China & Tariffs

Dow down over 700 today. Good going Pres. Keep dividing everyone.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chin...sz0OsnEKFJTn-SAt5-BmixJcScNW7uSRYvxIKoMuTEMV6

 

Take out the politics of trade negotiations (I guess which is hard to do)
when one country raises tariffs it is normal and expected for the other
country to do likewise. Our current back aand forth with China appears
the president is shooting from the hip and has little or no experience
in this sort of affair, but i suppose many people like this.

 

The Huffington Post rarely tells the rest of the story but neither do many of the other rags and Teleprompter stuck “journalists”.
What most of the media is reporting is that the DOW took a dip because the Chinese are retaliating against D. Trump’s announcement concerning the raise in tariffs on Chinese goods.
What most of the media ISN’T talking about is the Chinese Yuan took a dump recently and it’s worth less than it was even a week ago compared to the U.S. dollar.
What I suspect is that they are attempting to recoup some of the money they are losing on the world market by placing a higher tariff on goods from ANY country and not just the U.S.
Whilst the former rationalization is really great for yet another attempt to Further denigrate the president, it’s only a half truth which is all that the news seems to be able to produce any more.

 

Well, maybe they want our president to bow to every leader in the world like good ol’ B.O.

 

That's politics. I think the democrats have had much leaarning that they cant trust republicans. If republicans go to war int must be strictly for profit (oil; land, whatever) and no other good reason.
By the same token, Republicans can't trust democrats, thus your comment and general distrust in politics. Doesn't have t be any logic in it. I would think.

 

Sorry Bill but...… of course no democrat ever had anything to do with rubber and sugar cane in Vietnam which was, after all the real reason behind the American entrance into the war.
Uh....would someone please look up some of the holdings of two particular democrat presidents prior to the republican president who resigned over a setup?

But true, it doesn't take a whole lot for one party to distrust the other over something a heckova lot smaller than a war.

 

Is a trade war a good or bad thing in the eyes of Americans. Are there any real winners? There was a trade war of sorts in the late 30s..over oil.. led to the devastating WW2. Isnt something similar happening today with Iran?

 

Wow, a really good question Craig.
As I understand it, the initial proposition for placing a tariff on goods imported from China was to (1) level the economic playing field. The Chinese were and are already taxing American exports sold in China which adds an additional expense on U.S. goods and making them harder to afford by the Chinese.
(2) the additional tariff on Chinese goods drives the overall consumer cost up thereby creating a need for more U.S. production of similar products.

All of that seems preferable to me for the chief reason that American workers are going back to work due to the opening and reopening of plants that were heretofore closed or even nonexistent because of a lower cost foreign product.
Note: Placing a tariff on Chinese products are added to the fact the this administration has lowered corporate and production taxes making our products even more financially desirable to the American public.

The oil thing is a paradox to me.
We are exporting oil to other countries whilst buying oil from oil producing countries. My understanding is that at one point we were buying oil from all of the countries in the Middle East but now we are buying from only those countries which are American friendly whilst neither buying nor selling to those with sanctions on them such as Iran, N. Korea, Venezuela etc.
What is confusing to me is that we (the U.S.) are quickly becoming energy independent so why are we even bothering with the overseas oil market to begin with? Stockpile the reserves first, then when it is absolutely feasible, sell to those with the higher need.
And with that note, I know of no country which does not have the capability to have it’s own energy supply whether from offshore or onshore mining so why the huge oil trading goes on in the back and forth fashion that it does is mind boggling. Gross availability versus cost of manufacture? Population versus availability? Maybe but again, dunno.

 

After WWII the U.S. was set up to carry the economic burden of the world, as no one else was capable. The system has continued into the present time, allowing most of the rest of the world to parasitize the U.S. Chine is the biggest offender at the moment, and Trump is trying to level the field a bit, nothing more. China cannot feed itself, but it dumps cheap food products, much of which is contaminated, into our markets. Go figure.

 

China cannot feed itself, but it dumps cheap food products, much of which is contaminated, into our markets. Go figure.[/QUOTE] Same is happening to Australia.

 

I often question this "free trade mentality". Up until the 70s Australia made almost everything.. hardly needed to import a thing. Life was relatively prosperous for our people with generally strong economies powering us. Then along came free trade and we were flooded with cheap imports that slowly began taking over from the locally produced goods. A snowball affect meant that the less the productivity the less Australian companies that stayed in business. Many were gobbled up by the same companies that had flooded us with their cheaper goods earlier. Like America we now have a 'shadow of its former self' manufacturing industry. Trump has done something about this. He is to be congratulated. I believe our Trump.. Clive Palmer and Labor leader Bill Shorten have plans to do something similar in my country.