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.

Comments

Clearly, the inmates are running the asylum

[rmdingler]

Protectionist trade policy is the knee-jerk reaction of the weak. Retaliation by not just the Chinese, but America's traditional allies in Europe, Canada, and Mexico will cost US jobs, not create them.

Re:Clearly, the inmates are running the asylum

[hey!]

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.

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately, the rest of the world is going to be very happy that Trump is working so hard to confine the recession to the United States.

Protectionism is fine

[rsilvergun]

when you have an industry to protect. China has leverage because we've let them take over virtually all our manufacturing. We've kept a few of the heavy duty stuff in case we need to spin up for a war.

Thing is, Trump's base wants action and they want it now. Given that wages keep falling (inflation's 3%, wage growth's 2.5%, do the math) and 40% of Americans don't have $400 bucks in the bank I can't blame them.

This is what happens when you ignore a sizable portion of the country. They find somebody who'll listen. If you happen to be doing pretty well in this economy and don't want the boat rocked, well, tough shit. If you don't want desperate people destabilizing the world then you need to do something about their desperation. You'd think we'd have learned this from WWI and II.

Re:Protectionism is fine

[PopeRatzo]

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...

Re:Protectionism is fine

[chill]

How are those Harley-Davidson people doing? I'm curious considering HD just announced they're going to move some manufacturing in Europe to avoid the tariffs.

That falls on the heels of their January announcement of closing a Kansas City, MO plant and consolidating work in York, PA. But overseas...they just opened plants in India and Brazil, with another opening in Thailand this year.

Any decent sized "American" company is a "global" company, but this President doesn't get that at all -- nor does his base.

Re:Protectionism is fine

[Zorpheus]

Well. I am not really a Trump supporter, but his point is: A trade war will reduce both import and export. But since The USA is importing more than it is exporting, he thinks the country will win more than it loses in the long run.
This is why China can't keep raising tariffs matching the US. But the US makes a lot of money by investments, which is partly compensating the trade deficit with China, and more than compensating the one with Europe. Also China was the biggest buyer of American state bonds. And a lot of trade in the world is done in dollars, which forces people to accumulate dollars and is part of what allows the huge American deficit.
So the retaliations on Trump's trade war will soon have to target the financial sector.
I don't know if this will be good or bad for the US in the long run. It could shift the US economy away from making income through investments, which only goes to a few people, back to making income through production, which can benefit more people. It could also put the world into chaos, just making everyone lose. It could also be just a threat, trying to force others to make concessions. But I think both Europe and China don't respond too well to such threats. They would never give in, because it would mean that the US could enforce other things afterwards, without a limit.

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:When will US companies steal Tech from China?

[rahvin112]

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.

Um... you do know the economy doesn't move

[rsilvergun]

that fast, right? These people lost ground for 8 years under Obama, 8 years under Bush and 8 years under Clinton. The older ones lost ground before that too. These trends have been going on for over 40 years. They've been ignored that long. There was a brief respite during the .com boom and an even briefer one during the housing boom.

It's kinda hard to shoot yourself in the foot when somebody else already cut you off at the knees.

I should add

[rsilvergun]

I'm not saying what they're doing is going to help, but I _am_ saying it's not likely to make things much worse for them. You're underestimating how bad off 40% of America is. Like the man said, what have you got to lose? For a lot of people there really isn't anything. That's what 40 years of declining wages means.

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[Tablizer]

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.)

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

It was good for Bezos and Jobs and all the other tech robber barrons.

I notice you don't want to blame the Waltons and Walmart for any of our country's ills. Not only did they help flood the market with cheap chinese crap for decades, they helped gut wages at the low end, shifted the cost of feeding their employees to the rest of us, while filling their own pockets. Now they hide in gated communities where they don't have to deal with results of their handiwork.

But sure, blame Bezos and Jobs. Amazon and Apple employ 10s of thousands of highly compensated employees who don't need "food stamps" in order to eat. Can you say the same for Walmart?

And Trump won't even pay Americans. His resorts bring in hundreds of foreign workers on temp visas because they'll work for even less than Americans. That's #MAGA for you.

(Not sure who the barrons are. Did you mean robber barons?)

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[youngone]

Get out of here with your well-argued and well-reasoned discussion.

Like everyone else, I come here for CAPITAL-laced flamewars.
Oh; and, bad: punctuation,

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[ShanghaiBill]

Some how is this is the liberals doing?

At least in America, protectionism is popular with the left, and much less so with conservatives.

Trumpism is a blend of the stupidest policies from both left and right.

that is a stupid remark

[aepervius]

People don't compare to folk half the world away, they compare to their immediate neighbors. That is why they elect fascist populist politician : because they want to get a better living and see the other 60% getting it. Not saying they are right, but simply that your remark is stupid.

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[tsa]

Trump may unfairly get the blame for the slump but he is the one who tells everybody he sees that he singlehandedly made the economy boom. He did nothing of the sort, in fact he made it boom slower and less, so he deserves the blame for the slump.

Re:I smell a recession coming on.

[Dzimas]

The US economy will slip into recession this summer, and Trump will angrily state that it's because the rest of the world is ganging up on the USA after 8 years of weak government under Obama. He'll use Twitter to single out and humiliate opposing politicians - preferably female - and use anger and hatred to ride easily into a second term in office.