re: Forbes: China is Losing the Trade War in Nearly Every Way

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TALKING POINT ALERT!!!

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It’s a fact.

Right off the bat, IB, the Chinese Military starts pushing the envelope. South China Sea islands/bases, Space and Supersonic stuff, bailing/backing NK madness. Damn, they are smart and industrious folk; seems they just can't drop the Military expansionist strategy.

I hope the whole deal cripples their economy to the point that their People revolt against the Military. Would be ugly, but their Military bothers me. I picture that they are the ones who eat 'man's best friend', as a tradition of course.

Now or later.

frick those lying cheating communist fricks. About time a US President showed them what system of government is better. The whole world got so used to us bending over and taking it up the arse for so long that they forgot the USA is still the big dog in the yard. Mao Zedong can eat a dong. If the Chinese started a revolution and threw communism in the garbage can because of this trade war, Trump should be on Mount Rushmore and would be the 3rd best President behind Washington and Lincoln.

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I hope the whole deal cripples their economy to the point that their People revolt against the Military. Would be ugly, but their Military bothers me

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None of that can we accomplish. None of that, true or not, is a goal of the tariffs.

You people have trounced me about facts you continue to deny.

Just read that directive. That is all this is about.

Sounds like time to invest in China tbh

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so strange that people like yourself are unable to understand that while tariffs hurt both sides, it can be an effective tool to bring about change

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not when the person wielding the tool is a protectionist, who has surrounded himself by other protectionists

at that point it's just a tool for enriching cronies

The article went into detail a bit about how it is bad for the US as well, but never dove deep as to why.

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China knows the U.S. is slowing, too. U.S. companies like Apple are losing money. Today’s trade data points to evidence that more companies trading with China brought in much less money in December.

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Maybe, but the US isn't being bled dry as much by China. The US market is slowly reorganizing, becoming much stronger against Chinese imports as the spigot is being turned off. US companies are finding new ways, locally or new national markets to produce goods. Think of that soybean fiasco the left was making. Sure, China moved to sucking up Brazil's soybean crop instead of the US. Great for Brazil, they found a buyer and are making more money. But guess what? There is only so much soybean crop on the market, and Brazil can't keep up with local consumption demands while also selling to China. So the US soybean crop is now heading to Brazil. Goods are still moving, as goods are resources to be consumed.

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Chinese imports from the U.S. declined 35.8% in December from 10.3% gains in the prior three months.

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This is because US businesses are looking elsewhere for material/labor. Just because we aren't looking for Chinese goods, doesn't mean we aren't looking at other countries, or, maybe, internally.

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Of course, every China bear out there believes the true GDP figure is closer to 2%.

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mentioned earlier in the article, 2% is probably closer to reality. Do you actually believe a Communist Party lead State to give out true GDP? The Soviets put the scare out - so is Bejing.

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Should the U.S. economy buckle further, and the stock market is taken down with it, Trump might be more inclined to do end the trade war despite his team’s long-term goals to lessen China’s role in the U.S. corporate supply chain. If that happens, Xi will get more time to adjust and ultimately keep things as they were pre-Trump.

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In closing, it isn't. The US economy is moving towards not relying so much on Chinese labor. Other nation's friendlier economies make this not only a possible (because someone has to produce, it isn't like production is going to disappear) but the threat of intellectual property theft decreases DRAMATICALLY as well. China has a massive workforce, but don't act like they don't have a massive lower and middle class that need jobs. This is the bell hanging around their neck. China needs US imports to create jobs for their massive population. If the jobs dry up, this leads to less demand for production and basically the collapse of the gravy train. Keeping all those 1+ billion people happy is an incredibly hard job. Their GDP per person is much smaller than a ton of other nations.

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Relevance is how things look 5-10 yrs subsequent to any agreement.

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So you're saying that the Trumpophants jizzing themselves silly over winning right now, are making fools of themselves.

I agree with that.

ETA: The Forbes article makes Trump look like a winner. I thought all media was against him?

1) Even though exports to the US were down in December for China--that is the first month they were down---the trade US trade deficit with China was up to a record level. So exports from the US to China were down more than exports from China to the US. Even so China's exports to the US during 2018 were up while they were down to the rest of the world.

It means the sugar high of US firms buying in before the tariffs is over in December, and will continue to show effect.....

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2) The DJIA industrial average was down 14% in the fourth quarter in the US. An almost 5 trillion dollars decline. While the Shanghai index was down 35% for 2018 that was only a little over $1 billion.

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This one totally lost me, where on earth did you get that number......

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Shanghai Stock Exchange is the world's 4th largest stock market by market capitalization at US$5.5 trillion as of April 2018.

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How on earth does 35% of 5.5 trillion equal a billion???

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I find it so strange that people like yourself are unable to understand that while tariffs hurt both sides, it can be an effective tool to bring about change. They are not the solution, but merely part of a strategy to get to a solution.

If we take tariffs off the table, why would China ever consider any change? In the previous arrangement, we lose and they win. With tariffs, we lose some, they lose alot. Continue this for a while and they'll come to the table to negotiate something that is better for both sides. At that time, we reduce or end tariffs.

This really isn't that hard to understand.

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Exactly SlackMaster. And we did not START IT, they did when they entered WTO almost two decades ago, we are just finally responding, and to a far lesser degree than their tactics.