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White House Announces Tech Tariffs, Investment Restrictions on China (axios.com)
The White House announced this morning a plan to levy a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese tech goods -- with the exact list to be announced next month -- as well as tech investment limits for Chinese nationals and entities. From a report: It also plans to pursue litigation at the World Trade Organization relating to Chinese intellectual property abuses. The big picture: It's a show of force that has surprised some sources close to the White House who believed Trump would defer any aggression towards China until after the North Korea summit. A source close to the White House who has a keen understanding of the internal dynamics on China told me that this is an "initial move in a long negotiation that shows the Chinese Trump is very serious -- and a move to balance the criticism that he was soft on ZTE."
Really? Are you American stupid?
Prepare for a lot of shitposts from retards triggered by Trump.
Even though they'd likely complain like crazy about China's actions in the past...
he probably doesn't know they're separate things. Yellow, very yellow.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I knew I voted for this guy for a reason! Strange I have to vote Republican to get some good old fashioned protectionism, but there it is.
I am guessing there are still a couple of trademarks Ivanka really wants.
The big picture: It's a show of force that has surprised some sources close to the White House who believed Trump would defer any aggression towards China until after the North Korea summit.
What kind of idiot thinks that?
"I won't do X because it might upset you" is the negotiating tactic of a complete, errr, pussy. It hands way too much leverage to the other person.
It sure seems like the entire US foreign policy establishment has been believing in the own perfection for way too long and absolutely in need of an outsider like Trump to shake them up.
And let the adults deal with trade policy. Promise youâ(TM)ll get the credit and at dinner 2 pieces of cake, ok?
And "with the exact list to be announced next month "
China don't have to worry, next month they will list what and when is going to be effectif hten, China will buy another hotel to Trump and every sanction willbe drop !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I'm no lover of Trump's policies. He's an authoritarian ass and enabler to state violence (i.e. "rough them up a bit").
But I can't bring myself to be upset about this tariff, and think it's a shame that it can't be 100%. Yes. 100%, full cost of the item. People throw too many things out -- I've seen perfectly good electronics on the street due to a damaged power cord or similar minor issue.
We've become a throw-away society where "used" and "repair" are dirty words, and which produces an unsustainable amount of toxic, poorly recyclable e-waste. Trump may not mean to be an environmentalist, but raising the cost of dirt-cheap disposable electronics is ultimately an environmental good.
Remember the 80s and 90s, where people kept their TVs for 10-15 years, then handed them down to their college student children?
The Dollar started tanking under Nixon, and now America has been playing every trick in the book to keep it afloat. The game of inflating the economy by creating expenditures and loans out of thin air is not working as well, and now theyr'e getting desperate.
The tech community in general is more educated and mere diverse (in some ways) than the general population and hence much less will to support trump. Plus tech CEOs are not psychologically the types to kiss the kings ring so yes, he is about to screw tech for both fun and profit. Probably he will use as leverage to extort more personal gain out of Beijing.
Are you a retard? Learn how to type you half-wit.
We havent seen a president represent the people in such a long time, hereâ(TM)s to four more years!
I'm sure they will negotiate a solution where her business gets a concession and this goes away. The good thing about corruption is that it's predictable and it's much easier to run a business in a predictable environment.
That's what the "you got cheap consumer electronics" crowd doesn't understand. Our wages haven't kept up with housing costs (we are becoming a society of renters), medical costs and education costs. The important things. Decent food has gone up fast, too.
Being able able to get a cheap TV doesn't help me with my student loans or my medical bills.
Free trade is supposed to help everyone but as we are seeing, the benefits are going mostly to the top.
When xyz company send their manufacturing to China or Mexico, its workers are then scrambling for the limited part-time jobs at Walmart that pays less than half of what they were making - and without benefits.
LOL, no issues with China running over college students with tanks now, huh? It's really no surprise the libtard media is covering up Spygate (aka FBI Operation Crossfire Hurricane)
Low-cost imports make the importing nation wealthier.
