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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

#231

Post by woooooo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #141
woooooo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puerto Rico is a terrible example. Cuba is a much better one, it's not even hypothetical.

> Cuba is a much better one, it's not even hypothetical America doesn't claim Cuba as its territory. If China requested parity with Taiwan in respect of America's relations with Cuba (recognition of sovereignty, trade restrictions and no American military presence there), it would be a good deal for everyone.

Monroe doctrine, baby. The whole hemisphere is our territory :)

We've punished Cuba continually for 70 years for having a government that we didn't approve.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#232

Post by hnfong »

orbital-decay wrote: post #189
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…

Good thing you mentioned Japan. It was a huge competitor to the US in 80s and 90s in industrial products, yet nobody considered restricting the trade with it.

LOL

Trade issues with Japan dominated relationships, especially the threat that American automobile and high tech industries would be overwhelmed. Japan's economic miracle emerged from a systematic program of subsidized investment in strategic industries—steel, machinery, electronics, chemicals, autos, shipbuilding, and aircraft.[118][119] During Reagan's first term Japanese government and private investors held a third of the debt sold by the US Treasury, providing Americans with hard currency used to buy Japanese goods.[120] In March 1985 the Senate voted 92–0 in favor of a Republican resolution that condemned Japan's trade practices as "unfair" and called on President Reagan curb Japanese imports.[121]

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#233

Post by woooooo »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #116
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"?

By the the fold I meant a country that generally plays by internationally accepted customs and cordiality, not a "US client state". If a country invites you to their joint military exercise, you don't spy on them during the exercise. This is basic common sense.

Add up the populations of the countries that were party to the formation of your "internationally accepted customs".

Then add up the population who weren't consulted.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#234

Post by dekervin »

nstart wrote: post #60

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 trea…

You too can do add data on vaguely ideological articles using datapeek[0] ! I think it's perfectly relevant here.

[0] https://datum.alwaysdata.net/

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#235

Post by nradov »

somenameforme wrote: post #203
dotnet00 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, China, Russia and India for instance are not at risk of being dominated by the US. All 3 individually had and even still have the ability to have a similar status as the EU. Their primary complaint is that they wish they were hegemons, except to them hegemony means being far more of an asshole to those you dominate than the US's terms. Thus their need to try to force the issue rather than naturally ending…

Here's a couple of great links I might recommend. This [1] is about US involvement in regime change including "at least 81 overt and covert known interventions in foreign elections during the period 1946–2000" and "64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change during the Cold War." And here [2] is a list of the countries we've invaded which, depending on how exactly you measure it, starts in the 60+ range. The wo…

So what? None of that is really relevant to global trade, or the currencies used to settle such trades. Nor does it make Russia, India, and China likely to cooperate. Regardless of what the USA might have done years ago, the interests of the major BRICS members aren't aligned today.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#236

Post by woooooo »

jszymborski wrote: post #74
woooooo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait till you hear about Saudi Arabia.

I mean, this is just the inevitable outcome with autocracies/absolute monarchies. I think we should just assume that countries that are not liberal democracies are poor trading partners and not aligned with the interests of oter liberal democracies.

What about our relationship with the Saudis says "poor trading partner"?

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#237

Post by chokolad »

sdfghswe wrote: post #210
chokolad wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in your opinion why is it that it worked the countries in Europe, but not for West vs China/Russia? It would've absolutely worked for Russia, if the EU was offering it path to EU membership together with Ukraine instead of forcing Ukraine to choose between tighter economic/political integration between its two neighbors. Time for that was early 2000s, but Europe and USA chose otherwise.

Well, Russia isn't entitled to anything. As a European I wouldn't want corrupt countries like Ukraine and Russia accepted in without _deep_ reform. Ok so why didn't it work for China then? What's your explanation for that?

> Well, Russia isn't entitled to anything. As a European I wouldn't want corrupt countries like Ukraine and Russia accepted in without _deep_ reform.

Well, Europe is not entitled to anything either. With that attitude we ended up where we are.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#238

Post by whats_a_quasar »

pphysch wrote: post #220
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that I'm using "ally" informally, to mean that the country would be in the U.S. camp if there is a direct confrontation between the U.S. and China in the future. The U.S. doesn't have mutual defense treaties with either. I'm basing that claim on public opinion - the publics Vietnam loves America and distrusts China. The public of Mexico like both nations, though geography means manufacturing in Mexico ca…

> You're right that I'm using "ally" informally, to mean that the country would be in the U.S. camp if there is a direct confrontation between the U.S. and China in the future. The government of Vietnam has emphasized that it will not "choose" between US or China. ASEAN nations in general feel this way. They oppose war itself, and can't be tricked into taking sides in one instigated by Washington (or Beijing). > Viet…

Yikes, silly mistake, thanks for noting that.

