by Chris Faure for The Saker Blog
The Trading Community
I grew up in the dark continent on farms, where, in the local trading town, my parents owned the meat businesses, the Jews owned the general store, the Indians owned the fabric store and sold shoes and pointy bras. My mom owned the fashion store and hairdresser. Of course, there was the mechanic who fixed cars and tractors and big harvesting machinery and the movie house where I saw the first opera when the traveling opera came to town and fell in love. Of course, there was the school, the doctor and the pharmacist and a Church or three. We also had the Portuguese Cafe, where we could buy chocolates and candies and bread and milk and fresh English fish and chips. The joint clientele of this trading community was the forestry workers, the mine workers and the farmers of the area. It was a well-off little community with a large forestry industry and gold mining.
While we told the most offensive jokes about the Jews and the Indians and the Portuguese, and to be sure they must have told the nastiest jokes about us European style white ones, we all equally hated the Colonizing English rulers and together told dirty jokes about them while all the kids happily went to school together and played together.
This little farming town was bound together by its trading class.
When the trade started to fracture with bigger food stores and chain mechanics, the town fractured, and where our main street was with the trading class, now there are only a bunch of Korean stores, selling stuff that only Korean folks buy, to Korean folks.
The Power of Trade
This is the power of trade, it can bind people together, or it can fracture communities and whole countries. The Chinese know this, hence BRI has no structure for war, only for trade.
We look with dismay at the geopolitical situation, and it is clear that something has to give as the U.S. clearly cannot hold on all the fronts they have opened. Mr. Trump may end up having to choose his favorite war, the one where he feels comfortable, and he does not have to see or count dead bodies and spectacular explosions, but he can hide the results of the Silent Economic war from his own eyes while standing on the China Bad plank as his 2020 mission to win the election.
Tom Luongo says: “At this point, Trump is fighting a war with everyone not named Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Just like our little town, this economic war will fracture farming communities, trading communities, and countries. As we have seen in India, we are beginning to get similar notices of desperation suicides of farmers in the U.S.
Silent Killer
An economic war is a Silent Killer. It will create conditions for the US to become Gulag America deeply into cultural schizophrenia to avoid all of their so-called enemies, and for China to take the lead as biggest trader in the world today while the U.S. is off fighting their own internal windmills.
The ‘Understandings’
It seems as if Steve Bannon (after his successful trip to change Brazil into a neocon enclave and start similar initiatives colored with racism and shades of white supremacist, in Europe), has been called back to run this Economic War. He began with an Op-Ed in the Washington Post. While WaPo is not my regular reading, this one spells out the 6 ‘understandings’ that the U.S. should have about this Economic War.
It makes interesting reading to read the understandings in full. The 6 understandings are in short, and my comments are on the right hand side. (Please read the full set of ‘understandings’ at the link.)
| The first understanding: The CCP has been waging economic war against industrial democracies ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, and now China has emerged as the greatest economic and national security threat the United States has ever faced. | Note: Direct aim at the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) – Steve is fighting communism and it is the same old story … Those warmongering ChiComs are coming to get us! |
| The second understanding: The trade deal under negotiation this month is not a deal between two similar systems seeking closer ties, as its cheerleaders on Wall Street and in the media and academia argue. Rather, this is a fundamental clash between two radically different economic models. | And of course, if you read the full second understanding, the Chinese economic model is terrible, putrid and simply wrong and those enlightened Westerners have the best method and are morally oh so superior. |
| The third understanding: Chinese state capitalism is highly profitable for its owners — the members of the CCP. Stagnant state-owned enterprises gain a competitive edge through massive government subsidies, and the cost savings won by stealing the intellectual property, technology, and innovations of foreigners. | Chinese State Capitalism he says – The State should not own anything, he says. But, if you take a look at what is happening right now with Google and Western Technology companies, they are ‘joined at the hip’ with The State in the West and they have all joined the have all joined the economic war (See below). Jump for Trump and the Western technologists say How High. |
| The fourth understanding: Certain Trump advisers inside and outside the White House are playing on the president’s well-earned pride in a rising stock market and a fear he might lose the Farm Belt to try to box him into a weak deal. But it is a decidedly false narrative that any failure to reach a deal will lead to a market meltdown and economic implosion. | Now Steve takes a turn at protecting Mr. Trump for the 2020 election. In reality, the farm belt is up in arms and really upset that Mr. Trump calls them Patriots, while he is destroying their livelihoods. Farmer’s bailouts only manage to extend the agony of the farm belt. |
| The fifth understanding: Even the toughest agreement needs effective monitoring, which is difficult even with accommodating partners and perhaps impossible with China. The danger is for the president to sign what appears to be a reasonable deal and find out several years later that the United States was hoodwinked. | And, if the Chinese boogieman does not get you now, it might just do so in the future. One just cannot trust these yellow hordes, according to Bannon. |
| The sixth understanding: The world now bears witness to a rapidly militarizing totalitarian state imprisoning millions in work camps; persecuting Uighurs, Christians and Buddhists; and spying on, and enslaving, its own population. | And this is so trite that it is funny. China is persecuting its own people. Have we not heard this drumbeat before? |
And here comes the cherry on the Bannon cake of ‘understanding’: “The central issues that must be faced are China’s intentions on the world stage and what those ambitions mean for U.S. prosperity. With our country at a crossroads, it is more important than ever that Trump follows his instincts and not soften his stance against the greatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.”
Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.””What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.”Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.””Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.” Cervantes’ Don QuixoteNow Bannon is on the media trip to tilt at these windmills and stop the world’s millstones from turning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYraLI04WiU
Who is posing the existential threats? “Us” Versus “Them”
So now China is an existential threat to the United States. Does this not sound like creating the basis for war talk to you? What of this is different from the Russia derangement? It is just the same old story, the same old positioning of creating enemies, using different words. Civilizational differences are now weaponized by those who we can argue do not have a civilizational history of any great import. Hamburgers, Hotdogs, Disney, Madonna and Barbie Dolls do not a civilization make.
So, while the U.S. demanded structural reforms from China during the Trade War, and China absolutely refused, at the end of last week, Trump took aim at big Chinese businesses, placing them on lists where trade becomes almost impossible and creating an Economic War. Huawei and ZTE Corp are easily recognized here. The U.S. Department of Commerce announced that Chinese technology giant Huawei and 70 of its affiliated companies would be included in an “entity list” of export controls, prohibiting Huawei from buying technology or parts from U.S. companies. Today we see that Google, Intel,, and a raft of other Western technology companies are joining this economic war to kill a Chinese enterprise and all who work for it. And they call it righteous.
As is usual in the “Us” Versus “Them” U.S. methodology, we can always wait for the backtracking after the insulting war talk. Early yesterday morning the penny dropped for U.S. companies using Huawei technology, and they had to quickly ask for a reprieve from the U.S. Commerce Department because somewhere they use Huawei equipment. A 90-day reprieve for certain U.S. broadband companies and wireless customers was granted to figure out plan B. (Spoiler alert – there isn’t a plan B). Your broadband possibly runs on Huawei equipment and let me explain how close this economic war is to you and me.
From the White House into My House
A few months ago, I had to buy a new smartphone and eventually settled on a sweet little Huawei, reasonable on price and the most intuitive smartphone ever. I got to like this phone. This morning, I hear that Google decided not to extend usage licenses to Huawei for the Android operating system.
So, now Mr. Trump’s economic war is causing havoc directly with my phone – This is not the kind of fight that will leave you or me untouched.
Future Huawei phones, which run Google’s Android operating system, are set to lose access to updates to some Google apps, including YouTube and Maps, but don’t worry, but the existing devices will be safe.
Soft Pressure
Also, the soft pressure on China is increasing. China is being interfered with in terms of oil imports (Iran, Venezuela) and the South China Sea issues which China is busy negotiating with their neighbors are continually being interfered with by U.S. aircraft carriers or some level of task force of some or other kind making passage to test ‘freedom of navigation.’ And in the U.S., not to be left behind, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on Monday that Chinese-made commercial drones may be sending sensitive flight data to China. Nearly 80% of the drones used in the U.S. and Canada come from DJI, a Chinese commercial drone manufacturer and these drones are widely used by farmers, law enforcement and any child that has a play drone.
Vietnam is the place about 20 years behind China in terms of wages and level of development. It is beginning to hop with manufacturing facilities moving there, to avoid trade tariffs. These businesses are still in Chinese hands. It won’t be long though, and these businesses may as well save their money as this is an Economic War that will not leave any place undisturbed.
