Raimondo: Crucial US, China Have Stable Economic Relationship (reuters.com) 55
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo opened talks with Chinese government officials on Monday, saying it is "profoundly important" for the world's two largest economies to have a stable economic relationship. From a report: Raimondo is looking to boost business ties as U.S. firms have reported increasing challenges with operating in China, while China has sharply criticized U.S. efforts to block its access to advanced semiconductors. Raimondo said the entire world expects the United States and China will have a stable economic relationship; the two countries share more than $700 billion in annual trade. "It's a complicated relationship. "It's a challenging relationship. We will of course disagree on certain issues," Raimondo said. "I think we can make progress if we are direct, open and practical."
What the US needs from China. (Score:2)
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The US needs nothing from China.
Then why all the moaning when China restricts exports for Gallium and Germanium? And all the scare about China possibly restricting exports of rare earth metals?
Look at everything being sold in your nearest Walmart and see how many things you can find that is NOT made in China. If China restricts exports to the US, inflation will shoot through the roof and people would remember the good old days of "just" 9% inflation.
The main problem with American politics is most Americans are so ignorant that they are
Re:What the US needs from China. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason we don't make most of that stuff, including going after rare earth metals, is because it's very dirty and polluting to the environment and it's cheaper to pay a Chinese person to make a widget and ship it to USA then to pay a fair wage to an American. So business greed and environmental nimbys are why we "need" China.
We could actually tell the nimbys to pound sand and the businesses to suck it up. Both would whine. A lot. They also wouldn't leave USA, especially the businesses. Our market is massive. It's like hating California's animal welfare law because you know it's going to hurt your profits but California is to large a market to just not go for.
So yeah, we don't "NEED" China. We've enough land and resources in this country that we could go without. Sure, in the immediate future it would be painful but if you gave businesses here real incentive to build in USA before we embargoed China, we could do it. Sure, stuff may cost a bit more, but real wages would go up for everyone. That would offset the price increases.
P.S. what we really should do is require all our trading partners to operate at USA environmental standards or else we won't buy your stuff. You would see jobs coming back to USA in no time flat because trade partners would have to raise costs to meet our standards. That's what we SHOULD be doing.
Real wages go up? (Score:2)
'Sure, stuff may cost a bit more, but real wages would go up for everyone. That would offset the price increases.'
Given that producing stuff inefficiently in the USA rather than more cheaply in China, it's inevitable that real wages will fall because of the additional costs of production.
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Economics minor at Oxford university?
Re: Real wages go up? (Score:2)
Economics has improved the world (Score:2)
Economics gets a wildly unfair bad rap because it's not done a perfect job over the past 70 years, it's merely made an amazingly positive contribution to the welfare of the world; specifically poverty is way down on where it was 70 years ago
https://www.worldbank.org/en/t... [worldbank.org]
Medicine doesn't save every patient. We don't dismiss it because of that - we celebrate that it saves millions from illnesses and accept that sometimes medical issues are insoluble. The financial crash of 2008 would have been FAR worse wi
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They are not the only place on Earth with these elements in suitable quantity. The problem is a bunch of greenie morons who shut down the infrastructure for this in non-hostile countries. (I'm waiting for all the anti-American comments to spew hate about how America is more hostile than China).
Re:What the US needs from China. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Free trade is a crock of shit fed to us by big business to increase their profits at the expense of the workers. They promise us cheap stuff but what they don't say is all your jobs are going along with it. Who fucking cares if the shit is cheap if you can't get a decent enough job to buy it? I'd prefer the stuff cost twice as much but at least we now have Americans working more jobs that pay better. The higher tax base alone could help the entire country.
We won't do it though. Even Democrats (who pretend t
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Free trade is a crock of shit fed to us by big business to increase their profits at the expense of the workers. They promise us cheap stuff but what they don't say is all your jobs are going along with it. Who fucking cares if the shit is cheap if you can't get a decent enough job to buy it? I'd prefer the stuff cost twice as much but at least we now have Americans working more jobs that pay better. The higher tax base alone could help the entire country.
Free trade is great, since the last 25 years has clearly shown it benefits the US overall. The US trade balance began to sharply decline in 1997, but the US tax base has increased from $1.58 trillion to $4.05 trillion from 1997-2021. That is a 50% increase after adjusting for inflation. GDP rose 60% in real dollars over the same time. Labor force participation rate for 25-54 year olds dropped about 1% over the same time, representing about 1 million people who are out of work today who would likely have bee
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Nobody really cares about inflation - they care about inflation when it out paces wage growth. They care when inflation is localized to certain asset classes, that result in winners and losers.
Free trade has been a loser for middle class. It has, and its been clear for decades go back to politics 20-years ago and find that 'bidbox mart' video. The working poor have gained, they got cheap stuff and it was hard to export their service work. The very wealthy gained, they cheap production and higher margins.
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The US needs nothing from China. China needs food from the US. China needs to hear "That's not a 'me' problem, that's a 'you' problem."
In the short term the US needs trade from China to keep consumer prices low, since inflation would skyrocket if there were significant and abrupt disruptions to US-China trade. In both the short and long term, the US is dependent on China for most of its rare earth metals. As of 2021 the US sourced 74% of its rare earth imports from China, and the vast majority of the rare earths consumed by US industry are imported. It will be hard for the US to solve this even in the long term because the primary reason t
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The US needs nothing from China.