The numbers for Vietnamese citizens are similar. Vietnam one of the most pro-American, anti-Chinese countries in the world. 76% favorable for the U.S., 78% unfavorable for China, though the dataset is older. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/07/14/chapter-1-the-... https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/07/14/chapter-2-chin...

We've gotten a bit far from the original point - for the purposes of the U.S. supply chain, Vietnamese government neutrality and strong public support is plenty to negate the risk that the country suddenly cuts off the supply chain. My original point is that de-coupling from China is a national security decision, not protectionism, and production is moving to Vietnam because it's a friendlier country than

Informally, I do think Vietnam can be considered a U.S. ally. China is signaling a desire to expand, and most of its neighbors consider it the biggest threat to their security. There's a reason that Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all among the countries that have the highest opinion of the U.S. It's not a trick - they are acting in their own security interests.

Vietnamese neutrality makes perfect sense, and I don't think they'd get involved in a war that didn't involve them. But the country is certainly friendly enough to rely on for the U.S. supply chain.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#239

Post by EGreg »

nradov wrote: post #235
somenameforme wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple of great links I might recommend. This [1] is about US involvement in regime change including "at least 81 overt and covert known interventions in foreign elections during the period 1946–2000" and "64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change during the Cold War." And here [2] is a list of the countries we've invaded which, depending on how exactly you measure it, starts in the 60+ range. The wo…

So what? None of that is really relevant to global trade, or the currencies used to settle such trades. Nor does it make Russia, India, and China likely to cooperate. Regardless of what the USA might have done years ago, the interests of the major BRICS members aren't aligned today.

Why do you think it's "years ago"? It's scarcely a year since USA left Afghanistan ending a 20-year occupation. Trump refused to leave Iraq despite its government unaniously voting for USA to leave: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraq-asks-u...

In Yemen, the US-led airstrikes have bombed hospitals, markets, etc. as recently as a couple years ago, leading to the largest humanitarian disaster in the world: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...

In multiple countries across Africa, US-trained officers have led numerous coups: https://theintercept.com/2022/03/09/intercepted-podcast-afri...

Yes, it's true that USA seems to have stopped overthrowing governments in South America (if you don't count the coup in Honduras, or our upcoming invasion of Haiti). But countries across south America remember the decades of overthrowing governments and installing our puppets there. And countries across Africa are seeing it today.

Collectively, the "global south" and the "middle east" doesn't have a great view of the USA. So it's not surprising that many of them are joining BRICS as a way to have some allies against US aggression and hegemony, or at least counter its financial dominance with the dollar, world bank and IMF. It's not unlike the governments of countries that experienced USSR's aggression and hegemony seeking to join NATO, in order to have some allies against USSR, and now against Russia. It's not necessary for all their interests to align, in order for some of them to align. "The enemy of their enemy is their friend", is very much in play here.

But you can go further, beyond governments and politicians (as I like to do) and look at polls of regular people around the world. It's not very favorable to USA. Not just "years ago", but let's just look at the last 20 years. The public in our allied countries in Europe named USA as the greatest threat to world peace:

2002: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2003/12/10/anti-america...

2007: https://www.ft.com/content/70046760-27f0-11dc-80da-000b5df10...

Across the rest of the world:

2014: https://nypost.com/2014/01/05/us-is-the-greatest-threat-to-w...

2021: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-demo...

2022: https://thewire.in/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato-responsib...

2007: https://www.ft.com/content/70046760-27f0-11dc-80da-000b5df10...

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#240

Post by whats_a_quasar »

pphysch wrote: post #220
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that I'm using "ally" informally, to mean that the country would be in the U.S. camp if there is a direct confrontation between the U.S. and China in the future. The U.S. doesn't have mutual defense treaties with either. I'm basing that claim on public opinion - the publics Vietnam loves America and distrusts China. The public of Mexico like both nations, though geography means manufacturing in Mexico ca…

> You're right that I'm using "ally" informally, to mean that the country would be in the U.S. camp if there is a direct confrontation between the U.S. and China in the future. The government of Vietnam has emphasized that it will not "choose" between US or China. ASEAN nations in general feel this way. They oppose war itself, and can't be tricked into taking sides in one instigated by Washington (or Beijing). > Viet…

Also with interesting timing, Vietnam is going to bump the U.S. up a level to a "comprehensive strategic partner" within their diplomatic framework: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/01/...
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