Tariffs, trade war

Good! Especially if they enforce it against big apparel makers. So far, they have gotten around sanctions by lumping it all rogether and claiming that they are not responsible as it is outsourced to “independent” suppliers. Time to crack down.

1 Like

The Biden administration imposed trade restrictions on more than 30 Chinese entities on Thursday for human rights violations and the alleged development of “brain-control weaponry.”

China’s bullying of Lithuania to backfire as EU could retaliate.

1 Like

Time to send China a nice big bill, add the 200 billion promised to their tab, along with the other trillions in damage China caused.

Noting in thread that Russia started the invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24th 2022.

China allegedly knew ahead of time that this would be happening since news came out today that Xi Jinping requested Putin wait to invade Ukraine until after the Beijing Olympics.

This follows a long pattern of cooperation and “event-mirroring” between Moscow and Beijing, as they use geopolitical issues of NATO and Taiwan as pawns to drive their Trade and Resources agenda in the face of crushing sanctions and blacklists from the west across the tech and energy industry.

Biden in January declined to drop the tariffs because China failed to meet its purchasing goals, further driving China to the edge. The decoupling continues to evolve, and now we watch as the dynamic shifts around the invasion of Ukraine, and China’s zero-covid policy impacts on the supply chain.

How will the west leverage the Trade War with China? Will they offer to drop the tariffs in exchange for China to sanction Russia? Will see how things unfold.

1 Like

Woke of course. Blackrock ESG is leading the way. How will most firms in China score on the woke ESG index?

1 Like
  • After President Joe Biden was elected in late 2020, there was a spike in optimism among businesses, with 45% of respondents expecting better U.S.-China relations, the American Chamber of Commerce in China’s annual survey of members found.
  • That level of optimism has dropped to 27% of respondents in the latest survey — conducted in fall 2021 — the same as when Donald Trump was president and enacted tougher policies on China.
  • “What we’ve seen over the course of the last year is that there’s a new reality that has set in, where largely speaking many of the policies and sentiment of the Trump administration remain in place with the Biden administration,” Alan Beebe, president, AmCham China, said Tuesday in a call with reporters.

In addition to pressure on US businesses in China, Biden has moved to ban Russian Oil imports today, likely putting more pressure, with prices expected to increase across the board.

Could be the mother of all sheet-storms that the West never put into their equation (if it happens, of course).

The king of shit economy Turkey is obviously gonna be the lord of saviour for the queen of shit economy Russia.

The one thing these two losers have in common is that both their currencies saw a spectacular collapse within a very short time frame. Both of these economies are smaller than Taiwan now, btw. Turkey used to be close but Lira is now like 40% of what it used to be in 2020. Russia was about twice the size before the invasion, and ruble lost almost half its value within 14 days. I’m sure together they will rock the ship and overcome the sanctions, lol.

Maybe you are not following what is happening in the commodity markets.
That’s okay. Carry on.

I am, and you know which country had the highest inflation in 2021? Turkey.

Correct, and Russian is an autarky, exports a ton of commods, and China is a manufacturer. Turkey is in NATO, but the EU doesn’t want Turkey. All kinds of things going on over in that part of the world.

Russia is not as much of an autarky as you think. They love advertising it, but Russia is more reliant on international trade than the US or Japan. Russia also only exports oil and gas, which are far easier to replace than say electronic circuits or financial services.

China is a manufacturer, but Russia is not an important trade partner to China as it’s always been a shit economy. Largest trade partners for China are the US, the EU, SEA, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Russia is not even top 10. Why would China sacrifice their business with other far more reliable trade partners for a useless, poor as shit one?

And? Turkey is terribly governed and is not particularly relevant. At this point it’s about half as large as Taiwan as an economy. Exactly how would they be able to meaningfully mitigate the sanctions for Russia?

Russia only exports oil and gas?
Not wheat, nickel, copper, and other commods. I think you need a better data source.

None of which are essential like oil and gas. If the West can handle a Russian oil and gas embargo, the impact of a Russian wheat/copper/nickel embargo would be a non-issue.

Nickel and copper are used for EV. That plan goes out the window, too.
Don’t forget palladium and neon gas (from Ukraine). TSMC has just 6 months worth (of neon), and this “conflict” ain’t going to be over in 6 months.

The Biden administration will allow some Chinese imports to avoid Trump-era tariffs.

The move comes after months of complaints by business groups that the Biden administration was not doing enough to alleviate financial pain from the Trump trade war.

The decision announced on Wednesday reinstates 352 of the 549 eligible exemptions, keeping them in place through the end of 2022.

Coward move by the Biden Admin – this is a signal to China that they can keep doing what they have been doing on all fronts including their Militarization of SCS, threats of invading Taiwan, ongoing Uighur Genocide, Axis ties with Russia/N.Korea/Iran/Pakistan, and more…

Biden Admin made concessions to China this quarter by reinstating product exclusions – signaling to China that they can continue with their CCP insanity – and surprise, now Biden Admin says the worsening China-Challenge will eclipse the Russia-Crisis in the long term. Hmm, switching back to Decoupling after seeing concessions yield absolutely nothing for the West? (hoping the Biden Admin has learned a lesson from this) Meanwhile China is still begging for all remaining tariffs to be removed - while simultaneously locking down major ports and “imprisoning” cities of people creating mass supply and labor shortages. Ripples from Shanghai lockdowns will continue to impact globally as we head into summer.

China’s strict pandemic policies have shuttered factories and prevented ships from unloading and picking up cargo.

^ Per article – In my opinion this is the whole point for China’s zero-covid policy, it’s actually their tool for fighting the trade war, gives China full power to shutter factories at will, prevent ships from docking, and stop shipments.

Meanwhile, 4 yrs into the Trade War / 2yrs into Pandemic, and the TW JDM’s are still clinging to China. Only now are they seriously looking into other options. Kind of a shame its taking this long for them to understand the sheer gravity of the situation…