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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.
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.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Table-ized A.I.
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.