Trade War with China

[solarz]

What idiotic comments by Trump. He doesn't realise the implications of his actions on Tariffs on China. He needs to understand the Chinese culture & ways of reciprocity - you bash China & the Chinese will reciprocate hard. The biggest problem is Trump himself, he thinks he knows how to negotiate - "good cop - later bad cop" style. That may work with his past business ventures. He needs experienced advisers NOT "yes-men". The Trade War will continue and be disastrous for all IF the Trump Administration stubbornly adheres to its confounded actions. The US Congress & American businesses at large have to curtail the "bravado" actions of their President, otherwise they will pay a very heavy price for themselves & for their constituent state businesses.

Trump led his businesses into 6 bankruptcies in his career. Let's hope the United States doesn't become his seventh.

 

[Equation]

China blames U.S for trade frictions, says negotiations currently impossible

"Some people in the United States are still accustomed to being the world leader, and haven't adapted to the change in the global situation," Cui said.

The Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, described U.S. trade policies as a populist tilt by Trump ahead of the U.S. mid-term elections, but that the steps would ultimately end up hurting U.S. consumers through higher prices.

"In the world's perception, the U.S. is overshadowed by an anxiety disorder and is very keen to show its anxiety," the paper said.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jura The idiot]

now I read
Economic Watch: Decoding U.S. goods trade deficit with China
Xinhua| 2018-04-09 20:59:51

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The U.S. trade deficit with China has been one of the main excuses behind the Trump administration's unilateral decision to slap tariffs on 50 billion U.S. dollars of Chinese products.

"Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year," President Donald Trump said in a posting Wednesday, after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Tuesday published a proposed list of products imported from China that could be subjected to additional tariffs.

"The U.S. is losing $500 Billion a year, and has been losing Billions of Dollars for decades," he tweeted in another posting Saturday.

As ever, his calculations were wrong in every sense.

NUMBERS CAN LIE

"Trump continues to single out China as the villain in the great American tragedy, when in fact he should take a careful look in the mirror," said Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at the Yale University Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, in a new article.

"First, he continues to insist that the U.S.-China trade deficit is 500 billion dollars, fully one-third larger than the actual figure of 375 billion dollars published by the Commerce Department," Roach said.

In 2017, total goods trade deficit of the United States stood at 796.2 billion dollars, among which 375.2 billion dollars came from trade with China, according to U.S. data.

China's General Administration of Customs data showed the country's goods trade surplus at 275.8 billion dollars, about 100 billion dollars less than the U.S. figure.

Despite the discrepancy, neither the United States nor Chinese figures came any closer to Trump's calculation.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization suggest at least 40 percent of this bilateral imbalance reflects supply-chain effects of components and parts that are produced outside of China but assembled inside China, according to Roach.

"That means, based on the value added of what is actually produced in China -- the essence of the alleged China threat -- that the 47 percent share of the U.S. deficit ascribed to China would be reduced to around 28 percent," Roach said.

CALCULATION METHODS MATTER

Take the iPhone X for example, although a number of the devices are exported from China to the United States, only about 3 to 6 percent of the manufacturing cost originate in China.

"Our exported products used materials and parts imported from other countries, so not all of the exported value is added in China," said Bai Ming, researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Using the value-added approach is more precise than the traditional trade volume approach in "evaluating the trade interests between economies," Bai said.

For a long time, China stayed on the lower end of the global value chain, resulting in limited actual gains from the trade process in spite of huge trade figures.

Last year, 61 percent of China's goods trade surplus came from processing trade.

Using the value-added method, China's surplus with the United States will drop by 44.4 percent from the traditional method, according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

WINNER OR LOSER?

Traditional numbers also fail to capture business interests from subsidiaries of multinational companies.

"Trade is not just export and import, but should also take into account the local sales of multinationals," said Zhang Monan, researcher with China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Chinese customs data showed some 59 percent of the country's goods trade surplus with the United States came from the export and import of foreign-invested companies.

U.S. goods trade deficit with China does not show the full picture of China-U.S. economic ties, according to a Deutsche Bank research report.

There were 310 million active iPhones in use in China in 2016, but they cannot be found in U.S.-China bilateral trade, because Apple, like many other U.S. companies, has subsidiaries in China.

"From an international trade perspective, iPhones sold by Apple's Chinese subsidiaries are not counted as imports. But from an economic and financial perspective, the iPhone is a U.S. product, and the United States benefits the most from it," the report said.

In 2015, China-U.S. trade and investment created about 2.6 million U.S. jobs and contributed 216 billion dollars to the economic growth of the United States, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

However, the U.S. administration last week upped the ante by threatening additional tariffs on 100 billion dollars of products from China.

Roach described the U.S. "China-bashing" as "protectionism in the face of widening trade deficits."

"In the 1930s, protectionist tariffs and a global trade war exacerbated the Great Depression and destabilized the international order. Sadly, one of the most painful lessons of modern history is now at risk of being ignored," Roach said.

 

[taxiya]

In perhaps related news?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

If there is a scoop-up, there must be a scoop-down. If there is people buying, there must be people selling the same volume, because the whole real demand (consumption) does not change much nor does the total supply in the market.

The article only showed the rosy side of the story and skipped the ugly side of it. Is the author paid by Trump?

