washing machines and steel, right? Well, that hasn't worked out so well. Google something like "cost of jobs steel tariffs". You'll come across studies that put the cost per job created at $650,000 to $900,000. One article said $900,000 PER YEAR per job, although I imagine that may just be in the early years.

You end up with people losing jobs at businesses that use steel in their products, because of higher prices due to the tariffs. Then you've got other countries that impose counter tariffs on American exports, farm products or whatever. That destroys jobs in those industries.

Overall, as a result of the tariffs, we're supposed to lose jobs, net of the ones we add. The estimates are all over the place, from tens of thousands up to 2 million, just from the China tariffs. Trump is also threatening to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico, and tariffs on all automobiles. If he carries through with that we'll lose more jobs.

In the ideal world there are free markets and no tariffs. Everyone produces what they're most efficient at. We're all better off as a result. This is not a zero sum game, where for every winner there's a loser.

[friendly fred]

Originally Posted by Tiny

Unfortunately it won't work that way. Most of the imports we buy from China will come from Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Korea instead. A lot of this factory work is low skilled, repetitive, marginally-profitable business we don't want anyway, like women sitting behind sewing machines all day. With 3.6% unemployment, we're better off doing higher value work.

So if you want to bring the manufacturing back to the USA then you put tariffs on imports from all countries, like we did for washing machines and steel, right? Well, that hasn't worked out so well. Google something like "cost of jobs steel tariffs". You'll come across studies that put the cost per job created at $650,000 to $900,000. One article said $900,000 PER YEAR per job, although I imagine that may just be in the early years.

You end up with people losing jobs at businesses that use steel in their products, because of higher prices due to the tariffs. Then you've got other countries that impose counter tariffs on American exports, farm products or whatever. That destroys jobs in those industries.

Overall, as a result of the tariffs, we're supposed to lose jobs, net of the ones we add. The estimates are all over the place, from tens of thousands up to 2 million, just from the China tariffs. Trump is also threatening to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico, and tariffs on all automobiles. If he carries through with that we'll lose more jobs.

In the ideal world there are free markets and no tariffs. Everyone produces what they're most efficient at. We're all better off as a result. This is not a zero sum game, where for every winner there's a loser.

That may all be true but it is predicated on fair trade - which China doesn't practice so we have to put the screws to them.

[eccielover]

Originally Posted by friendly fred

That may all be true but it is predicated on fair trade - which China doesn't practice so we have to put the screws to them.

Exactly, the ideal world of free trade doesn't exist. Many foreign governments subsidize unfair trade practices to undercut competition.

Tariffs can level that playing field. But when choosing one unfair practice over another, for me, it's a matter of negotiations. Doing nothing and remaining with status quo doesn't cut it.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by eccielover

Exactly, the ideal world of free trade doesn't exist. Many foreign governments subsidize unfair trade practices to undercut competition.

Tariffs can level that playing field. But when choosing one unfair practice over another, for me, it's a matter of negotiations. Doing nothing and remaining with status quo doesn't cut it.

tariffs need to be put at a reasonable level where its not considered abusive like what happened during the 1890's under the McKinley administration.

and to balance out obvious predatory behavior to dominate a market.


the US TV market got no help from the U.S.govt or the courts over Asian's TV predatory dumping behavior.



the free trade we get is not true free trade. its more like 1.5 way street.