Take a look at those winning trade deals
Can this man negotiate a trade deal? Or is he trying to lead a country with ‘off the cuff’ decisions?
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump
“Starting Monday, our great Farmers can begin doing business again with Mexico and Canada. They have both taken the tariff penalties off of your great agricultural product. Please be sure that you are treated fairly. Any complaints should immediately go to @SecretarySonny Perdue! 7:29 PM – 19 May 2019″
Aha, it looks like progress, yes? What is not mentioned is that tariffs on Mexican and Canadian steel and Aluminum were dropped, and in a reciprocal action, Mexico and Canada lifted tariffs on the agricultural products. So, that great trade deal that Trump negotiated with Mexico and Canada is back to where it was, and it is no reprieve. There is only some normalization.
“But now Canada and Mexico will get a reprieve, as the U.S. has reached a deal to lift tariffs on steel and Aluminum coming from those two countries. This eliminates a huge hurdle to the ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the revised version of NAFTA.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18629556/trump-steel-aluminum-tariffs-canada-mexico-usmca
Fuggetaboutit
We still ask ourselves the same question. What is it going to take for the U.S. to make their appropriate place in a multi-polar world because they will not be allowed to be a single hegemonic power player any longer. There is no doubt about this. Consider Dmitry Orlov’s long list of things that the US can no longer get done. (Color revolutions, false flag attacks, troop pullouts, trade wars. The one thing they can still get done is causing humanitarian disasters).
Do you understand now that the U.S. in its current incarnation is not agreement capable as is the official stance of Russia, and China will not make a deal with them, but China will keep talking. The fear now is that China will prohibit any rare earth metal sales to the U.S. in a tit for tat action. Huawei will smile.
Think about all these issues through the prism of how the U.S. is trying to maintain it’s global hegemony. The Russia derangement is cooling down, and the China derangement has taken over the airwaves with the full U.S. Administration and the media in lockstep. Can we now say Russia won? A few days ago it was Russia Bad full-on coverage, and today it is China Bad full-on coverage.
There is nothing new here, excepting a welcome groundswell of resistance opposition in the strangest of places. In Latin America, there is a type of an eBay online store called Mercado Libre. To my great surprise, most products on there, seemingly overnight, changed to “imported directly from China” with free shipping and better prices. I can pay in local currency and seamlessly the U.S. Dollar is not included in this buy or sell.
Mr. Trump can fuggetaboutit and, don’t mess with my phone!
Chinese Readiness
This economic war is a story that can also be told in headlines alone:
Top U.S. economist warns against American demonization of China – Jeffrey Sachs
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1150057.shtml
On Hostile Coexistence with China – Chas Freeman
https://chasfreeman.net/on-hostile-coexistence-with-china/
If trade stops, war starts,’ Alibaba founder – Jack Ma
https://www.rt.com/business/376431-jack-ma-trade-war-globalisation/
Chinese T.V. Station Pulls US-Made Films, Runs Classic Anti-US War Flicks Instead
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201905201075174494-Chinese-TV-Station-Pulls-US-Films-Runs-War-Flicks
I hear through the economic grapevine that there is now a popular and modern opposition song in China against the U.S. and economic war. I understand this is a war song. China and her people are ready for whatever shape or form this war will take, and Mr. Trump inadvertently unleashed the dragon, which may just spit fire and roast the U.S. first. Its time to go on record and say that my own expectation is that the Empire will fail in their objectives for this economic war, but much damage will be caused as the U.S. now is only able to cause damage. It will in fact be impossible to find ‘the winner’. How will a winner be defined and by who? The Chinese ‘understanding’ is not only absolutely correct, but is the only ‘understanding’ worth knowing. This ‘understanding’ is : There are no winners in an economic war, only horrendous costs for humanity.
The whole world, certainly all major economies, need to decouple themselves from the US, the dollar, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, military equipment, everything. Security or espionage is just a pretext to suppress foreign competition and successful businesses.
This is obviously the case with Huawei. Currently you can buy Huawei products, which are cheap and good quality (but which may be spying on you) or you can buy Silicon Valley’s products, which are expensive and poor quality (and definitely are spying on you, ask Angela Merkel.)
Then there is Nordstream 2. You have to buy our expensive LNG instead.