 

[taxiya]

Check it again. It seems that this time of the year is not really the big time of trading soybeans. End of June would be the time for real deals. That should be related to the harvest time.

This is saying that Reuters is desperately picking ignorable change in the market to sustain the claim by Trump "no harm to American farmers, trade war is easy to win".

I only managed to find data for 2017 from this site,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

. I am not sure if I understand everything, but the indication should be right.

The diagram shows trade volume of soybean future of 2017.


Compared to the current trade 2018 here

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jura The idiot]

Yesterday at 5:50 PM

now

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

President Xi and I will always be friends, no matter what happens with our dispute on trade. China will take down its Trade Barriers because it is the right thing to do. Taxes will become Reciprocal & a deal will be made on Intellectual Property. Great future for both countries!

quoted inside
US should match Trump's friendlier tone with deeds: China Daily editorial

Updated: 2018-04-09 21:44

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Tweeting about his country’s trade spat with China, US President Donald Trump softened his tone on Sunday, claiming that “taxes will become reciprocal and a deal will be made on intellectual property”, forecasting a “great future for both countries”.

While China will hope he is doing more than just reading the tea leaves and that his conciliatory tone is in earnest, it will be aware that few are able to honor a friend who has prospered without envy and without wishing them at least some small misfortune.

And since the ongoing trade frictions between the world’s two largest economies have been triggered by the Trump administration’s obsession with the United States’ trade deficit with China, which it seems to regard as a barometer of China’s competitive economic prowess, and that the US’ shortfall remains colossal, it is hard to place too much faith in Trump’s fortune-reading skills and his prediction that everything is going to be hunky-dory unless he starts matching his words with actions.

The tit-for-tat threats of tariffs have been promises of a similar blow in exchange for a blow, and any kind of deal will require the US to give if it wants to take.

While statistical errors and US companies operating in China account for a large part of the deficit, the US’ one-sided trade policies are also responsible for the huge bilateral trade gap.

For example, the US has long imposed a strict restriction on normal high-tech exports to China to prevent the latter from challenging it as a technological powerhouse. If it relaxed its restrictions on high-tech exports to China, that would soon significantly reduce the deficit.

To be “reciprocal”, the US should also give national treatment to Chinese companies investing in the US. Currently, it commonly resorts to national security excuses to block Chinese companies’ investment in the US, a stance that is in stark contrast with China’s welcoming stance toward foreign companies, including US ones.

It should also recognize China’s progress in building a market economy, for by refusing to respect its market economy status, the US can conveniently adopt the surrogate approach when waging anti-dumping investigations against Chinese companies.

If his administration refuses to make any progress on those, it’s hard to see how Trump’s auspicious words can be given substance.

And China will take its cue not from words but deeds.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

US should match Trump's friendlier tone with deeds: China Daily editorial
Tweeting about his country’s trade spat with China, US President Donald Trump softened his tone on Sunday, claiming that “taxes will become reciprocal and a deal will be made on intellectual property”, forecasting a “great future for both countries”.

While China will hope he is doing more than just reading the tea leaves and that his conciliatory tone is in earnest, it will be aware that few are able to honor a friend who has prospered without envy and without wishing them at least some small misfortune.
If his administration refuses to make any progress on those, it’s hard to see how Trump’s auspicious words can be given substance.
And China will take its cue not from words but deeds.

Excellent retort Indeed deed speaker louder than word Soothing word and effort to calm the water is worthless without actual deed

 

[AssassinsMace]

I was driving listening to talk radio with Dr. Drew's syndicated radio show. Those that don't know who he is he has somewhat a national recognition. So I hear him talk about how there's a story where China is disguising rat meat as chicken which he then says that's a case for tariffs against China. So I get home and do a search for this story and this shows up.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I also see the news publishing stories on China kidnapping people in the US and the world. That's how they operate. The lies about trade and tariffs are being exposed so they have to resort to other things to get people angry and go along with tariffs or like the New York Times, they just don't like how the US is looking like the bully over China despite how they contribute to the hate Trump campaign. Trump isn't the only one acting chaotic.

 

[Shaolian]

Like I said, the US is a gone case. Even if we're to give her the benefit of the doubt, she would still be at best a mentally unstable person. Time to move on.

 

[plawolf]

I was driving listening to talk radio with Dr. Drew's syndicated radio show. Those that don't know who he is he has somewhat a national recognition. So I hear him talk about how there's a story where China is disguising rat meat as chicken which he then says that's a case for tariffs against China. So I get home and do a search for this story and this shows up.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I also see the news publishing stories on China kidnapping people in the US and the world. That's how they operate. The lies about trade and tariffs are being exposed so they have to resort to other things to get people angry and go along with tariffs or like the New York Times, they just don't like how the US is looking like the bully over China despite how they contribute to the hate Trump campaign. Trump isn't the only one acting chaotic.

It’s actually incredible how short sighted some Americans are behaving, setting fire to one of the core foundations of its soft power - its credibility and in turn, persuasiveness on the world stage.

It was not long ago that when western leaders and government officials said something, it was generally taken as fact. Other countries signed up for war based on what high US officials claimed, that’s how much weight and authority their office carried.

Now you feel the need to fact check the weather report if a White House spokesperson said the sky was blue.