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| VDH: China Would Lose a ‘Trade War' With the US‐'Gradually, then Suddenly' |
| 2025-04-15 |
| [AmericanGreatness] No one wants a "trade war" with China, or for that matter with any nation. Nonetheless, China has been waging one for years and is now locked in a tariff recalibration with the Trump administration. In this American effort to find trade parity and equity, China can do some short-term damage to the U.S., especially in terms of ceasing exports of some pharmaceuticals, phones, and computers. But ultimately, it cannot win—and will eventually lose catastrophically. It will likely accept that reality sooner rather than later. We are only in the first week of the escalating rhetoric and tariffs. But already China is appealing to its Asian rivals, Australia, and the EU to join in fighting the supposed American bully. But so far, there are understandably few takers. An exasperated China is now also running vintage Korean War-era propaganda videos of Mao Zedong bragging about how he was standing up to then-President Dwight Eisenhower. Does Beijing really believe that airing ossified threats from decades ago—issued by the greatest mass killer in human history to the one U.S. president who warned of the military-industrial complex—is going to win over neutral nations? Or maybe China thinks calls to Western nations to stop American trade "bullying" will resonate — this, from the greatest trade bully, cheat, and rogue commercial nation in history. China is running a nearly $1-trillion trade surplus with the world. Its mercantilism is the result of market manipulations, product dumping, asymmetrical tariffs, patent, copyright and technology theft, a corrupt Chinese judicial system, and Western laxity — or what might be mildly called "bullying." The U.S. accounts for about a third of China’s trade surplus, with most of the EU and Asian nations accounting for the other two-thirds. In the past, third-party nations did not appreciate the ends to which China has gone to warp the international trading system. In one sense, unable to address their deficits with China, our friends and neutrals turned to America, where they sought to make up their trade asymmetries by going China-light and running surpluses with the U.S. However much they criticize the United States, it is unlikely that European and Asian nations will join China—which imposes high tariffs and steals from them—in order to gang up on the U.S., which has tolerated massive trade deficits for decades. To the degree that the world accepts China as an international commercial rogue nation, it does so out of fear —or, again, on the assumption it can recycle its deficits with Beijing by running surpluses with the vast open American market. ...In sum, if the Trump administration can conclude first-round—good enough but not yet perfect— trade deals in the next few weeks with major EU countries, Japan, and other Asian and Pacific powerhouses, and then redirect to China, it will gain both political support and economic advantage. It also must message strategically, given that China, for a half-century, has waged a quiet trade war that has now birthed a loud reaction. So, the administration must remember that the current status quo is the aberration, and its correction is a return to normalcy. After all, in the end, the EU and Asian nations should know the difference between their protective and rules-based ally, with whom they have run up huge and unfair surpluses, and a rogue bully, whose flagrant violations of trade norms and unfair tariffs have ensured them large trade deficits. And if they don’t calibrate their economic self-interest, but act emotionally, then they should at least consider realpolitik facts, such as which nation has the larger economy, the more open political system, and the largest and most lethal military that, in extremis, would come to their aid—against a bullying China. |
| Posted by:Grom the Affective |
| #2 Conditions have changed. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2025-04-15 17:59 |
| #1 Back a few years I went to a conference with a lunch time speaker from China. He spoke beautiful unaccented English. He was asked to address the issue of intellectual property rights. He said~, "We in China are working on this but we have to work deliberately because we don't want to violate the rights of our citizens." I laughed but no one else in the conference (several hundred people) did so and they gave him a standing ovation when he finished. |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2025-04-15 10:17 |