Trump's Trade War with China a Total Failure

#51
#51
n_huffhines said:
First of all, the Chinese abiding by the deal doesn't make it a good deal or make the trade war successful.

Second, again, we know presidents come and go.

Trade wars don't work. They're never a good idea. That's the bottom line. I'm saying Trump's trade war didn't work (surprise, surprise) and you're just explaining part of why they didn't work.
Click to expand...

of course it didn't work because we changed direction and that will always be our achilles heel when it comes to trade and foreign policy. We don't have the fortitude to outlast dictators that have no worry about being removed from office. Regardless of party in power we do not look further than 4 years down the road.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NCFisher, 825VOL, landscapingvol and 1 other person
#52
#52
BreatheUT said:
I think we should reduce reliance on China which potentially what tariffs do. American companies opening up shop and shipping back to the US is part of this issue. China then forces them to share some company technology with their military.
Click to expand...

BreatheUT said:
Agreed but let's be realistic about the options we'll see. Too many profitting off China as China tries to take over the world.
Click to expand...

I understand. Global issues are rarely solved in a two sentence overview. There is enormous complexity. However, to intentionally keep it simple...if we are going to trade, we need to dialogue about equitable trade and not force the issue. If we are offended by their theft and cheating, then we have the option of not trading. We are freely trading with a bad government (an action i favor), but that freedom shouldn't be forced. Americans are the people benefiting, after all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64
#55
#55
landscapingvol said:
I don't disagree but I also don't blame Trump for trying to reign in China even if it was unsuccessful, no one else in Washington seems to be interested in it just like he attempted to fix the immigration issue. I
Click to expand...

Manipulating free trade isn’t the answer. He should have pressured the WTO and IMF to put the screws to them over the currency devaluation (which) is what the main problem is anyway. But I do agree with you that I don’t fault him for trying to reign them in, they’re a terrible actor. I just disagree with the way it was done.
 
#58
#58
Vol Main said:
True, but unlike Trump, Biden is not telling lies about the Chinese paying for our tariffs. Obviously, some people like lies. I do not.
Click to expand...

He’s too busy lying about house fires, his position on defunding the police, Hunters financial records, Jills academic history, his academic history, his historical position on the filibuster, hanging with Nelson Mandela, his position on the Bin Laden raid, where he graduated in his law school class, hanging with Pop, driving an 18 wheeler and what his favorite scent of child shampoo is. Trump is a SCUMBAG. But don’t ever call him a liar to defend Biden.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64, W.TN.Orange Blood and volfanhill
#59
#59
sonofUT62 said:
Manipulating free trade isn’t the answer. He should have pressured the WTO and IMF to put the screws to them over the currency devaluation (which) is what the main problem is anyway. But I do agree with you that I don’t fault him for trying to reign them in, they’re a terrible actor. I just disagree with the way it was done.
Click to expand...

IMF isn't going to reign in China and neither is the WTO
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64 and hog88
#60
#60
Vol Main said:
True, but unlike Trump, Biden is not telling lies about the Chinese paying for our tariffs. Obviously, some people like lies. I do not.
Click to expand...
If he cites a bogus rational for continuing tariffs (e.g., national security), that's still dishonest.
 
#61
#61
landscapingvol said:
IMF isn't going to reign in China and neither is the WTO
Click to expand...

No but this didn’t work either and it actually harmed American manufacturers. Again I’m not complaining that he tried to reign them in. Im just personally against tariffs in any circumstances.
 
#62
#62
landscapingvol said:
Two scoops of ice cream made from rice milk as a show of cultural appropriation, that will be his China policy
Click to expand...
Maybe some sprinkles in red and yellow as sign of respect. But only cover 10% of the come to give a shout-out to those in the inner circle of Hunter.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64
#66
#66
sonofUT62 said:
He’s too busy lying about house fires, his position on defunding the police, Hunters financial records, Jills academic history, his academic history, his historical position on the filibuster, hanging with Nelson Mandela, his position on the Bin Laden raid, where he graduated in his law school class, hanging with Pop, driving an 18 wheeler and what his favorite scent of child shampoo is. Trump is a SCUMBAG. But don’t ever call him a liar to defend Biden.
Click to expand...
plagiarism and his claim to finishing in the top half of his graduating law class, he was 76 out of 85. (Al Gore fuzzy math) two of the best ones
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64
#67
#67
McDad said:
Trade "wars" are dumb. It's an emotional tool used by politicians on the gullible.

