Just when you think the idiocy couldn’t get worse.
Good luck America! It’s not a dust bowl this time. It’s an orange turd that’s gonna ruin you.
Give him a few days, he’ll either pause the tariffs or declare an exemption for 99% of the goods they sell us. And has the US government or port authorities actually collected any of Pig Boy’s brainfart tariffs yet?
Let’s just call it what it is: An embargo. It’s been an embargo for the last 200%.
Please, please let China retaliate.
Master Negotiator at work, folks.
It’s not “China faces 245% tariff.”
It is, “America faces 245% tax increase.”
Tariffs aren’t paid by China. They are a tax on Americans.
There is a lot of us investment in Chinese industrial manufacturing. Remember that China is a nominally communist country. I imagine that it would require a single signature to nationalize all of it.
China already said they wouldn’t raise tariffs anymore since they’re so high already it wouldn’t matter. That means the next step might be dumping US bonds now, which is a nuclear option.
In response to that, Trump, who is incapable of thinking of anything else just does this moronic tariff raise.
Trump’s and the Republicans are financial dumbasses and well American who voted for trump and didn’t vote because of reasons, well have the day you voted for you bunch of dicks.
I suggest both countries adopt a tariff strategy of other country +10%.
I mean at some point the number doesn’t matter anymore as most trade will just stop.
Which is exactly what China said when they stopped at 125% and said they’re done playing stupid chicken and we can knock ourselves out raising them to eleventy bazillion percent.
China has their own sins, behaving like petulant children isn’t one of them.
Make no mistake that China does act like a petulant child. Just not about this issue
Seems like this is just setting up the potential for someone in Australia to act as a middleman for Chinese products to the US and make a healthy profit while doing so.
Why don’t they just ban imports from China? Then China can ban imports from the U.S. Then the trade imbalance “problem” will be solved.
For the us; it would end the US economy overnight. There isn’t a product manufactured in the US or service done in the US that does not involve something from china. Even at ridiculously high tariff prices there’s simply no alternative infrastructure for replacing those imports. Even the trump regime are slaves to capital given that’s the only thing backing the legitimacy of the US.
For china; the only thing imported from the US are luxury/private sector items. It genuinely does not affect the core industries (60% of Chinas gdp is in the public sector) of china, and with China’s welfare system, private industries can fail without the employees ever becoming homeless or starving. There simply isn’t a reason to go that far and needlessly escalate.
Tl;Dr nothing the US can do economically can realistically hurt china, just small parts of its private sector. China, however could cripple the US since the US allowed its companies to offload so much core industrial work to china. None of the actual adults in the US will allow trump to piss off china to the point of cutting off trade entirely, and china isn’t petty.
Yeah, I know it wouldn’t be a good thing for the U.S., but they want to destroy everything anyway so they can create their fascist paradise. I’d prefer if they just get it over with already.
If the end is coming, I’d prefer it to get here already.
Will probably see further movements from the PRC to sell off US treasury bonds and shifting more away from the dollar in general, along with tighter export restrictions on rare Earth. China already said they won’t keep increasing tariffs, but they seem dedicated to not backing down, and they have the Material means to actually resist US trade aggression.
What would be incredibly based is if the PRC starts paying off loans in Africa with its dollars, decoupling the Global South from the US even further. Gets rid of dollars and debt in the Global South, potentially freeing up new customers for goods produced in China and strengthening ties.
China borrows from Africa?
Africa has borrowed from everyone. But mostly from the US and EU in the form of USD, usually in contracts that require them to pay back in USD. With the belt and road initiative china added to Africa’s loans with much better terms. China could offer additional loans at pennies on the dollar in exchange for the us Treasury bonds, which Africa could use to pay off its loans to the US and EU.
This would effectively shift dozens of countries away from the dollar permanently, while being the single largest anti colonial action in history, while giving china pretty extensive mineral rights across Africa.
Everyone wins in this scenario long term except the US and EU; and china is only hurt in the short term by underselling their us bonds.
“China could offer additional loans at pennies on the dollar in exchange for the us Treasury bonds, which Africa could use to pay off its loans to the US and EU.”
Do you mind explaining that a bit further? I think I grasp what you’re saying but I’m not sure I fully understand how it would work.
Let’s say Nigeria signed a predatory loan offered by the US to develop infrastructure. The terms of this loan is that they must pay $xxx USD per year until the loan is paid off with xx% interest. The contract will explicitly state they cannot pay in resources or other currency besides USD (and related bonds) in order to create dependence.
China could offer a loan that gives Nigeria Treasury bonds equal to their total loan to the US, allowing them to pay off their loan to the US in exchange for less total debt to china.
This would change the debtor, but also usually the terms so Africa can now pay the debt however they choose, rather than a specific currency.
Or, more simply, Bob loans Jim twenty Bobbucks and only wants Bobbucks back in the future. Chen has twenty Bobbucks and want Jim’s help in the future, so Chen gives Jim the Bobbucks in exchange for a favor or some moneyary debt that isn’t Bobbucks. Solving the issue.
Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for.
No, it’s the other way around of course. The neo-colonized borrow from the neo-colonizer.
What would be incredibly based is if the PRC starts paying off loans in Africa with its dollars, decoupling the Global South from the US even further. Gets rid of dollars and debt in the Global South, potentially freeing up new customers for goods produced in China and strengthening ties.
This is exactly what’s going to happen.
don’t get my hopes up!
I hadn’t thought about this, but you’re right, this is the 4D chess play here.
Yep, the reason China hasn’t done it long ago is because it was biding time to build up BRICs and BRI so that it has alternative customers, and thus was more reliant on the US as a consumer. Trump’s strategy likely would have worked in the 90s, but we aren’t in the 90s anymore. Now that the US is destroying economic ties to the PRC, China can respond by severing the US’s ties to Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and SEA. The EU will have to pick either China or the US.
Would certainly be a huge benefit for African countries to free up money for more consumption, but I’ll retain cautious optimism.
I’m an Australian who’s terrified of Trump giving us an “them or us” ultimatum.
I’m starting to think it’s likely, and soon.
We have magnitudes more trade with China than the USA. We are one of the few countries that buy more USA stuff than we sell to them. The only reason to stick with the USA would be if we trust them for defence reasons. What’s happening in Ukraine means we can’t. So it would likely be an own goal for Trump as we’d have to choose China over USA. The libs would go nuts, due to racism. We’d be objectively worse off, as an unreliable defence partner is still a partner, but if we ditched trade with China, our economy would collapse overnight.
America desperately needs us as a base in the South Pacific.
America also desperately needs us to not side with China in terms of Iron and Coal should an actual war happen.
Trump’s willingness to abandon their allies in the face of foreign aggression means we should seriously think before siding with the US.
Doesn’t seem to be a difficult choice. The US is preying on its closest allies, threatening to annex Canada, and Greenland. China is not.
Taiwan would like a word.
Giving in to bullies just heads to more bullying.
For what it’s worth: choose the 3rd path; pick the EU and/or the commonwealth countries
The EU has neither the industrial capacity of China nor the immense finances of the US, so the EU itself will have to choose who to rely on. If Australia pivots to the EU, they will be pivoting towards whoever the EU pivots towards.
i’m convinced that the eu would rather go down with the american ship rather than hitch their wagons to any alternative.
The rug has been pulled many times already, eventually the quantitative buildup will leap to a qualitative shift. Whether the EU lasts long enough for that is a separate question though…
At least you will finally be free from the US yoke.