All countries subject to this kind of economic terrorism have to resist it by replying in kind, or surrender their sovereignty and comply with US demands on every issue.
This is the case with Iran sanctions. Any action should be met with corresponding EU sanctions. If Total, Siemens or BMW is excluded from the US market for trading with Iran, Chevron, General Electric, or Ford should be banned from Europe. Any action taken will inevitably hurt both sides, but this will only stop when real pain starts to be inflicted on US companies.
When Trump imposes tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, China should dump $200 billion of US treasuries. Russia should ban the export of titanium, rare earths, nuclear fuel, and rocket engines. Freeze repayment of loans to western banks. Put the money in a blocked Moscow bank account for the duration of sanctions.
If China caves in to the US in the current trade war, that will only be the beginning. It would be followed immediately with demands to comply with US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela – and that’s just for starters. There will be no end to it..China will just be an obedient little US satrap like Europe.
@mark
The whole world, certainly all major economies, need to decouple themselves from the US, the dollar, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, military equipment, everything.
Already happening, especially for the dollar:
In 2015, 52% of international payments used the U.S. dollar.
Just two years later, 40% of international payments used the U.S. dollar.
The world is using the U.S. dollar less and less. Soon, so few countries will want the dollar that if the U.S. continues to print it to “pay” for imports**, all the extra greenbacks will accumulate and will cause inflation.
**If you can pay for imports effortlessly just by printing the money, you are basically stealing the goods. The U.S. has been doing this for a long time. Of course, the other countries can refuse to accept your funny money — and that is what is happenning.
Cyril
That is correct. Countries are beginning to trade in domestic currencies, like China and Russia. Another point to mention is that analysts are stating that European elites will turn way from the US and join Russian and Chinese trade organizations. Sanctions against Russia were bitterly resented in Europe, which by the second half of 2016 lost 100 billion euros in trade. Worse, Europe is losing confidence in the US, which is picking fights with Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, etc. One has to wonder if the US knows what it is doing. It’s empire is collapsing, while it’s domestic and foreign debt is rising. Does anybody in Washington really know what the solution is ? I doubt it.
We don’t know that Huawei products are spying on us.
We do know from leaks that the NSA, CIA and probably others plant or exploit back-doors into almost all western corporate products.
If there is for example a Huawei phone with Google’s Android operating system installed, we don’t know if there is hardware in the phone that sends spy signals to China. People have looked, but most say they haven’t found anything. Of course, Pompeo and Trump say differently.
We do know on such a device that Google is most definitely spying on you. Google built their fortune by collecting info on the people who use their products and then selling it. They sell it to corporations, and I’m sure that Google would never object to giving that info to a government. And most likely the NSA, CIA and others have access to a backdoor or exploit in the Google Android software. And switching phone software to Microsoft Windows.
Of course, apps you put on that Huawei Android phone are also spying on you. I was reading today on the Intercept how Facebook collects information on users and sells it back to the mobile phone services so they can further combine that with all the information they collect on all users including tracking their movements and everyplace they go. Think about every time you’ve given apps access to your location, phone activities, web visits and so much else that you click yes to in order to install the app.
A Chinese made phone doesn’t seem like it increases the threat level much.
Chinese phones are not as easy for the USA to hack as other phones-that’s why the US is trying to kill Huawei. They will fail, because they are a corrupt and dying society, and China is on the rise, as on at least a dozen or so times in its long history. A world where China was dominant would absolutely certainly be less violent that the blood-soaked dystopia brought to humanity by the Exceptionals.
I checked it yesterday. Titanium is not a good leverage. Japan is the third largest producer and can easily keep the MIC going if it does not so already.
Sadly Venezuela has lost about 130 billion in recent years due to USA sanctions….
Chinese know well enough when the process of strangling dollar begins, all nation including China will suffer too. But like in war there are seldom cheap victories. Price is high but in case of 800 pounds Dollar Gorilla it should be paid. We have to kill the evil bastard.
