Trump Will Aim For 60% Tariffs On China If Reelected

Right, but in the context of Rade’s question it is a true statement. The west does not seek to conquer the world militarily like Islamic ideologies, communistic ideologies, etc. It does not mean that we have not participated in military intervention internationally at times. We have, but that was temporary. We have a concept of personal liberty that curbs the impulse to conquer other nations that we easily could conquer in a direct military conflict.

 

How long is temporary? We still have troops in Japan, German and Korea. We are within sight of a century from WWII lol. We have troops in Guantanamo and that war was in the 19th century. What ideology is Russia pursuing in Ukraine?

 

I will stand by "mutually," as that was used more in line with the context of the conversation. It's not really a mutually beneficial relationship if we are helping build out our successors. Sure, we may get some things on the cheap today, but what does that really matter if we're setting ourselves up for failure tomorrow?

 

odd you'd ask this question then: "Where have I indicated we don't benefit from trade with China?"

 

Perhaps we should nationalize all our resources and industries so as to prevent us from becoming beholden to foreign capital. Its fun to see right-wingers do a weirdo version of third-world anti-imperialism saying this stuff.

 

As I indicated, we may benefit in the short term, but in the long term, letting China have their way with us in trade is not a good plan.

 

I see what you are saying. Giving tremendous power to an evil entity is scary. It is possible that China has inherently divergent values that would result in them oppressing any peoples of which they are capable. It is also possible that wealth changes values, which is somewhat suggested by doc’s stat that no two countries with a McDonald’s have ever gone to war. Once a nation is wealthy, would they really want to give it up?

I also think if we are counting on the US to be an international safeguard, we want to tread carefully when making a decision that would harm our own economic growth.

 

Speaking for myself, all I was suggesting is to level the playing field and that it would not make sense to allow a nation like China to run wild without any checks. I think most on both sides agree now that China was cheating a little too much for our liking and we had to even the odds. I don't think we should be using tariffs solely for the purposes of preventing conquest. Also, every country is different. I think allowing China to get away with murder in trade is a bad idea. Sort of like loosening the purse strings on Iran. But even Biden agrees with me on China.

 

I think I understand what you mean. Indeed I believe you are right about current account balance with China. However, I am afraid that I am afflicted by the same market vision as doc, where I am not convinced this is a bad thing. Perhaps I do need help understanding, but I believe that if China has US dollars, they kind of need to park them in US investments. And it wouldn’t even be a bad thing if these dollars never came back.

 

Ultimately in the end, the U.S. is a debtor nation. China is a creditor nation. I could own a million dollar home free and clear, but if I declare bankruptcy because my liabilities exceed my assets, there goes my equity. We are a debtor nation due to bad policy and it shows no sign of slowing down.

 

This might be the right way to look at it, and certainly you aren’t alone in doing so. However, this isn’t the only way to look at it.

If one were to assess the current account I have with Publix, they would also find me as a debtor person. For all the tens of thousands of dollars of exchange that I’ve done with them, it’s entire in one direction, with me paying them for goods and services. I have an extreme trade deficit with Publix.

On the other hand, if you looked at my current account with my employer, you’d find exactly the opposite result. They have a severe trade deficit with me.

In the end, the exchange appears mutually beneficial in both cases, and probably no one should be alarmed by either of these severe trade deficits in isolation.

 

The way you are thinking about China and wealth is a 90’s era mentality about China. The Clinton era Democrats were the ones who thought that if we adopted China into the international economic system that China would see the fruits of Western freedom and leave communist authoritarianism behind.

The past 30 years have shown that to be false. Money does not change worldview. China is still communist. They still despise western freedom. The only thing that has really changed is their power to resist the West. We basically fed a baby lion cub, and it turned into a fully grown male lion. And now we are living with the consequences of what I believe was a naively optimistic outlook regarding China. The world would be better off if we had never fed the baby lion cub. We should have left communist China in its 3rd world state and not brought them into the international order. But that cannot be undone now.

 

Buying up land & store fronts in Tijuana as close to the San Ysidro crossing as I can. Just put down payments on RE in Windsor, Ontario near that crossing. I'm gonna be rich!

 

Perhaps it’s a 90s worldview, but the 90s gave us The Big Lebowski and a football national title, so let’s not besmirch the decade too much.

Also, falsification is a tough thing. I personally don’t see the hypothesis as falsified (obviously). And I think we might be talking about two different things: 1) the extent of liberalization within China. Indeed, they are still nationalized in some industries, such as gas, but I believe that it has liberalized several sectors since the 90s (citation needed). 2) the extent of liberalization of trade with other countries. This I believe has also increased quite a bit since the 90s. This is the one that I think is the most relevant for our discussion. The wealth they’ve accrued over the past few decades would be in serious jeopardy as soon as they closed their borders to trade. Any president that tries that trick would likely face a stern backlash.

I am with doc in believing that China’s economic growth rate will be inversely proportional to their level of communist practices. If they want to shun liberalization, then this should lead them ever further off the path with which you are concerned.

 

The Chinese, and others, consider Taiwan to be part of China, so you can see where the confusing comes from.

 

It's not a loss. It's an investment.

 

US. Companies on Pace to Bring Home Record Number of Overseas Jobs

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-co...me-record-number-of-overseas-jobs-11660968061

 

Yeah, I mean, if the deficits on both ends equal or your employer has a larger deficit than you have with Publix, sure, that's not a bad thing necessarily. But that's not the scenario I described above. More accurately, it would be a massive deficit with Publix in comparison to the one your employer has with you. How do you pay for all those groceries from Publix when you're bringing in far less from your employer? Eventually, the piper has to be paid.

 

All that debt has bought us a lot of bombs, guns, tanks and airplanes. I mean you might think you have the guy bunkered down in his armed compound over the barrel if he owes you a vast sum of money on paper, but collecting it is going to be extremely difficult for you lol. At the end of the day you probably cant piss him off too much if you want any chance of seeing that money he owes you. Debt is a two way relationship, and the debtor can be in a position of power over the creditor! There is the old adage of how if you owe someone $100 you have a problem, if you owe them a million, they have a problem.

 

This is why he loves the poorly educated.