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Trump Officials Planning Escalation of US-China Tech Trade War (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Trump administration is looking to widen its trade war with China by restricting Chinese access to U.S. technology, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. "The Treasury Department is crafting rules that would block firms with at least 25 percent Chinese ownership from buying companies involved in what the White House calls 'industrially significant technology,'" the Wall Street Journal says. A separate proposal would institute beefed-up export controls preventing Chinese companies from buying these technologies from U.S. firms. The policies could be announced as soon as this week, the Journal says. In the past, the Trump administration has blocked multiple attempts by Chinese companies to buy U.S. semiconductor firms and imposed a sweeping export ban on Chinese smartphone maker ZTE after ZTE was caught selling U.S. technology to Iran and North Korea -- though the administration recently lifted the ban.

8 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. FUCK off Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm sick and tired of governments fucking around with with business of private individuals and entities. It's nobody else's business what two private parties do. I don't care if it's in someones bedroom or between companies of two different countries. This idea that a government owns you is bull shit. I don't care if we are talking the EU and GDPR or Trump and his stupid trade war. Neither the EU nor the US nor China should be interfering in the private affairs of others. I own me. Not someone else. I do not wish to be a slave just because some elite(s) have a financial interest in some action and have convinced a percentage of the population to go along (or otherwise do without the populations consent). No person has any right to to intervene in another business or affairs who isn't hurting anyone. Violence (government action) is never justified on the basis of social or political objectives where there is otherwise no violence by the interests of whom they are interfering.

  2. Re:Protectionism is fine by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is what happens when you ignore a sizable portion of the country. They find somebody who'll listen.

    Did you know that the average wages for someone in non-supervisory jobs has gone down under Trump? Have you seen the price of gasoline? Know anyone who works at the Harley-Davidson plant in Wisconsin (I do)?

    The problem is that those people who were being "ignored" have now shot themselves in the foot and are starting to feel the fallout, as are we all. Maybe there's a good reason those people were being ignored, if their solution was to elect this jackoff.

    Did you know that only 4% of US workers got a pay raise since the Republicans passed their tax bill 6 months ago? That's why we've got this whole hard-line immigration bullshit going on, because the biggest things Trump has done have been unpopular with real Americans, and all he can hope is that he can gin up enough White Extinction Anxiety to get the oxycontin-dosed disability-collecting racists to act as his human shields.

    https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:I smell a recession coming on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The analysis of which states are being hit hardest by Chinese tariffs make it very clear where China wants the hit to be. Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, etc.

    Oil, gas, coal, auto, food - who do you think will hurt the most?

    $8 billion of Texas exports fall under the first rounds of tariffs and $0.12 billion of New York's. Is that more clear?

    The combined hit on the tiny little economies of Alabama and South Carolina beats the hits on the California and Washington mega economies. Maybe that helps make it clear.

  4. Re:When will US companies steal Tech from China? by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why do you think that if we share our technology with China that the reverse would also occur and China would share the other direction? Your arguement is it may lock the US out not to share but assume they would share and some would consider it highly likely that they wouldn't.

    Part of the problem and things that people are concerned about is that China appears to see economy not as something that brings people together and creates interdependence but something that can be "won". That their end goal is to acquire all this technology and then shut out foreign competition. They've already done it in too many industries to count where expertise was sold then the Chinese company displaced the American company with copies of their product.

    The problem is Trump approached this completely the wrong direction. He started a war with everyone instead of working with out allies. He could have arranged an agreement with every Western country to take China on in this area and demand change. He could have united the world and forced China to stop the unfair trade practices at the threat of losing all market access in the west, instead Trump started a trade war with all our allies and drove them to make deals with Russia and China at our expense. China and Russia are laughing all the way to the bank while we've destroyed the goodwill and soft power it took this country a century and millions of lives to build and one guy trashed it in 18 months. It's a staggering achievement.

  5. Re:I smell a recession coming on. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I smell a recession coming on. It remains to be seen who will bear the brunt of it.

    Usually the 99%. The rich can afford to wait out storms, and even get richer from recessions by buying low and selling high: be it stocks, co's, or real-estate. Recession bargain-hunting is Warren Buffett's main financial weapon, and he's arguably the richest dude on the planet.

    But even without trade-wars, we are statistically due for a recession based on the length of the current upturn. The fact the yield curve is inverting is yet another warning sign. Based on past yield curves, we got roughly 18 months until it "hits".

    Trump may unfairly get the blame for a slump. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT defending his overall economic policy, but generally the sitting President's popularity is largely tied to the current economy, and it has been this way for more than 100 years.

    Where he might have legitimate blame besides trade wars is the debt: the larger the debt, the smaller the possible stimulus when a slump hits. Even among Republicans, giving personal tax-cuts to the rich in exchange for debt is not popular. (The corporate tax-cuts and middle-class tax-cuts score better with Republicans. They believe US corporate tax-rates were higher than other nations'. Whether that was true is debatable.)

  6. Re:I smell a recession coming on. by jriding · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sooo. China is applying tariffs intelligently. Their tariffs directly hit and hurt Trumps main voting base. To maximize the pressure on him to remove the tariffs.
    Some how is this is the liberals doing?

     

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    love the taste, hate the texture
  7. Re:I should add by FFOMelchior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cry me a fucking river. That 40% is still 1000x better than half the fucking world.

    "At least we're better off than 3rd world countries!"
    - New Trumper motto, apparently.

  8. Re:Clearly, the inmates are running the asylum by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, I'd be open to at least hearing a rational argument in favor of pursuing more nationalist trade policies. But starting a trade war with everyone clearly isn't rational. It's the policy equivalent of a temper tantrum.

    A trade war with China hurts US exports to 20% of the world's population. Starting a trade war with everyone but the US hurts US exports to 95% of the world's population.

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