
Tariffs China imposes on every country - Four_Star
http://thesoundingline.com/the-tariffs-china-actually-imposes-on-every-country-including-the-us/
======
ahmedalsudani
Of course China is playing unfairly. Not many people disagree.

The argument has been that the West should fight China as a unified bloc as
opposed to the unilateral tariffs being imposed. It makes no sense to alienate
Canada, the EU, Japan, and South Korea when confronting China. All of those
countries (and the EU) have serious grievances and would have provided the US
additional leverage.

The current approach is rooted in showmanship rather than strategy. It’s meant
to provide a spectacle.

~~~
mc32
Bill Clinton was very eager to get China into the WTO. Business and Industry
and Clinton only saw gleeming $ signs. It blinded them to corruption, unfair
practices, etc. They all had been warned about it.

They all thought they knew better and could bring China in line.

After Clinton, GWB didn’t even try. He was too distracted by bin Laden. Obama
was trying to make nice to the rest of the world during his first term, then
got embroiled with the unrest he started in the ME. They had all forgotten
about blue collar America. They all thought people would change jobs and these
jobs would offer a good living to blue collar workers.

Surprise! It doesn’t work that way. Sure your ivy leaguers got nice cushy
advisory jobs and consultancy jobs and got to talk about their adventures
diring their two year China stint.

All the whole mill workers, garment workers, furniture workers, tools workers
were forgotten and left behind.

Now, while inelegantly, someone is finally recognizing the grievance. It’s
about time. It’s a shame it’s taken 20 years.

~~~
Nokinside
> All the whole milk workers, garment workers, furniture workers were
> forgotten and left behind.

This is valid point but there is a catch.

Economic growth and progress happens when countries are developing and moving
up in the value chain. Developed economies are constantly moving towards high-
tech and less labor incentive work. China is still industrial economy. US has
moved into postindustrial economy. US manufacturing will decline despite trade
wars. Manufacturing work will decline even more than GDP share of
manufacturing.

When low productivity work (milk, garment, furniture workers) moves to China
it allows redirecting investments and resources to higher value added
products.

If these low productivity workers would be zombie/robots, companies would just
write them off and recycle them into trash and compost - or sell them to
China. But they are citizens and they vote. In other words, we have a
political problem.

Possible solutions:

* Use tariffs to protect workers in low productivity work. This moves economic resources in the US to less competitive industries. Over decades, US falls behind other developed countries because it wants to protect industries that developing countries have.

* Solve the actual political problem directly. US citizens not earning living wages with skills they have.

~~~
jeffbax
Manufacturing output has grown the past many years in the USA - higher
productivity technology with fewer workers. It's untrue that manufacturing as
an industry is in decline, it's just that the low end has while higher end has
risen as have the required skills

~~~
DuskStar
Some people say that that was an artifact of quality adjustments on computer
hardware, and that without the adjustments (or computer hardware) we're
actually in a decline. [0] The chart of "Manufacturing" vs "Manufacturing,
less computers [1] was pretty striking.

If you sold 1GB of RAM for $10 two years ago, and you sold 2GB of RAM for $10
this year, that's the normal state of the computer market. I don't think it's
really equivalent to selling twice as many tons of steel or wheat for half the
price.

0: [https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-
manufacturing-...](https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-
manufacturing-thats-cost-americans-millions-of-jobs/) 1:
[https://www.theatlas.com/charts/BJh4B5_TG](https://www.theatlas.com/charts/BJh4B5_TG)

------
Nokinside
I'm not a trade expert, but I can spot one clear omission missing from the
trade deficit discussion: the value-added.

Chinese exports to the US have significantly lower value-added than the US
exports to China. US exports have high value added, over 80% for exports to
China. Chinese exports to US have much lower value added, something like
30-40%. Role of third countries in bilateral trading relationships is
important.

Extreme case is Chinese made iPhone that leaves very little value-added to
China, they just join expensive parts from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and US
together with robots or cheap labor.

China exports more to the US, but less of the value stays in China. If you
calculate the trade balance using value added trade US-China trade deficit is
$200 billion for combined goods and services.