I see you are deep in delusion. I recommend professional help to reconnect with reality.
Here is a starting-point: https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.... [doc.gov]
Chinese labor cost is going up and environment is (Score:2)
Chinese labor cost is going up and environment is getting better.
So the very cheap work may just exit china to the next very low cost area with poor environment.
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The low-level stuff has already left China.
Textiles moved to Bangladesh.
A lot of electronics assembly has moved to Vietnam.
sane adults (Score:3)
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Biden better do something fast, because many countries are assuming that Trump is going to be taking the reigns come January 20, 2025. Trump already has said he is going to burn all the free trade agreements and start assessing a 10% tariff on any imports off the bat, as well as getting rid of NATO.
The US's worst enemy right now is a Russian-fed Trump. That is why Russia is just playing the "dig in and wait" game in Ukraine. They know that they just have to hold territory until Trump takes office, then t
crystal ball (Score:2)
All Trump has to do is to peddle sympathy for the legal travails into 45% of the vote, which is no problem. The stalking horses and Biden's obvious corruption and senility will take care of the rest, as that 45% will be concentrated where it counts. Really, these legal cases are the dumbest thing ever politically. It fires up the opposition without commensurate benefits for your side.
This really isn't even going to be a contest. That's why you hear desperation talk about Secretaries of State removing Tr
Re:crystal ball (Score:4, Interesting)
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You failed to come up with a reason why he won't win. Just that you don't like the idea and are coming up with your own fairytales as to why it won't happen.
Field trip to red America should be in your future. You're going to wake up on November 6, 2024 very shocked, otherwise.
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"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it -Sinclair Lewis
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Well, good luck with that. Free trade was, so far, always helpful for any economy engaging in it. Job loss is not from free trade. Job loss is from a dysfunctional industry. If free trade cause job loss then somebody was asleep at the wheel and stopping free trade may, for a time, prevent some job loss but will also make some goods and services a lot more expensive.
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Well, yes. Short-focus (and short-sighted) greed. The big destroyer.
It’s up to China (Score:5, Interesting)
Regarding China specifically: after a short experiment with communism, and an even shorter little kissy-kissy with capitalism, they’re returning to their historical norm of “we love having an Emperor tell us what to do”. And the current emperor doesn’t like the west very much. So, we’re probably gonna have a very superficial relationship. We’ll trade, as long as it makes sense.
It’s a shame, really. Imagine how successful China would have been if they had transitioned to a billion-strong capitalist liberal democracy. They would be ruling the planet. As it stands, they’re caught HARD in the middle income trap with no way out.
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If China went to a democracy, they would arguably be the strongest force for good in the world going, and they would easily be able to be the top superpower, just because they provide a lot globally, and do not have the taint of colonialism that the West does.
Problem is that Xi has made some decisions which turned China from the world's factory into a feared adversary. The way Europe was treated before 2020, when China had a good chance of pulling Europe out of the sphere of US influence due to Trump's chi
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The US is fairly friendly (if a bit unreliable) to other free/open/friendly societies.
That's not how it looks from Europe. Look at the reaction when Europe tries to regulate US companies operating there. Or the wrangling over the data transfer deal. Or the US trying to block oil payments made in Euros.
It's a mistake to apply Western labels like capitalist and socialist to China. They are doing their own thing, with massive amounts of capitalism and a rapidly expanding middle class, but with tight regulation. It's more like Europe than the US, but different to both in some key ways. And of co
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The US is fairly friendly (if a bit unreliable) to other free/open/friendly societies.
There is even a Wikipedia page telling how friendly it can be [wikipedia.org].
Stability matters (Score:3)
Even if there is a shit end of the stick and you are currently on it, snapping the stick in half will usually make things worse. The US and China both have massive, world-affecting economies. Any major changes will affect not only large portions of the world, but significantly impact the US and China as well.
That's not to say the current situation is optimal and shouldn't change, just that any change ought to be considered for its potential mutual benefit and implemented with as little disruption as possible.
Which, given how adversarial the US and China currently are and how the US rarely approaches a trade deal caring about mutual benefit but more as a "whoever exploits the most, wins" opportunity, is unlikely to happen.
Not really. (Score:2)
This is only true if you desire to keep the status quo. If the US prepared to scale up domestic manufacturing and production then China becomes non-critical.
Really, the center of this is: do you want upset the billionaire class?
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You mean make goods domestically far more expensively and in worse quality? Good idea!
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Quality is a matter of experience. If you never get experience then you will never be able to make high quality goods. Yes, it will cost more but e-waste is already far too cheap.
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Quality is a matter of experience.
Not only. Worker motivation also plays a role. May be the killer for US manufacuring of cheap stuff.
These days (Score:2)
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Another adhoc definition of "capitalism" is always of great value. Thanks.
Important to who? (Score:2)
"it is "profoundly important" for the world's two largest economies to have a stable economic relationship"
Until The US can produce tthe essentials needed for the national economy, satisfy demand, and sustain all this, we need imports.
So, I ask again, important to who?
Either trade or war. Pick one. (Score:2)
Countries with deep trading relationships have rarely gone to war against one another.
Conversely, the reduction or elimination of trade is typically a prelude to worsening political relationships, often leading to war.
No one says China's human rights record is perfect. And no one credible says that the U.S. record, while probably better overall, is perfect either.
Trade anyway, and use all lawful means to encourage more openness, better human rights, and so forth.
But don't make war inevitable by making trad