The campaign against China is based, as in all things in the dying West, on hatred, raw and febrile. Race hatred, of course, of the self-annointed Western ‘Gods Upon the Earth’ for a civilization of ‘Yellow Devils’ who are not even ‘Judeo-Christian’ ie ‘Exceptional’, ‘Indispensable’, ‘Under God’ etc. etc. Hatred of a plainly better system than the West’s sham ‘democracy’ that is, in reality, a kakistocracy ruled by the worst, the vilest, specimens in society, a plutocracy ruled by the rich (in the USA principally the Israel First Lobby), a pathocracy ruled by psychopaths who love killing and destruction more than anything else, and an oligarchy, mostly hereditary and led by the rentier parasites. And hatred of those who refuse to bow and scrape before ubermenschen like Trump, Bannon, Kushner, Pompeo, Bolton etc.
So used to successfully bullying others into submission are these lunatics that they seem to actually think China will buckle to them. Could there ever have been such deranged self-delusion?
Chris,
Great article.
I am curious which Huawei phone you have. I live in Thailand and need of a new phone.
I live in Thailand, too. Go to any mall (I live in Chiang Mai, and Maya and Central Airport Plaza have a bunch of different phone companies.) The Hua Wei Mate 20 Pro just got replaced by a new one, Pro 30. But the Mate 20 got rave reviews and is now cheaper About 25,000 baht.. go to http://www.lazada.co.th and look around.
Personally, I got the Xiaomi Mi Max 2, for less than $200 USD, and it works perfectly ok. I haven’t seen it sanctioned yet.
Huawei CEO says company’s own OS will run Android apps – reports
https://www.rt.com/news/459924-huawei-os-android-apps/
And:
China has blocked Canadian shipments of pork and canola worth billions of dollars in the last month.
If the Canadians transfer the kidnapped Huawei chief executive to lynch law in the USA, the Chinese will make that sniveling liar Trudeau pay for his treachery.
The author makes good points abut the societal damage of trade wars. But ways exist to day to minimize that damage that didn’t exist before. I like his concluding report that:
Coming, let’s hope, to all of our neighborhoods soon.
Asymmetric. That’s the word I was looking for :)
“Full Spectrum Economic War has replaced Trade War”
Full Spectrum Economic War has been the MO and hallmark of the Jewish Mafia since three millennia. Good to see some goys finally catching up with reality : )
I’m guessing the local Jews owned all the businesses. That’s how it works.
Meanwhile this trade war is fake because all nationstates are now controlled by the global oligarchy of the Families. It is theatre designed to take us to an already planned outcome, e.g. downfall of the evil West, rise of the benign Dragon.
China is just as authoritarian as the West, and there are even signs that the West will eventually adopt the Chinese “social credit system”, which basically makes the nationstate an open air prison. No doubt the cultural marxists will use sophistry to defend the social credit system. That’s how it rolls in a cultural marxist revolution, i.e. every bats**t crazy idea is defended against all notions of commonsense.
I’m posting this because then you cannot say no-one tried to warn you.
You either have no idea about the Chinese social credit system, or you are a deliberate disinformer. The system works to reward good, socially beneficial, behaviour, and sanction ratbaggery in all its forms. In other words, the opposite of the glorious Free World where, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’, and the bigger the swine you are, the higher you will rise. It is mostly being used to help Chinese consumers spot the shonks, spivs and other parasites that arise in any society on the rise.
You mean like getting fined for crossing the street at a traffic light. With all due respect Mulga but the kind of black and white thinking you showcase about the world and it’s societal systems is truly remarkable and baffling. If you truly think the leaders of the Communist party rose the ranks through committing bening deeds and not using the same power dynamics as anywhere in this material world you live far removed form reality. I know you wrote this comment almost a month ago but this had to be said.
Chinese movie about the Korean War is also on Ytube, til they ban it, of course….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RCwgOeaxIE
The English subtitles go fast, but you can click the little settings wheel to speed and slow it down to 75% of regular speed.
Search in Youtube for Chinese war movies with English subtitles and you can see what Chinese are watching. These seem to be newer movies.
YT also has some good Russian movies about the Great Patriotic War, subtitles better in some than in others.
Mark:
I’ve been thinking and occasionally typing similar sentiments for a while now. If all the sanctions, embargoes and blockades are simply bypassed and ignored can the rest of the world not simply go about their business as they see fit? The USA has a mere 6% of the worlds population, and less and less of the manufacturing base as they years glide by. I read in a comment recently that the US supports financial capitalism rather than industrial capitalism. It’s clear that the Bretton-Woods era has reached the end of it’s shelf life and some sort of reset is coming due. Apart from all the doom-pr0n, what might the practical effects be? Will OBOR, BRICS, SCO and the like become the dominant platform as the world decouples from the dollar?