When trump went after China, I was hoping it was just rhetoric to force more trade. It is a non issue.
Click to expand...

If China wasn’t currently harvesting the organs of Muslims, I’d agree with you about trade wars. But some things have to be measured from a non economic perspective.
 
#68
#68
Vol Main said:
NCFisher: "For the first time in decades, Trump's "failure" of a trade war awoke many in the West to the militant and economic danger of China. On that count - outweighing costs - it was a resounding success."

This is just more Trumpian nonsense, like Trump won the Election that he decisively lost.
Click to expand...

That's not a response but a sophomoric jibe. Trump and Xi reached an agreement from the tariff war that China has only fulfilled 57%. Is that due to lowered economic activity during the pandemic or is China simply not honoring the agreement? If China is simply breaking the bargain, do we attempt to force them to do so? Or do you assert, as Biden's Joint Chief Chairman MIley does, that China is not an enemy and we continue business as usual?

The trade war was never only about leavening trade with China but part of a realignment of the West regarding China. Warts and all, here's Paul Taylor, senior fellow at Friends of Europe:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Biden time
But after the November elections, studiously neutral Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg could hardly disguise his eagerness in inviting President-elect Joe Biden, whom he called a "strong supporter of NATO and the transatlantic relationship" to visit Brussels for what he unmistakeably called a "summit," to be held as soon as the new administration can possibly manage it.

Having a less unpredictable partner in Washington is hugely important, as NATO is in the process of improving its recognition of and response to serious challenges facing the 30 governments. "It's been a wild roller-coaster ride," Paul Taylor, senior fellow at Friends of Europe, tells DW. "At the end of it, NATO has survived Donald Trump — not unscathed and not unchanged."

For better, for worse
Some of those changes have been at least partially positive, even if they left scars on the alliance's psyche. For example, while Trump did not, as he frequently misstates, prompt a reversal of allies' decline in defense spending — that already happened in 2014 — it is credible that nations boosted their military budgets faster toward the NATO goal of 2% of GDP in an effort to avoid his public haranguing.

"He also got [allies] talking about China," Taylor notes. "That's something that was never on NATO's agenda. And whether it would have come anyway, I don't know, but it happened on his watch and it happened at his insistence."

But it would be hard, if not impossible, to find an upside to the uncoordinated and abrupt withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, where NATO service members are helping train local forces to eventually manage their own security. Trump's surprise announcements were unsettling to both NATO, which was not consulted, and to governments with personnel on the ground that will now be in a more vulnerable position without added American backup.

The "China challenge"
Their new report, "NATO 2030: United for a New Era," (Dec. 2020) concludes a "persistently aggressive" Russia will continue to be the biggest military threat to the alliance over the next decade, but China definitely steals the thunder as an up-and-comer.

"It was manifestly clear from our consultations with experts and with allies," Mitchell told a Carnegie Europe briefing on the report. "The rise of China is is the single biggest, most consequential change in NATO's strategic environment and one that the alliance really has to reckon with." What's next for NATO after Donald Trump? | DW | 28.12.2020
----------------------------------------------------------
Suddenly, Chris Wray wakes up and gets it:

According to Wray, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government steals “staggering” amounts of information, causing “deep, job-destroying damage across a wide range of industries — so much so that … we’re constantly opening new cases to counter their intelligence operations, about every 12 hours or so.”

“There is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China,” he said.

According to the FBI director, Beijing uses an “insidious” strategy of announcing their desire to build up various industries — “like robotics, green energy production and vehicles, aerospace, biopharma, and so on,” as Wray put it.

“And then, they throw every tool in their arsenal at stealing that technology to succeed in those areas,” he went on. “Here in the US, they unleash a massive, sophisticated hacking program that is bigger than those of every other major nation combined. Operating from pretty much every major city in China, with a lot of funding and sophisticated tools, and often joining forces with cyber criminals, in effect, cyber mercenaries.”

