China Indicates It Won’t Retaliate Now on New U.S. Tariffs

“There’s nothing left for them to tariff other than airplane parts. Chinese purchases of US goods are declining nearly to zero. Trump has hurt America.”

i agree. it would be far better to let China continue to steal our intellectual property, manipulate its currency, continue to put massive tariffs on U.S. goods like it’s done for years, put no tariffs on Chinese goods, and let China steal all of our manufacturing jobs without taking any actions at all like Obama and the Bushes did ...

It would have been better to address those things in a way that didn’t hurt America. It would have helped not to alienate every other trading nation on earth for starters. Maybe create a regional trading bloc that didn’t include China, for example.

“Maybe create a regional trading bloc that didn’t include China”

right. because the U.S. has always fared so well in multi-lateral agreements ... have you learned nothing from trump about the how the U.S. always gets beat up by a bunch of nothing countries in multi-lateral agreements where our voice is always equal to the smallest dipshit country, and that the only way to go is unilateral agreements? Don’t you know that’s why trump nuked thee TPP regional trading bloc on day one?

and besides, who’s gonna be i this bloc of yours that cuts out china? france? germany? dream on ...

Trump has hurt America.

Your inanity and blatant stupidity hurts to read.

IIRC(?), China imported about half their hog feed from the US, right? So, with half their hogs dead (and no end in sight), they really don’t need to import feed from us now, anyway...

I do have another, “bigger” question, though. Are USDA’s estimates of AG exports dependent on both projected export quantity AND price? That would seem to me to be the only sensible way to make such estimates.

If yes, then it seems to me that a drop in demand is a double whammy. We export less (and I should note here that this Swine Fever is affecting quite a number of countries in addition to China). Additionally, assuming no major grain harvest / supply problems (I also note that despite reduced acreage in the US for 2019, due to flooding and, I suspect, farmers’ awareness of the coming demand problems, worldwide supplies are looking fairly good), then oversupply will tend to drop prices. Add in a weak global economy. It usually doesn’t take much of an oversupply to drop prices substantially. I would not be surprised if this price drop due to what is effectively a supply glut affects the total $ value of US grain exports (to say nothing of the total $ value of US grain sales, export AND domestic) considerably more than just the reduction in bushels exported.

So, you are correct in saying (Ag) commodities are a global market, but, global demand vs. supply is down. That is what is really driving our reduced Ag exports. The “trade war” may not even affect commodity prices by the 10 cents you mention, when the overall picture is taken into account. In a global market it is, in one word, irrelevant.

Now, where I may disagree with you a bit is that if the Chinese economy were to collapse, then the repercussions of that (probable global recession) could hurt us a lot. So, I don’t think we want to “wreck” (my word) China. We just need them to fear it enough to straighten out.

It would have helped not to alienate every other trading nation on earth for starters.

Now, that is just nonsense. We have new agreements with our most important export markets other than China (Canada, Mexico, Japan, etc.), Britain looks to be coming onboard, we get along ok at present with the Koreans, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brazil, etc. Even the EU supports us on matters like IP theft, though they do fear weakness in China could hurt their already vulnerable economies.

I advise stop drinking (and promoting) the MSM Kool-Aid.

corrected

It would have helped not to alienate every other trading nation on earth for starters.

Now, that is just nonsense. We have new agreements with our most important export markets other than China (Canada, Mexico, Japan, etc.), Britain looks to be coming onboard, we get along ok at present with the Koreans, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brazil, etc. Even the EU supports us on matters like IP theft, though they do fear weakness in China could hurt their already vulnerable economies.

I advise stop drinking (and promoting) the MSM Kool-Aid.

Those agreements are inferior to what was in place before all this bullshit started.

“if the Chinese economy were to collapse, then the repercussions of that (probable global recession) could hurt us a lot. So, I don’t think we want to “wreck” (my word) China.”

A collapse of the Chinese economy will (very) likely tip the global economy into recession. Probably a bad one (if it is a complete collapse), but probably not a depression-like one.

China’s finances are more insulated from the Global financial system, so a financial collapse there (Bank failures, debt defaults and collapses of their real estate, stock markets and currency), are less likely to effect the rest of the world than the 2008 crash. But global demand would slow.

I think that the massive financial fraud that is the Chinese economy is going to pop on its own anyway, so it is wise to try to get as much of our business and essential supply chain out of there in an orderly way, while we still can.

What if they make a deal now, bide their time, fix their problems, continue to steal our technology, use their spies to gain economic advantages and then come after us in 10 years?

The issues with China are beyond just economic. China was not dealt with appropriately over these last 30 years of opening up trade - if they had been instead of allowing them to run roughshod over everything, all of the reforms and changes promised may have actually occurred. Instead, China has stolen property, technology, etc. simply to prop up and empower the existing regime. They weren’t changed by the WTO - they changed the WTO. Instead of us influencing them, they influenced us. Instead of them becoming more like Hong Kong, they are making Hong Kong more like them. And so forth. It is a crying shame as it did not have to be this way.

All true. How do tariffs help?