Yeah, instead of investing my money on making things to sell, I blow all my money on cheap plastic shit from China! Just like Warren Buffet. That's why I'm so rich!
Dumbest negotiator ever. His abject stupidity and blatant criminality is why he keeps getting owned in trade negotiations.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Oh man, think about the cheap 3D printers!
"initial move in a long negotiation that shows the Chinese Trump is very serious -- and a move to balance the criticism that he was soft on ZTE."
I sounds like Trump is played like a fiddle.
it seems the only negotiation you have ever been in is the car/thing buying kind. There are *A LOT* more sort of negotiations and it seems you don't have the experience of them. I would say your life inexperience is really showing.
If they werenâ(TM)t spying on those traitors, they werenâ(TM)t doing their jobs.
You need Canada's clean air and water, and Mexico's cheap labour and drugs.
TransMountain Pipeline in Canada was just nationalized, meaning 3x the capacity from the oilsands will be sold to CHINA instead of the USA. But yeah, everyone needs you guy! You're so important buddy, that's why you have no environmental or worker protection laws worth shit and no healthcare. Keep on smoking that rich guy's cock tho buddy, I'm sure that meaty taste will pay for your kid's braces.
That wasn't a typo, it's covfefe's brother.
Seriously, though, T is confusing and confounding other nations because of his flip-flops, surprise "temporarily exemptions", vagueness, etc. Today's proclamations maybe be irrelevant tomorrow via a new Tweet. Most world leaders are relatively careful, systematic planners and don't know what to make of his style.
I'm not going to even say T's unpredictable style "doesn't work"; for it's too early to judge. I'm merely saying that it's baffling the h$ll out of world leaders and negotiators.
Maybe there is a method to his madness. I wouldn't bet on it personally because it resembles trolling to me, but can't rule it out yet. It's an interesting experiment; I just hope us lab-rats survive it all.
Table-ized A.I.
You don't know what the word "authoritarian" really means (in a political context). Trump is gentleman compared to a real authoritarian.
:).
If you keep calling everyone a "nazi" or "authoritarian" then everybody will get the idea that nazis and authoritarians were not that bad really.
Btw you will know what authoritarian means when the state starts confiscating succesfull businesses and politicians/journalists get some exotic poison or just plain old get killed in their elevator.
And also, quite true about Trump being accidental environmentalist
Per NPR, the Trump Administration is blocking appointment of judges at the WTO. The WTO's 7-judge panel is down to 4 members, 2 more are leaving, and the panel can't meet its minimum to hear appeals of WTO decisions.
Transcript:
GONZALEZ: OK, but there's one thing I want to get in here. Yes, the U.S. is making things difficult for the WTO. They're screaming at the referees on the soccer field. But the U.S. is still on the field. They are still playing against other countries.
AZEVEDO: The United States itself is bringing disputes to the system even under this administration. So why bring a dispute to the system if you don't want to observe the system or if you don't want the system at all?
GONZALEZ: So you're saying under the Trump administration the United States is coming to the WTO and making claims against other countries?
AZEVEDO: I'm not saying that. That is a fact.
SMITH: I feel like the United States is saying, WTO, can't live with it, can't crush your trade opponents without it.
Outside of military equipment, big-ticket specialty/precision items, airplanes and cars, the US doesn't manufacture many consumer goods anymore, especially tech goods. Unless his next announcement is a nationalization of what little manufacturing infrastructure we have left and a shift to something like war production to force the electronics industry to come back, I don't think the President is thinking this through.
Even if factory work came down to minimum wage, it would still be too expensive to compete with China and other countries. Companies would rather go out of business than open factories domestically. It's a nice idea, and I would love to see factory work as an alternative to shoveling everyone into higher education. But, it would have to be way more than a 25% tariff to get anything to change.
If we actually could accomplish this I would like to see it. Factory workers of a previous generation were able to have good careers and provide for their families. Now, unless you're in the technology sector you're going to end up automated out of a job, and most of the tech jobs are headed that way too.
