With manufacturing of consumer goods in the USA not yet taking off, Trump thinks his 100% tariff threat against BRICS countries is going to work to disintegrate the bloc. He is just as delusional as ever and is falling into a trap set by China.
China cutting off exports to the USA in critical materials is already one area that the USA cannot afford to face. This is going to affect manufacturing, such as setting up battery production facilities as an example, under which graphite is controlled by China, and almost totally controlled by BRICS countries. Sure, Trump can think about 100% tariffs on graphite as well, but at what cost to its manufacturing ambitions. And any attempt to gather supplies from alternative sources is going to take years to come to fruition.
Cutting off Titanium export by China is another critical item that will cripple USA manufacturing such as weapons production, fighter jet engine production, civilian plane production, EVs and semi-conductor usage. Boeing is being crippled by the substituting of cheaper aluminum for titanium by the Indian suppliers to Boeing. The damage it has done to Boeing is already showing.
And we are not yet talking about China cutting off its exports of consumer products to the USA when the USA has not yet found any alternative suppliers in quantitative and qualitative proportions as substitutes for its domestic consumption. What this means is that USA retailers like Walmart and Amazon will face empty warehouses and retail outlets. This is something that the USA Government is going to face its citizens going forward if the trade war really escalates to unimaginable proportions.
What is Trump going to achieve by imposing 100% tariffs on just the above two items? It will ramp up the cost of production, which will mean more expensive batteries and very expensive weapons that will cripple the USA military and its Military Industrial Complex.
And what does it do to other BRICS countries? They can always divert exports to other BRICS countries and the Global South to avoid paying the tariffs. Who is going to suffer with the 100% tariffs? USA manufacturing and USA consumers will bear the brunt of the increased tariffs. Are they going to take it lying down? Time will tell.
Anonymous
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The sickest country on earth is shooting itself in the head. I'll call it euthanasia.
The USA's so-called Think Tanks are not really thinking but in reality, tanking instead. All the years they have only been thinking of policies that were tailored to make China irrelevant, with trade wars, sanctions on sectors and now tariffs, and they all failed or will fail.
This is the result of such Think Tanks having the assumption that cutting off this and that from China and it will be unable to rise. The USA does not understand the saying that 'necessity is the mother of invention'. The push of the USA and the West actually forced China to rise more rapidly.
Decades of progress in China after WW2 cannot be compared to the thirty years of China after 1990. And the past thirty years of China up to 2020 cannot be compared to the last five years of China's development. The accelerated ascendence of China can be attributed to the behavior of the USA under the first Trump administration, starting from 2016.
When they USA disallowed China to participate in space research on the International Space Station, China went ahead to build its own Tiangong Space Station. The USA tried to prevent China from having the capability to launch satellites and rockets for space exploration, so China built them itself, went to the moon, landed a probe on Mars, and is now inventing its own reusable rockets to cut down cost of space travel. China is now intending to conquer space with massive number of satellites launching to rival Starlink. Will China succeed? I would not bet against it.
When China was cornering raw materials for its EV development, what were those Think Tanks doing, not realizing the consequences looming over its ICE vehicle manufacturers even with factories in China next door to such EV upstarts. They were caught flat-footed and now unable to respond. Trying to get at the raw material leftovers of what the Chinese had already exerted controlled is a lost cause.
China's next target is the aviation sector. China's domestic airlines are already flying millions of passengers, with huge plane orders on hand. Some countries are already buying COMAC planes, and with competitive prices to match, China will likely do another BYD domination in aviation as well. Moreover, the huge Chinese domestic plane market is no more the playground of Boeing and Airbus going forward.
The semiconductor war is not yet decided. Who will win is still in the works. China is now not five to ten years behind the USA in chip manufacturing as touted by the West. China is catching up fast, narrowing the gap by leaps and bounds. The USA and the West can keep hyping on their front-running gloating. TSMC is talking about investing another US$100 billion in five factories in the USA. First question to ask is, where are they going to find the skilled workers? Import from Taiwan perhaps. Where are they going to get the rare earth minerals and silicon reserves now under China's total control. At the end of the day, which markets are TSMC going to sell all those chips? China is now not depending on most legacy chips from foreign manufacturers, which it can manufacture for its domestic requirements. And legacy chips are the most sought after for everything from EVs, solar panels, drones, telecom systems, consumer goods like washing machines and all kinds of weapon manufacturing requirements.
The problem with the USA is that they keep employing and listening to the same deadwood Think Tankers that have failed in to give workable advice and solutions from one administration to the next, and still thinks their advice are cutting-edge and winning the game.
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