Posted on 08/05/2019 12:35:20 PM PDT by con-surf-ative
A lot of turmoil in China right now. This Hong Kong thing is starting to spread. Even with our Tech Monopolies helping them their Social Credit System is not holding their people back. Many have lost jobs and now self induced food shortages in the near future is stirring up unrest.
“What is Trump’s end game?”
Permanently change the structural incentives, that move our wealth and industry to the communist Party elites.
Fair trade, or no trade with communist China.
They might be willing to make a fair deal, but that is unlikely (except as a ruse), so we most likely we need to just divorce our supply chain from them.
He’s assuming that there is some level of tariffs at which the Chinese will cave. But there is not. It’s a question of who caves first. Or if either caves.
I don’t know the end game, however, he is a great poker player so-to-speak. I would not doubt him for sure. Pundits will be calling for him to back down, and one news story blamed him for the correction today, “Trump’s tariff’s”...not the devalued Yuan, but Trump’s tariffs. I predict he holds the line until the Chinese cave...I’d suspect some saving face exercises may be in order for helping them cave without looking like they did.
I think Trump kmows a permanent across the board protective tariff that is not country specific is what is needed to bring industries back. But he doesn't have any support in Washington for that. So he is picking his battles.
Once the Chinese manufacturers start re-branding in other countries or even producing in other countries, I expect Trump will begin expanding the tariffs to other countries.
If nothing else, Trump has proven that you can put tariffs in place and the doom and gloom forecasts don't materialize. Short term market jitters do occur, and then they reach new high's a few months later.
There is not another politician (and I hate to call Trump a politician) who has any interest in fixing the imbalance of trade with China...If Trump's way doesn't work, then it's not going to happen anyway...
I appreciate the constructive comments responding to my question, with one notable exception.
I have to upvote this post.
All our ‘operational inefficiencies’ will be moot if there’s a shooting war and all/most of our weapons are made in china...
ow are you getting decimated with rising markets?
So you're against the freedom for Americans to purchase what they choose?
Te end game is very simple. It is to put China in a position to save face by negotiating a deal that improves their situation and is beneficial to US interests.
Trump intends to bankrupt the Chinese then offer them a deal that will stop the bleeding.
Once their new normal is starvation and rioting Trump will give them a lifeline. They will accept the deal not because it feeds their people but because it makes them look good by improving their economy.
It is the oriental way.
I has happened many times before and there is nothing to stop them. I have wondered about it for quite some time and wondered more about any company taking such risk.
I hope it’s to eventually completely wean the US economy off of China. Dealing with them was never worth the cost.
Spreading? To where? Seems pretty much contained but growing in intensity. All over a new extradition policy. Makes you think there is encouragement from somewhere.
No one needs to cave. The best outcome would be permanent tariffs on both sides. The markets will adjust quickly. There is simply no way to extricate ourselves from the red Chinese without pain. Long overdue.
It was bound to happen eventually. Everyone who invested there knew it was a possibility.
A short term strategy could have long term implications if the strategy was to starve the beast of capital. They are using money to rope developing world countries into debt and project power into our own country through investments with lots of strings attached. If we can sufficiently recover and end the tech transfers, we can win this. The Chinese might be patient, but patient with yesterdays tech, the money spigot shut off, and fewer other states to pillage is a setback that makes time an enemy since a trending U.S. is only going to widen the gap. This really does remind me of Spain in Elizabeth Ist time. They were a superpower, the Pope was on their side, they had all that gold and goods stolen from the New World which they employed to try to build an empire. Their gains were through theft though, so if they were stalled and if during that time they lost the stolen advantage (in their case by frittering away the money) they would be cut down to their right size in a more or less permanent fashion.
It is not that the weapons are made in China. It is that many of the electronic components are and Chinese manu;factureres build in “back doors” to every piece of electronic hardware they sell to the West. They can read from Beijing all the data and can probably control many of the weapons/aircraft etc that have Chinese components. They could probably bring down at will any of the American airliners.
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