He also contrasted the dangers posed by China with those presented by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“The Soviet Union didn’t make much that anyone in America wanted to buy. We didn’t invest in each other’s economies or send huge numbers of students to study in each other’s universities,” Wray said.

“The US and today’s China are far more interconnected than the US and the old USSR ever were, and China is an economic power on a level the Soviets could never have dreamed of being.” FBI Director Christopher Wray says China is top threat to US
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, answer the questions I posed to you above, or continue taking positions on things you don't understand while talking as if you do.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Orangeburst, StarRaider, BreatheUT and 1 other person
#69
#69
  • Like
Reactions: Vol Main
#70
#70
hog88 said:
Isn't that a trade war also?
Click to expand...

Yes, of course it is.
Trade wars have and will always be necessary and no more necessary than when dealing with a peer geopolitical rival who is both military and economic threat.
While stealing you blind, waging cyber warfare, and trying to annex international regions and trade thoroughfares.

Better trade wars than actual bullets flying.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AM64
#71
#71
Velo Vol said:
Correct. Sadly Biden has retained some of the tariffs that Trump initiated.
Click to expand...

When you can't force another nation to quit undervaluing the price of products or to stop manipulating the value of their currency, what's left? Go back and read up on why we have antitrust regulations in this country - particularly the part about predatory pricing to eliminate competitors - this is China vs the US and our industry and they are winning We can't end government sponsored monopolistic powers without tariffs and blocked imports - OPEC and other cartels are still going strong and controlling some markets. The CCP controls Chinese industry - think of it as a big monopoly with a lot of clout, and they've done very well at putting industry in other countries out of business. The CCP doesn't have to deal with unions, anti-slavery laws, environmental regulation, and certainly not minimum wage; and they have a huge labor pool trying not to starve ... and some ethnic groups they can force into slavery.

We can't force a country like China to play civilly, and we can't cut off their products overnight when our competing industries lost the price battle and dried up; about all you can do is use tariffs to equalize trade and hope to rebuild industry here - if you can eliminate the globalists who sold us down the river in the first place (a bunch of them or their profiteering buddies are in congress).

The bigger issue is the strategic implication. What happens when another country has gained virtually all or in some cases and huge chunks of other necessary defense related industries? Do you know the lesson from WW2 - that the US was not only strong enough and remote enough and with ample resources to build our own weapons and other needed resources - we supplied a lot to our allies, too. Think where we are right now, and it's not a good place. Wake up and smell the aroma - it ain't rose scented.
 
  • Like
Reactions: W.TN.Orange Blood and NCFisher
#72
#72
McDad said:
Ok, let's run with China cheating and stealing intellectual property. Should we be trading with such ner-do-wells in the first place? If so, should we try to remedy their cheating and theft through trade protectionism?
Click to expand...

Making products sure is cheaper when somebody else does the R&D for you ... whether they give it to you freely or not. Companies like Apple are stupid if they think can manufacture in China and not give up all their trade secrets and manufacturing expertise, but then Apple probably doesn't really care unless/until SinoApple starts taking away their business. An article the other day pointed out that China manufactures essentially all our pharmaceuticals or the compounds US companies use to produce them. Imagine going to war with a country that owns you in that manner - and it is just a matter of time whether it's war or just capitulation without a shot fired.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NCFisher
#73
#73
hog88 said:
How else do you combat it?
Click to expand...

Nukes? Highly frowned upon, of course. Congress critters and globalist CEOs certainly don't want to lose their personal cash cows. On the plus side, the postulated nuclear winter might cool off global warming.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hog88
#74
#74
McDad said:
Stop trading with them.
Limit trading to items which have no intellectual property to steal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that requires government action - sustained and not subject to changes in the administration and congress. US companies with CEOs who profit on the short term deal and consumers aren't going to implement and stick by policy. That implies tariffs and import restrictions, and we don't have the national will and fortitude to do it and stick to it. You'll see one and then a flood of politicians running for office on an anti-tariff platform to bring back lower prices - basically just as good as offering free money for votes.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top