Trump is trying to act tough by slapping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. The fact that he did this against his economic advisors and right before a Chinese trade representative was coming to the U.S., seems to make this a stance against Chinese imports. The only thing is, China is not a big exporter to the U.S. of steel and aluminum. The biggest exporter of these goods to the U.S.? Canada. So are we risking a trade war with Canada or China? Either way, it is probably not a good idea.
I think China will not react strongly to this. But if there is a trade war, Trump and whoever agrees with him in Congress will not win. Xi Jinping is in way more firm control of China than Trump is of the U.S. There is talk of changing the Chinese constitution so that Xi can be president for life. So he can go through a downturn in the economy as a result of a trade war. But that would not be the case with Trump and the GOP. So if a trade war occurs, the U.S. will blink first.
Speaking of Xi becoming so powerful, this will set China back. Since Deng Xiaoping, each subsequent Chinese leader has had a decrease in power compare with his predecessor. Jiang Zemin was less powerful than Deng, Hu Jintao wielded less power behind the scene than Jiang did after his ten year term was over. Xi, though, has greater ambition for China and himself. He already sees China as the world's premier power in the future and he wants to have more than 10 years to navigate China into that position. This will mean less freedom in China and more confrontation with other countries. Xi is a capable leader. But the way he is going about to achieve his goals will not be good in the long run for China and the world.
Sunday, March 04, 2018
3 comments:
Use the following html code to make a clickable link in your comment (instructions in the sidebar). You can test the link by previewing your comment.
<a href="http://angryyellowman.blogspot.com">Angry Yellow Man</a>
The above example will display as Angry Yellow Man
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well, I don't know much about this tariff, but it seems to me that it's being played up because the Chinese stocks I own have gone down since last week. So there's a little panic overseas. It'll be interesting to see if Xi calms things down or escalates. He seems to be the type to escalate but it can hurt the Chinese economy in the short term, which it can survive.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it looks great to back American steel by Trump. But we won't know that extent of how the tariffs help or hurt for a while. Will steel producers give raises to their workers? Will unions demand better wages? Or will the companies keep the money and not pass it down?
As far as Xi and the changing of the constitution, it sounds like something that Putin would do. From what I've read, Xi is quite powerful and has backing from some influential people in China. So if there was ever a time, it would be now. He probably only has a small window to do this, since if the economy tanks, he becomes less powerful. I'm not a big fan of having him stay on any longer. I guess it doesn't matter what I or anyone that is not a Chinese citizen says, unless there's international pressure to not let this pass.
-LBOAYM
So Trump is heard saying that it is great that Xi will be president for life. He says it would be great to have that in this country as well. He maybe joking, but after all the praises he heaped on Xi, Putin and other dictators, it is not a stretch to believe that he wants to be a dictator. China and the world would survive a life time presidency of Xi. But the U.S. and the world would not survive a Trump life time presidency.
ReplyDeleteTrump's economic advisor, Gary Cohn, just resigned over tariffs that Trump wants to implement. If he is not listening to his own economic advisor on economics, who is he listening to? I think if this is half way reasonable, Cohn would have just pretend that it would be ok and stayed on. The fact that he resigned, indicates how stupid and dangerous this tariffs idea is.
This whole tariff thing is pretty interesting in that Democrats are in favor of them (probably for political reasons in backing unions) while Republicans are against it. I was against Cohn being appointed as an adviser, since he is part of Wall Street and didn't think he could be fair in his advising. I also did not know that he was a registered Democrat.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if we'll ever see a stable White House staff with Trump as POTUS. It is nice to have a stable team, but he seems to not mind having people move in and out. I'd be interested if this was a similar turnover rate with his companies.
I read a report that the automakers will lose billions of dollars because they will have to buy steel and aluminum at a higher cost now. I'm waiting to see if this is fake news, but we're already seeing the auto industry start its cycle of a downturn. And with the EPA backing out of some of the mileage requirements, the manufacturers were making less efficient autos. If gas prices continue to go up, there will less demand for these vehicles and that car companies will have to start developing fuel efficient cars again.
-LBOAYM