Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
Trump is living in an old world view of trade. The numbers are not accurate to begin with. The United States for years actually relied on economic interdependence with China as a stabilizing force in relations with Beijing on geopolitical levels. In other words, China needed the US market to sell products to provide employment for its people. The business between the two nations formed a check on U.S.-China affairs. However, as Trump escalates his trade dispute, he is playing with fire.
Asian culture is a matter of saving face. You cannot negotiate in this type of confrontational posture that leaves the opponent weak in appearance. Regardless if it works for China or not, it becomes a matter of principle. The result is a reduced incentive for stability and restraint in Washington. We already have the nonsense that the Democrats have done with Russia in re-establishing the Cold War. Here we have the Republicans wiping out relations with China.
It was Nixon who opened up China and split the close ties between Russian and China. This policy in the USA has actually encouraged the relationship between Russia and China even if it was never intentional.
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Still singing from the globalist hymnal. China double-crossed the globalists…the”deal” that China could prosper by becoming the world’s low-cost factory which in turn would keep the commie elite in power and yet tie China to the West……well that deal is F’ing dead Martin. China decided that they would play the long game and once America and the West became hollowed out with a very limited manufacturing base then China would become the world’s hegemon…..having a monopoly on making stuff, especially the military stuff.
China is actively running an “opium war” strategy with Fentanyl (payback is a bitch I guess) as well as stealing every bit of intellectual property they can by forcing Western companies to hand it over to manufacturer in China, via the students they are sending to universities around the world and just outright theft (Cisco being the stolen IP powering Huawei and ZTE etc.).
So Trump (like him, hate him doesn’t matter) has recognized the long term strategic threat and is taking steps to address it now before we get to the place where we no longer can. Pretty simple really:
“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” Winston Churchill (like him, hate him doesn’t matter he was right in this regard).
Free trade is seldom actually free and with China, it is, in fact, a disaster that will result in our subjugation. So sure we are going to have some real pain: Agriculture sector is screwed, lots of items will become more costly (Apple products etc.) the Rare Earths market share from China is quite high and the alternatives will take time to develop and bring to market, China can dump US Treasuries raising our interest costs (maybe) and trade wars do lead to shooting wars…….
So would you rather pretend that there is a level playing field, continue to have your countries future sold out (Biden, Pelosi, Feinstein, Justin Amash, the Clintons and on and on and on) all have made millions/billions selling out America to China over the last 40 years……but Orange Man Bad has pulled his head out of the sand and is pointing at the nasty panda in the room and saying…..” that ain’t no panda, that is a MF’ing dragon” Up to you whether you want to listen to Orange Man Bad or go on ignoring reality.
Marty,
That is straight as an arrow and the total truth!!!
so, martin, you want to be china’s bitch?
Who downvoted that?
Excellent synoposis… you should write an essay on this sir…
Payback? Who ran the opium trade? David Sassoon.
https://www.21cir.com/2012/11/the-jewish-monopoly-on-opium-still-fuels-chinese-resentment-today/
Nice try, though.
You left out the Bush’s and the republicans. Selling out America is bipartisan.
Fully agree Poppy Bush was a big part of the “strategy” to bring China into the Western Sphere…..remember he was Amb to China…..I did include Amash to little libertarian traitor now advocating for authoritarian rule via impeachment…..and not disclosing he has significant business interests in China. Nope the China traitors are the Deep State swampers including many if not most RINO’s…..a pox upon them all!
China’s next move will be to cut off rare earth minerals to the US.
And, we were stupid to depend on our enemy totally for something so critical.
Apparently China used its Gov’t sponsorship to financially control the market of rare earth metals. I’ve read multiple articles recently that rare earth metals, aren’t all that rare and many countries have lots of them still. They just didn’t have the financial incentive to produce them with China undercutting the market by so much. China has already threatened this, so one would assume a whole bunch of countries besides the US has taken notice and will start producing them. It may hurt for awhile, but this is a wake up call to not allow China to control anything deemed critical to a countries security or economy.
Unfortunately we live in a strange time where Tv, and phones dominate people’s brains. When I was 16 I was out playing sports, camping in the woods, and riding my bike to the pool to hit on girls. I didn’t spend a single moment caring about phones and I’m glad I didn’t grow up a bit later where they have become the means of socializing for alot of younger folks. I’m guessing alot of us that are 40 or older have a tough time understanding how people can spend 6+hrs a day staring at their phones, and they act like the thing is part of their body, sleeping with the damn thing. All those 4g and maybe 5g eventually EMF is going to cause cancer rates to soar. They keep re-validating the negative effects of the radiation from cell phones, but no one seems to give a shit.
Seriously young people are sometimes having almost their entire relationship happen throught Text messages, I’m guessing that is one reason teen pregnancy is down.
REM mine in California…production limited but this could bring new life into it. China can’t win this one. Also, we have allies that can buy REM and then resell to us. More costly but gives China the big green one up the butt. REM isn’t going to save China from losing this trade war.
Exactly right, there will be short term disruption and outright pain….I think we should use the tariffs collected to mitigate that disruption. Over the longer term China will not win this and their demographics will have them getting “old” before getting wealthy. Countries that put 1M people in concentration camps don’t win in the long term. Islam is not a religion of peace but the answer is not to put a million+ Uighers into camps……Freedom always wins in the end.
Rare Earth rarity myth https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/22/big-surprise-rare-earths-arent-rare/#4988a28375bd
In 2018 China had a trade surplus against America of $419.162 Billion. China’s Global Trade surplus that year was $351.6 Billion. If we had a trade embargo against China, their net surplus would have turned into a net deficit of $67.402 Billion. Who says we couldn’t fuck China over if we wanted to?
MOST American companies shuddered factories to export American jobs and decided to buy inferior Chinese substitute products which they could buy for a dollar and channel it along to some big box store or car dealership to sell for $10. People say they will be decimated if we cut trade with China. Good- they can file for bankruptcy, and the traitorous pieces of shit who own those companies may lose 90% of their “investments”. Someone with real assets will come along and buy what’s left, and I don’t think they would reorganize and run those companies any worse than the current managers.
Over the last 50 years I’ve seen what their business decisions did to American people around the place where I live, and I think it’s high time for the Big Shots to have their oxen gored. Perhaps before these times are over with, we’ll hang a bunch of those Big Shots for treason. You know, after the French Revolution, they admitted there were people killed who didn’t need to lose their heads, but in the same breath they said,”we did manage to kill all of the guilty ones.”
Yes, and don’t start bitching about our debts to them and what it will do to the Dollar. The Fiat Dollar is going to die anyway, and we might as well get it over with to set the stage for the next of whatever the Dollar will be defined as.
Either way, anyone who thought they were going to get upon retirement isn’t going to get jack shit, regardless if we stay the course or reset the whole system.
Great comment, Coalclinker
The U.S. can be largely self-sustaining and prosperous with trade being a minor influence. Few other, if any, countries have the natural resources not to be dependent upon trade. Why then does the U.S. gov’t seek to expand trade? Favors, given by the pols to contributing interests.
In a similar vein, a major reason for gov’t wanting big immigration numbers is because of Social Security. Gov’t wants always to survive at any cost.