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The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

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Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#51

Post by TremendousJudge »

strangescript wrote: post #37
diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

Having better beef doesn't translate to building weapons or global communication networks. Spinning up a new cattle ranch if supply is cut off is trivial. They are not on the same level. The movements we are seeing now are matters of national security.

Having access to food is most definitely a matter of national security. If you get your ports cut off you can't increase local food production before mass starvation.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#52

Post by goodbyesf »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

> Now the whole Southeast Asia is competing with rich countries in industrial goods and protectionism is not protectionism anymore, is "decoupling".

Just like bribery in 3rd world is corruption but here, it's called lobbying ( cost of doing business ).

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#53

Post by jszymborski »

woooooo wrote: post #14
sdfghswe wrote: post #12

> Biden’s “friend-shoring” initiatives What's CRAZY to me is why this hasn't always been the case. Who thought it was a good idea to depend on unfriendly countries like China? Right, I know who thought that. Those who also claimed "if we trade with them enough, they'll like us" did. Fuck depending on China, or Russia, for that matter. The West should have all its critical dependencies within it. At most we could get…

They weren't unfriendly until we decided to make them so about 5 years ago. Policymakers in the late 90s couldn't necessarily predict swings in American opinion 20 years later.

They weren't unfriendly, but they were always brutal oppressive regimes. By trading with them, we became complicit in that.

Also, I take issue with the idea that we "made" them unfriendly. I'm pretty sure China and Russia can take responsibility for their own foreign policy.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#54

Post by fnordpiglet »

My fear is decoupling just sets the stage for a global war. We’ve decoupled Russia, Iran, North Korea. With China we have a legitimate fully integrated axis capable of producing independently with legitimate and perceived global grievances, and the means and will to exercise force.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#55

Post by sudosysgen »

jszymborski wrote: post #39
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is all about dependency trees. The US decides to divert imports from China to other countries, which in turn may import from China. This is already happening with more than ~80% of products that are "Made in Vietnam" and at least ~40% of products that are "Made in Korea." Not only do the raw materials come from China, but most of the work is done in China. The product is shipped overland from a Chinese factory t…

> The product is shipped overland from a Chinese factory to Vietnam or Korea, then some screws are tightened, some paint is slapped on, or a label is applied, and the product is re-exported. The whole point of this article is to rebute the point you've made. From the article: > The Economist’s basic argument is that because many of the goods exported to the U.S. from countries like Vietnam contain a lot of parts and…

Total 2023 Chinese exports are projected to be fairly close to what they were in 2021, which is not that bad given macroeconomic trends across the world.

The risk for companies to build supply chains that completely avoid China is that they will be outcompeted by competitors who won't and who will make use of these loopholes.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#56

Post by sudosysgen »

prepend wrote: post #38
reisse wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe Chinese statistics, you can check that US import from China is back to pre-COVID volumes and rising. Honestly, I'm tired of this "oh they're totalitarian, so we cannot believe their statistics when it's good" stance. It looks so much like a comfortable self-deceit.

> Honestly, I'm tired of this "oh they're totalitarian, so we cannot believe their statistics when it's good" stance. It looks so much like a comfortable self-deceit. I’m tired of it too, but I think it’s better than “not use any data points” or “trust the super subjective data points put out by a totalitarian regime so they aren’t comparable to other countries.” I don’t think the US is perfect, but economic indicato…

Export data has a counterparty though, so I don't see how it's anything more than a thought terminating cliché.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#57

Post by 8note »

nradov wrote: post #34
woooooo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to be perfectly cordial without being a US client state. Why should they have to be "in the fold"?

It is impossible to have cordial relations with China while they are threatening to invade our ally Taiwan, and building artificial islands as military outposts in the South China Sea. The unfortunate reality is that China is now our enemy. That situation will persist and probably worsen at least until Xi is replaced.

If china declared Puerto Rico to be it's ally and started building military bases there without US permission, the US would do more than threaten to invade Puerto Rico, it'd do it immediately

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#58

Post by lefstathiou »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

I think decoupling is the right word. These south East Asian countries were unindustrialized nations before the hundreds of billions of foreign direct investment and hundreds of billions of intellectual property that transferred from the West to the East.

America exported its manufacturing know how for decades, and now it is taking it back as the trade is no longer as favorable. Seems rational to me. SE Asia came out a huge winner in the process, and now the time has come to stand up their tech and manufacturing in their own.

Much ado about nothing imho.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#59

Post by nradov »

xvilka wrote: post #43
nradov wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no consensus among the BRICS or other countries. All of them would like to have alternatives to the US Dollar for international trade settlement. None of them can agree on what that alternative should be. For example, there's no way that India will agree to widespread use of the Chinese Yuan.

In theory it can be done by creating a new currency, with no capital controls.

No, that can't be done without some sort of political monetary union. India and China will never agree to join the same monetary union. Their interests aren't aligned. Russia has to maintain good relations with both India and China, and can't afford to piss off either one. And South Africa is rapidly collapsing into a failed state with a dysfunctional economy; lately they can't even keep the lights on. It's all just talk, a total joke.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#60

Post by nstart »

From the article, wrt how the economist claims that decoupling is phoney because the underlying export by china in the process remains the same:

> Startlingly, however, The Economist provides no actual data to support this claim.

Ha! This was a reason I unsubscribed from the economist. A lot of times it makes broad claims and then leaves out the details to support said claim. Almost like it expects the reader to treat the economist like a first hand source and therefore no citation needed.

Good on the author for calling this out and then rebutting with details of their own (not necessarily supporting author’s claims though since I haven’t had time to really think about it just yet).

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