Quick quiz - Who was the president that put in wage and price controls?
https://www.cato.org/publicati...
That's right, Another fine honest Republican, the honorable Richard Nixon.
On Aug. 15, 1971, in a nationally televised address, Nixon announced, “I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States.”
Wow...... Wage and price freezes. Hey - how'd that work out? Probably as good as what will hapen with the tarriffs on Chinese tech, and then the US working to make certain that the jobs of the Cell phone mfgr we kicked out are saved.
Funny how the Demoncrats are called the party of socialism, when the Republicans actually implement it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's negotiating leverage with North Korea, which is controlled by China as a proxy. He talked about this during the campaign, but everyone "forgot" I guess.
Why are you confused? He pretty much explained how all this works in Art of the Deal. And regarding NK specifically, he laid out his strategy during the campaign. Now he's executing that strategy and the media is confused. Well, some of the media probably knows, but this is a convenient time to attack him and he's using that against them. They either give up attacking, which they refuse to do, or they talk up all the confusion and end up helping him. He is pretty good at defining people's choices for them.
Trump tends to flip the table and then come out ahead in the scramble while everyone else is confused. People think he's an idiot, then they lose to him. This freaks a lot of people out and sometimes he can play it as 3D chess or whatever while other people think he was "lucky" for the 100th time.
Trump didn't insult Xi Jinping's mother. What he said is that he's not going to let us be screwed over by unfair trade practices. I don't think the car dealer salesman is necessary, but if one insists in that analogy it would be more like letting the salesman know that unlike the last guy, you don't intend to lay sticker price.
What the timing does is it frames the negotiation, allowing US negotiators to "give" something to China during the negotiations, to relent on something, by easing the tariffs and restrictions. We can give them something they want, and get something in return, simply by going back to the same policy we had last month! :)
Now the *starting point* of the negotiations is that China wants something from us - easing that policy. Otherwise, the starting point was we wanted something from China - their help pressuring North Korea. In a negotiation, it's always better to be on the side being asked for something, rather than be the one asking for something.
When your opening move is aggressive, it encourages aggression in return. If your first words to me are "I'm not gonna let you rip me off like the last guy" I'm immediately thinking, "Oh yeah, we'll see about that."
Sorry, but he was vague on details. I agree the US has been screwed on trade, but fixing it without triggering trade wars is not easy. T never laid out specific strategies, scenarios, and examples of how to do that. Or anything for that matter. Those who worked with him in business say he has an ad-hoc shoot-from-the-hip style. Perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn't, or works in some circumstances but others. Regardless, he's never written or described anything that can be turned into a relatively clear deal-making algorithm. Yes, he can be tenacious, but often to his own detriment, according to some real-estate analysts. His successes can often be traced to his self-promotion abilities and sometimes charisma, rather than shrewd decisions themselves.
And his Art-of-the-Deal ghost writer admitted much of the book is fluff.
By the way, "temporarily exemptions" should have been "temporary exemptions" in my message.
Table-ized A.I.
It's confounding only because most business negotiations are done in secret. When it leaks out it makes a lot of sense.
Trump has done a few things differently than most presidents. First, he's refused to divest himself of his businesses - usually a president puts their business in a trust so any decisions they may won't have potential conflict of interest.
It's why Russia is a big deal - it's one of the few countries where his businesses have done really, really, really well.
Or why ZTE suddenly deserves a lot of support (China dumps a half billion into a Trump hotel).
Next thing you know, Mexico will build a Trump hotel and it'll be "wall? what wall?" or if Mexico wants to build stuff using American equipment, "NAFTA GOOD!"
The problem is, these negotiations are done in private and under the privy of no one, so what looks erratic really turns out to be negotiation tactics to get a better deal.
Trump bends the way the dollars flow.
Don't mess with the Chinduinos Trump-O
Some argue stagnation may be a good thing. Some highly religious groups battle "the modern world" because they think we are diving face first into chaos and (perceived) moral decadence.