>0.7 percent of U.S. GDP depends on Chinese consumption of American-made goods
and services, while 3.1 percent of China’s GDP is derived from U.S. demand.
So, in any tariff battle, China would likely suffer more.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-19/china-
s-e...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-19/china-s-economy-is-
different-no-recessions-in-a-quarter-century)

Both countries get hurt, but both countries will survive trade war agaisnt
each other. But US is not in trade war path only with China. They go against
EU, Canada, Mexico and others. Every front trade war would be worse but
survivable. The real question is why. Everyone survives trade war but
everybody also loses.

> And simple trade models, while they do say that trade wars are bad, don’t
> say that they’re catastrophic.

>To do this right, we should use one of those computable general equilibrium
models I mentioned above. These suggest substantial but not huge losses – 2 or
3 percent of GDP.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/opinion/thinking-
about-a-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/opinion/thinking-about-a-
trade-war-very-wonkish.html)

------
anilshanbhag
One important thing people miss is that majority of US exports are
commodities. Take soybeans for example. Global soybean market has supply and
demand balanced. US exports largely to China and Brazil to Europe. Now, due to
tariffs China has started buying from Brazil leading to spike in Brazilian
soybean and fall of US soybean price. Supply gets re-routed and market comes
back to normal. China on the other hand exports finished goods which can't be
re-routed. The larger players in the market know this - the Shanghai index is
at a 3 year low which the Dow is at an all time high.

~~~
yread
> majority of US exports are commodities

[citation needed]

according to this (based on CIA factbook 2017) commodities as <15%

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/united-states-
top-10-exports...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/united-states-
top-10-exports/)

------
jacknews
I'm not at all a fan of tariffs, but another issue, in the consumer space
anyway, is shipping costs - It can be cheaper to ship stuff from china than
from the next state.

The whole issue of 'fair trade' is rather complex, as all actors attempt to
skew the playing field to their benefit, as invisibly as possible. China
appears to be quite good at the game.

~~~
akx
This is in part because the Universal Postal Union considers China a
developing country.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-subsidy-for-china-is-
dumb-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-subsidy-for-china-is-dumb-as-a-
post-1517963275)

------
ForHackernews
Fighting for better trade terms with China arguably makes good sense for the
USA.

On the other hand, picking trade fights with close allies & major partners
like Canada and the EU is absurd.

~~~
ryanx435
Trump's not "picking fights", he's getting multiple bids. The American economy
is open for business to those willing to give a better deal.

It is literally the same concept as attempting to get as many offers when you
sell a house so you can sell to the highest bidder.

~~~
ForHackernews
That doesn't make any sense. The US economy is not a single good that can only
be sold once to a particular buyer.

~~~
agon
I hear Putin wants to buy.

------
Engineering-MD
These articles on Chinese trade and barriers often mention forced technology
transfer and IP theft. Can someone more knowledgeable than me explain the
reality of this? It seems that it is such a large imposition I’m surprised
anyone does business in China when you know 10-15 years later they will have
copied your business.

~~~
zip1234
It's taken awhile for companies to catch on. The saga of how the Chinese stole
the SU-27 plans from Russia (Licensed the fighter and planned to use Russian
components and then switched to Chinese made components after a couple years)
is among the ways they do it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-11)
The Russians were desperate for cash at the time and the Chinese were willing
to pay. What the Russians didn't count on was the willingness to straight up
steal the design and start manufacturing it in China. Companies have gotten a
lot better about protecting their designs now but are up against the Chinese
government.

------
leemailll
this one offers no real data behind the so-called weighted tariff. US and
China clearly import different products from each other, different categories
of product might have different tariff on each side. Also when China joined
WTO they may be agreed to impose some kind of "extra" tariff because it is
viewed as developing country

------
oceanswave
I’d be interested to see a graph that indicates the actual amounts, in USD,
that each country imports and exports relative to one another.

------
vxNsr
I was hearing this as an argument for tariffs right after Trump started
talking about it, but I didn't actually understand it until I saw this.

It's a war of attrition, and we're both gonna lose but china has a lot more to
lose than we do atm.

