Timothy Birdnow

Just two days of tariffs and China is channeling their inner Monty Hall.

Yes, the Chicoms are already invoking filial piety and crying it out. (Filial piety is the old Confucian idea of obeisance to your elder family members - in this case they are crying "uncle")

China's economy is intimately interwoven with our own, and that was by design by the internationalists and the Clinton folks (and Bushes, and Obama). If we are hurt by not doing business with them, they are hurt worse by not doing business with us. As of 2023 China had a GDP of $17.79 trillion, the second largest in the world. But the U.S. has a GDP of 27.36 trillion. And 14% of all Chinese goods are exported to the U.S.- $501.22 Billion. America exports less and we have a trade imbalance of around 4% as of last year. So who gets the worst of it if tariffs are imposed on both sides? I would add there are other countries making a lot of what China makes, and we can start buying from them instead of from China. There are few things we need from China except rare earth elements and a couple of other things.

But China cannot afford anything else that pressures their markets. They have been in an economic downturn for some time now, and China's whole economic model is based on growth. They have to create at least 13 million new jobs every year or face high unemployment. They haven't been meeting this target and unemploymebnt among younger people has skyrocketed.

So they cannot afford to lose business. America must keep buying from them or the natives will get restless.

And the U.S. can pressure China's suppliers in many avenues - like oil or coal. (Yes, China has lots of coal but their need surpasses their output.)

So if they go to the mat with us they MAY hurt our economy but will destroy their own. They aren't stupid.

Foreign policy has always been about money. The U.S. could have crushed the old Soviet Union any time we liked just by doing what Reagan did; go head-to-head with them economically. It wasn't rocket science, but the official policies of the U.S. were forever throwing lifelines to the Soviets at critical moments. Grain deals, for instance, kept the Russians from starving and the USSR from imploding. We lent them money regularly.

Now China isn't the USSR, but it's still, in my opinion, not the powerhouse everyone believes. It's economy is largely based on our folly, our unwillingness to disengage from them. If we cut them off they will crumble. It's always been a matter of squeezing properly.

But so many in this country were getting rich from trading with them and using them for cheap labor. Joe Biden certainly enriched himself via the Chicoms.

I think we can ween ourselves away from China and as we do so we'll see China's economic power decline quite quickly - and so too will their military power. They have grown strong feeding off the West like a parasite. They are like tapeworms, and as Curly Howard only fed his tapeworm "burnt toast and a rotten egg" because "that's good enough for him" so too we should treat china. There are plenty of places that would welcome our business that do not plot our downfall.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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