There is no absolute "law" of the science or the universe that says technical progress is a "good thing". Science can only make predictions at best, not give value judgments. It has no feelings.
Sure, we have more medicines, but also more people to feed, perhaps stretching our farms to a risky no-margin-for-error limit. Doomsday scenarios are endless. I'm not giving a preference here, only saying a case can be made.
Table-ized A.I.
This remains a joke. Trump restored ZTE because China gave Ivanka a trademark that she wanted. There has NEVER been such a corrupt president in office as trump. If he wants to be fair, he will put the same tariffs/vats on CHinese goods that they put on western goods. Likewise, he would require that all factories with chinese owners to have 50.1% American ownership. In addition, no more deals will be allowed in china for moving manufacturing over there. IOW, when we develop a product here, it will not be allowed to be manufactured in CHina, or for that matter, for ownership to be transfered to any chinese company.
Not sure how to deal with their subsidies, dumping, and manipulation, but even this would be a good start.
Then allow China to deal with it as they see fit. If CHina removes an items, so do we.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Tumors are also a form of growth.
Are we cooperating with China this week, or fighting them? How about North Korea? Is there anybody in the administration with a plan?
Have you read my blog lately?
We'll just switch to the Russian-made routers.
Have gnu, will travel.
Meh, your Saudi friends and paymasters are much more evil than the chicoms.
Rotten Anglo pseudo morals.
Here's an example of T's "negotiation" style. When he formed Trump Airlines, a dispute arose with a competitor airline. When T didn't like their proposed compromise, he started bad-mouthing their safety record, using arguably questionable statistics.
Normally the airlines don't advertise based on safety records because it hurts the entire industry by spooking customers. It's like reminding grocery shoppers what's in hot-dogs. Sales of all brands would take a hit.
So the other airline looked at T's real-estate record, and realized he picks nasty fights that appear to have dragged both parties down. If you don't share your soup on his terms, he'll piss in the pot and nobody gets any. Therefore, the competitor airline acquiesced to some degree. (Their actual reasoning was not made public, but it appears that's what happened based on the terms.)
Whether that technique scales to international deals is another matter. You may win a "battle" or two, but lose lots of longer-term goodwill such that it may not be a net beneficial strategy. Then again, long-term benefits may not be his goal.
Table-ized A.I.
I have a trade deficit with my mortgage company. And my power/water companies, and the grocery store down the block.
I give them money and I never get any from them.
But wait! What's this? I have a house to live in, power/water I used, and groceries that I've consumed.
So a big trade imbalance isn't the terrible problem Trump makes it out to be (because it makes his supporters feel like their problems are caused by China).
I'm not saying China plays fair, or that any other country including the USA plays fair in trade, I'm just pointing out that the money isn't actually gone, we have the stuff we bought from China.
The focus needs to be on the jobs imbalance, something Trump cannot solve because it would be scary old socialism
It was her turn !
Trumps base is people just like you, who think tariffs will solve all your problems.
Are you making shit up again Windy? Show us why you think this is true.
US gov always changes its words, no surprise.
So you think only China makes cheap electronics / disposable crap you buy? And you think a tax aimed at just China won't have Americans just buy their cheap junk from the next country on the list? You're even less bright than before.
On one hand China hates women, so they must be good. On the other hand, "muh trade war". Aagh, why do things have to be so complicated!?!
/sarcasm
obligatory
The leader of Venice [The Doge ] was NEVER allowed to negotiate with any foreigner except when observers from the 'local parliament' were present. No foreign negotiations by leader in private! They knew how to avoid some problems.
Regards Eion MacDonald
from the 3 billion USD gift to Chinese Telecom?
You missed the point of my statement. The point is not the quality or quantity of stuff that I buy. The point is that buying things does not make you richer. Investing and selling stuff makes you richer. And the US is buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stuff from the China every year. And every year the people of China are getting richer, and the people of the United States are now getting poorer.