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> Trump said on Wednesday that China is mistaken if it hopes to negotiate trade later with a Democratic presidential administration. What is that supposed to mean? That there won’t be another administration in the future is how it sounds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please try not to flamebait, particularly with political topics, on HN. Aside from the actual topic at hand — China — the big pillars of Economic growth, immigration, healthcare, North Korea, the Middle East, national security, ISIS, and NATO are all massive issues that US continues to struggle with and has for decades (well, ISIS is a recent spinoff of an older problem). Trump has set a great direction in Iraq/Afgha…
I don't know if the depiction here displays all the nuances that's being described: (Minor edit: I want to emphasize I'm not trying to challenge for any political chargement, even though this is a politically charged area. I'm mostly interested because this is drastically different from my understanding, and believe this is an educated viewpoint from different sources that I lack in my life. I'm looking to be appropr…
[We should be using less oil every year, but as much as possible it should be US oil (we have to trade for varieties of oil that our refineries are setup to make gas from).]
2. We do not have a peace treaty with Kim, but relations are still markedly improved, particularly between North and South Korea. Kim was threatening to nuke Guam not that long ago, and testing missiles and underground nukes constantly. We’ve stepped back from the precipice. Kim walking away is part of the negotiating. Even if Trump is ultimately not 100% successful, his hard line and hard charging rhetoric still accomplished a lot with North Korea and didn’t give up anything.
3. Information sharing on who is coming into the country is essential for TSA to do their job. They need more than just the basic passenger manifests to know about who is traveling. This isn’t about illegal mass surveillance but basic systems we already had in place for many countries which were missing from even higher risk countries.
Trump absolutely uses disruption as a tool to effect rapid change. It’s impossible to know if he could have forced the countries on the travel ban list to put the systems in place without the ban to force action.
4. Yes, NATO is crucially important and the US is paying more than our fair share. There is a specific % of GDP countries are expected to pay and the US far exceeds it.
5. If ISIS was thriving you bet that it would be Trump’s fault. Generally the President at the time gets the blame and the credit for the result of wars, being the Commander in Chief.
6. Specifically Trump wants to stop incentivizing illegal immigration by closing loopholes like Catch and Release at the border, as well as increased border security, to disincentivize people and especially families from attempting the trip. Bringing a child along should not be a free ticket to remain if you are merely an economic migrant.
The media called it a manufactured crisis because they don’t want to talk about bad policy incentivizing dangerous behavior which is leading to a humanitarian crisis. The border is totally inundated with illegal immigrant families coming over, and those people need to be processed and accounted for even if you are going to turn around and just release them into the interior.
7. The Republican plan was always stated by Trump as repeal and replace. The Republican platform does stand for protecting pre-existing conditions. There are a lot of things that are not great about ACA, mostly around Medicaid expansion and how the credits work as effectively one of the biggest tax increases on the middle class ever. By the way, it is problematic if you protect pre-existing conditions to the point where someone doesn’t need to buy insurance until they get sick. ACA tried to prevent this with enrollment periods, but it can be gamed.
8. On the economy there are a massive number of things Trump has done. The biggest and most visible was going to war with the Fed when they badly misjudged with rate hikes. But slashing regulation mainly, and the tax cuts, played a big part.
9. Back to China, notably, Lou He did not cancel his trip. It’s too early to call, but past approaches have absolutely failed and the China markets took a much bigger hit after the new tariffs news came out than the US. IMO China will only respect a hardline negotiator who they know can and will use blunt instruments to force them to make concessions. I don’t know if Trump ultimately prevails but I think it’s the best chance we’ve got.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t know why and I am not a Chinese citizen but this kind of thing bothers me deeply. I hope Streisand effect takes over China in a self-propelling feedback loop until this whole show comes crashing down. People of China deserve better (once they’re a solid middle class and taken out of poverty).
> People of China deserve better (once they’re a solid middle class and taken out of poverty). You are implying that the current policies will bring them out of poverty which in a sense contradicts your first statement.
In that sense, China is (IMHO) actually an outlier, an exception where a Communist regime used fully capitalistic economic policies and foreign investment to bring people out of poverty. This could have happened even if there was a different form of government there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The facts say differently: GDP growing around 3%. US net exports up about $55b. Unemployment 50 year low. Minority unemployment record low. Non-farm payrolls up by about 3%. Business confidence (Fed Ind Businesses) highest in 45 years. (sources) https://www.whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishme... https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/how-trump-has-set-economic-g...
Presidents (of both parties) like to take credit for those kinds of economic results. In reality the federal reserve and what they are doing with interest rates and the money supply is mostly responsible for economic cycling, not the president.
I think this is a very strange development. I'm a bit surprised they would backtrack at all. Rather in the past they've agreed to various regulations and laws and ... just not enacted or simply enacted and not followed them. That last part being the real question in all these details, does it matter if a deal gets made anyway? If anything the traditional route would have allowed the POTUS to declare victory and every…
I suspect Xi wants this dispute to continue for internal Chinese reasons. The tariffs impact different sectors and regions in China differently. It may be continued tariffs are reducing overcapacity in a manner that allows Xi to save face internally. It could be the tarrifs are breaking the back of powerful exporting provinces (eg. Jiagnsu) and helping Xi consolidate power. It may also be the case that things need to…
Xi is being publicly called out by Trump. He cannot fold because the Chinese people are at least as patriotic and nationalistic as your average American. Instead of making this a civilised conference resolving trade issues its a pissing match between two superpowers. This is exactly the situation that the EU has tried to avoid with its own dealings with these two alpha male gorillas. If we were dealing with rational…
I suspect Xi wants this dispute to continue for internal Chinese reasons. The tariffs impact different sectors and regions in China differently. It may be continued tariffs are reducing overcapacity in a manner that allows Xi to save face internally. It could be the tarrifs are breaking the back of powerful exporting provinces (eg. Jiagnsu) and helping Xi consolidate power. It may also be the case that things need to…
This is a feature of the US administration's approach to negotiation, driven by various motivations. China is not without leverage, and the US will blink first.
I think this is a very strange development. I'm a bit surprised they would backtrack at all. Rather in the past they've agreed to various regulations and laws and ... just not enacted or simply enacted and not followed them. That last part being the real question in all these details, does it matter if a deal gets made anyway? If anything the traditional route would have allowed the POTUS to declare victory and every…
They're hoping for a democratic administration in 2020 to negotiate with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The import tariffs are paid by the people inside the importing nation. A US import tax on Chinese goods is a tax on American consumers and manufacturers. The way to tax China itself would be an export tax on money bound to China, including the transfers of immobile or intangible assets to Chinese nationals or corporations via domestic exchanges or brokerages--and including the cash value of transferred intellectual p…
Another way to wipe out a history of past trade imbalances would be to announce the retirement of the domestic currency, citing counterfeiting or hacking, hyperinflation, or whatever else that may sound plausible. You then allow only your own nationals to exchange old money for new money. In order to avoid losing all of the value of their old money, foreign holders would have to buy something from a domestic person,…
Maybe China was just playing time and trying to time the trade conflict. US elections are next year. If the trade war escalates this summer, the effect on voters and the US economy will be hardest 6 to 12 months from now. After that the US economy will start to adjust for the new normal.