When the USA makes a sanction decree, which countries follow? If those that don’t comply simply ignore the bully’s commands, what will happen? It should be clear to the entire world that the better choice is to refuse to be used as a vassal state. As Mark said: If China and it’s allies fire back with equal measure there may some pain in the short term, but in the medium run the outcome will surely be better.
There are two things about Americans and its society as a Front. It abhors pain and it has no patience.
The American soul is a killer’s soul. But it is fearful soul and it has been physically and psychologically weakened by Liberalism.
The Economic War the Hegemon has begun must rely ultimately on taking great pain and lasting in a long fight.
These are strategic strengths of China, Russia and Iran, not at all strengths of the USA.
There is no way the US can fight a short Economic War. It is by its nature a long war.
Thus, the US has again started a War it cannot win.
Strangely, it has emulated its failed puppet’s war in Ukraine. It has begun a war it has no hope of winning.
And it will wreck its own economy just as Kiev has done against Donbass and Russia.
China could not have devised such a trap for the US Hegemon as the snare the Hegemon has built and stepped into all by itself.
The US has not prepared its society or their psychology for a War.
They are now trying to sell it as a “threat” based on racism, and on a false moral and ethical superiority (the Chinese steal our IP).
That wins polling results. This is a war of economics that touches wallets, savings accounts, stock markets, 401Ks, animal husbandry, transportation, supply chain integration, credit and bankruptcy of small and medium businesses and farms. It will hit Middle America and Trump’s base politically.
In 3-6 months, we will see how much pain the US farmer can take.
In 10-15 months, we will see Trump retreat or resign from the next election.
The Chinese will make him one offer, shortly, maybe in June. If he can’t live with that version of a deal, then it will be fought out for years.
The lifeline for the US is the dollar. It will have to keep printing massively if their economy starts seizing up from lack of trade. That’s a brittle lifeline.
China has gold. Russia has gold.
Trump has colored gold hair.
Someone should tell Bannon that it’s America, and not China that has the oligarchy whose political elite are incompetent and corrupt with decades of strategic failure under their belt. But, I suppose Bannon is really just an incompetent and corrupt ideology mongerer infested with sociopathic values.
Whereas China is an autocracy, whose political elite are competent and benign.
I read the Bannon article and it’s the terms of surrender of a surrender treaty.
Bannon should read this:
What Is ‘Face’ In Asian Culture and Why Should We Care?
https://internationalman.com/articles/what-is-face-in-asian-culture-and-why-should-we-care/
Bannon’s wrong: The trade war will create abear market for socks, a financial crisis and Trump will lose in 2020.
a bear market for stocks.
Socks as well :-)
Watching Bannon blather his racist hatred and extraordinary self-delusion at a Fox bimbo the other day was the funniest thing I’ve seen for some time. He’s the other side of the Bolton Imperial shekel-one side sinister in its Evil, the other tragicomic.
Seems people’s view on the U.S, and Trump cloud their views on China.
Corrupt people within the U.S. government supported giving China an unfair trade advantage. It is the reason why it is literally cheaper to ship a good from China to the U.S than it is to ship within the United States.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/418081-usps-is-done-subsidizing-chinese-package-shipping
China abused this policy and U.S. policy makers were complicit in that. The U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing unfair trade practices which make it harder for our own businesses to compete. Back in the day it was meant for developing nations to be able to send mail and ship parcels at a reasonable price. It WAS NOT meant to be abused and turned into a tool for Amazon to destroy U.S. small business!
But will any of you give credit to Trump for trying to help protect American small business? He is the only one who showed interest in that.
Is everyone here going to deny that Chinese state-sponsored intellectual theft is out of control and U.S. government had been turning a blind eye to it? Only enforcing when it was a Big Corporation with money stream to the right politicians.
China is the epitome of everything wrong about globalization but people are so blinded by their dislike for Trump they are willing to overlook the progress being made.
The Trade war was already going on and we were not only not fighting and losing but, our corrupt politicians were stabbing us in the back along the way.
I’m not a Trump fan but, the one “war” I support is a trade war against China.