Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 385 posts

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#31

Post by justicezyx »

adventured wrote: post #21
apo wrote: post #4

Some hard-liners want a more aggressive stance. Lou Jiwei, who retired as finance minister in 2016 but is still the head of the country’s social security fund, suggested on Sunday that China could deliberately disrupt American companies’ supply chains by halting the export of crucial components mostly made in China. But Chinese trade experts dismiss that idea as impractical and not the government’s position. If anyth…

It would no doubt be disruptive, temporarily. And it would also prompt a multi hundred billion dollar redirection of investment into moving those supply lines to other countries. Vietnam would love to get some more of China's tech manufacturing action, as would a dozen other developing countries. Others would welcome gains to be had in apparel or autos by moves like that by China. One of the biggest problems China ha…

> One of the biggest problems China has in this trade war: they're entirely replaceable. They offer nothing strictly unique that can't be replaced by another country, even though there may be a serious cost involved.

I cannot see evidences that China is particularly more so than any other country.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#32

Post by adventured »

ThomPete wrote: post #24
cthalupa wrote: post #3

>Proponents of the plan say letting Washington impose more tariffs than Beijing would actually hurt the United States more because tariffs are ultimately paid by consumers and businesses in the countries that levy them. Well, this is actually the fundamental problem, isn't it? There's no way actual trade evens out, so tariffs are the only real outcome here. Even if we "win", it's not actually winning.

Winning is reaching a better agreement than we have now. China is still considered a developing country by the WTO, it's very difficult to get into the Chinese market and they don't actually enforce IP rights which is a problem both for the US and EU.

The EU does indeed have the same issues. The single best move Trump can make, is to resolve NAFTA (looks likely), then strike a deal with the EU (also looks likely), along with Japan (up in the air).

The EU has very openly stated that they have the exact same problems with China as the US does. They couldn't any further telegraph their interest in conspiring with the US to tame China's abuses. Indeed it may be the only way to do it, you need truly immense pressure to get China to change behavior, more than the US can bring to the table by itself.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#34

Post by tabtab »

It's a game of chicken. T is okay with the unpredictability of that game, for he thrives on, well, let's say "activity". China's gov't is, on the other hand, more conservative and cautious by nature. They must feel really rattled. (I'm not picking a winner yet.)

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#35

Post by tambourine_man »

adventured wrote: post #21
apo wrote: post #4

Some hard-liners want a more aggressive stance. Lou Jiwei, who retired as finance minister in 2016 but is still the head of the country’s social security fund, suggested on Sunday that China could deliberately disrupt American companies’ supply chains by halting the export of crucial components mostly made in China. But Chinese trade experts dismiss that idea as impractical and not the government’s position. If anyth…

It would no doubt be disruptive, temporarily. And it would also prompt a multi hundred billion dollar redirection of investment into moving those supply lines to other countries. Vietnam would love to get some more of China's tech manufacturing action, as would a dozen other developing countries. Others would welcome gains to be had in apparel or autos by moves like that by China. One of the biggest problems China ha…

I’m not sure. Tim Cook seemed to suggest the iPhone couldn’t be manufactured anywhere else.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#36

Post by lgleason »

As much as some people here may hate Trump, the fact is that he was right when we said that it is difficult for us to lose a trade war with China since we import more from them than we export. Is there going to be some short term pain? Absolutely! But, long term it is likely to create more jobs in the US. As an extra bonus, there won't be as much of a carbon footprint for shipping things half way around the world and we might begin to focus on quality instead of quantity which what we consume if the labor is now a larger part of the price...

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#37

Post by pdwetz »

sgslo wrote: post #19
jandrewrogers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There was no income tax for the majority of US history, and tariffs were a major source of revenue for the government back then.

I didn't know this was the case, thank you for sharing. For anyone else reading, it appears federal income tax was first implemented in 1913, more reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...

Not quite; from same link, "President Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress introduced in 1861 the first personal income tax in the United States." It was declared unconstitutional in 1895 by the Supreme Court, prompting the constitutional amendment.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#38

Post by SubiculumCode »

enitihas wrote: post #12

I initially used to think China might have more leverage against any potential trade war agains the US, as: 1. The Chinese had option of imposing high tariffs on politically significant US agricultural products, like soyabean, which are not very large in $ value, but affect a lot of areas. 2. Since some swing states are highly influential in US elections, the Chinese always had the option of imposing tariffs which im…

Point number two has been preoccupying my brain the last few months. Our system of electing presidents tend to hinge on several swing states, and in those states, a few key districts, and this means that our elections are vulnerable to foreign influence much more so than if, say, presidents were elected by popular vote.

Protecting elections may mean ending winner take all electoral college system.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#39

Post by Retric »

justicezyx wrote: post #31
adventured wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would no doubt be disruptive, temporarily. And it would also prompt a multi hundred billion dollar redirection of investment into moving those supply lines to other countries. Vietnam would love to get some more of China's tech manufacturing action, as would a dozen other developing countries. Others would welcome gains to be had in apparel or autos by moves like that by China. One of the biggest problems China ha…

> One of the biggest problems China has in this trade war: they're entirely replaceable. They offer nothing strictly unique that can't be replaced by another country, even though there may be a serious cost involved. I cannot see evidences that China is particularly more so than any other country.

Saudi Oil is a commodity, but many country’s don’t have oil. Every country has low skilled workers.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#40

Post by adventured »

JackFr wrote: post #20
cthalupa wrote: post #3

>Proponents of the plan say letting Washington impose more tariffs than Beijing would actually hurt the United States more because tariffs are ultimately paid by consumers and businesses in the countries that levy them. Well, this is actually the fundamental problem, isn't it? There's no way actual trade evens out, so tariffs are the only real outcome here. Even if we "win", it's not actually winning.

Additionally when we import from China, we pay with dollars. China can either buy US goods with the dollars, or buy US assets (typically Treasury bonds) with the dollars. If you end the trade surplus with China, you end a cheap source of funding for the US government. Not clear if this is a feature or a bug.

China hasn't net added much to its treasury holdings in 15 years (it hit around $1 trillion back in 2003, it's now at ~$1.2 trillion). In that time they've probably run a $4 trillion trade surplus. Clearly that isn't how it works at this point, they're intentionally avoiding buying more US paper.

In that time US debt has gone from $6.7t to $21t. Their share has gone from 15% or so, to 5.7%. They're no longer a funding source for new US debt, and are no longer a critical funding source of existing debt (although hey, it's nice to have them squatting on that trillion dollars and not liquidating it).

Post reply on HN