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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Spengler: Tariffs Are Not the Way to Beat China |
| 2018-06-24 |
| [PJMedia] America is stumbling into a trade war with China that just might undo most of the good that the Trump Administration has done for other parts of our economic policy. Yes, China is a huge threat to the United States. I've been shouting this from the rooftops for the past five years, while the neo-conservative conventional wisdom held that China would collapse of its own weight. Yes, China is determined to overtake us in critical technologies. And yes, China plays dirty. As it stands the Trump Administration's China policy will lose us the war, and I hate it when that happens. With apologies to J.M. Barrie, the Administration has drifted into Navarro-Navarro Land. If we want to stay ahead of China we have to revive American innovation. You can't revive American innovation as long as they steal any advance you make and produce it at half the price - cheap labor + government subsidies for taking over the market by selling below production costs ...Tariffs won't do much. The Trump Administration appears to think that the threat of tariffs will scare the Chinese into giving up their technological ambitions. They won't. Tariffs will hurt us as much as they hurt the Chinese, and the Chinese are much better at taking pain than we are. IMO, Obama era and tolerance for the current left wing hooliganism argue otherwise. ...A trade deal to reduce the deficit might be well and good, but it doesn't solve our problem. In that respect I agree with the so-called hardliners, namely trade adviser Peter Navarro: the real issue is China's attempt to leapfrog the US in critical technologies. In a report issued Tuesday, Navarro cited six forms of Chinese "economic aggression": 1: State-sponsored IP theft through physical theft, cyber-enabled espionage and theft, evasion of US export-control laws, and counterfeiting and piracy. 2: Coercive and intrusive regulatory gambits to force technology transfers from foreign companies, typically in exchange for limited access to the Chinese market. 3: Economic coercion through export restraints on critical raw materials and monopsony purchasing power. 4: Methods of information harvesting that include open-source collection; placement of non-traditional information collectors at US universities, national laboratories, and other centers of innovation. 5: Talent recruitment of business, finance, science, and technology experts. 6: State-backed, technology-seeking Chinese investment. ...Tariffs won't work. A tariff war might succeed in reducing China's growth rate substantially and tipping the US into recession. But it won't stop China's gradual advance. What should we do? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #5 Tariffs are a bad idea. In the end, the American consumer will suffer. Actually, ALL consumers will suffer. Enough with mercantilism. If Country A undercuts Country B on everything, eventually nobody in Country B will have a job . . . . |
| Posted by: gorb 2018-06-24 23:55 |
| #4 Egon said to cross the satellite beams over china duh! |
| Posted by: Jack Chaiter7913 2018-06-24 22:30 |
| #3 ...yeah, just ignore currency manipulation, stealing trade and manufacturing secrets, et al. It's all about exporting unemployment. No one plays free trade. Everyone watches out for themselves and looking for gullible rubes to exploit. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-06-24 13:34 |
| #2 Tariffs are a bad idea. In the end, the American consumer will suffer. Actually, ALL consumers will suffer. Enough with mercantilism. |
| Posted by: Clem 2018-06-24 13:02 |
| #1 It's not about beating China. It's what works best for the American people. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-06-24 07:39 |