In the eyes of everyone, on most MSM and social media as well, it was a huge caving in by Trump to China over the tariffs, despite all his gloating about how tough he is acting in the face of falling demand for USA Treasuries, idle cranes at ports, empty shelves at retail outlets on top of truckers and dockworkers being laid off. The strange thing is that job creation, as reported in the USA, is still touted to be bullish, something that defies logic. Anyway, all credit goes to Trump when things look good, but Biden will be blamed when things go bad.
The tariff preoccupation also diverted attention away momentarily from the agricultural sector that suffered a double whammy. The deportation of undocumented immigrants deprived farmers with cheap labor and the gradual loss of the Chinese market is crippling the USA farmers. How desperate they are now is shown by the fraud that is being committed by soya bean farmers in the USA trying to enter the Chinese market by documenting their products as originating from Argentina and Brazil and exporting them to China, hopefully undiscovered. The Brazilians and Argentinians want no part of the scam and are working with the Chinese to stamp out the fraudulent practice.
China just turned away 300,000 tons of soya beans originating from USA which were documented as being from Argentina. This was found out by the Chinese authorities when they tested the protein contents of those beans from USA sources that were found to be dramatically different from those traditionally originating from Argentina. This line of fraud is now being cut off and USA farmers now have no way to export soya beans to China stealthily without being discovered. Brazil and Argentina are not reliant on USA soya beans anyway and will not be a party to the fraud being carried out by the USA. They have a big stake in the Chinese market and are not in any way going to cut their noses to spite their faces.
Anonymous
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The reprieve is for USA retailers to restock their shelves or to do stockpiling while the 90 days truce is still in force. There is no way that retailers in USA can find alternative sources of supplies elsewhere - not from any other sources with that same capacity and not from just hyping up USA's internal manufacturing mantra which is just building castles in the air.
Sure, Chinese factories are again humming along, but they are now seeking and producing for alternative markets, having learnt a lesson from Trump's delusional behavior. 90 days truce may come and go, and uncertainties still abound. Will the Chinese supplies continue thereafter is the question for USA retailers. There are still mountains of uncertainties left unresolved and thinking that the tariff war is over is delusional. China must never ever trust the USA to uphold its side of the deal, certainly not the words of a man-child that changes his mind day in and day out. Even trade agreements with Canada and Mexico have been thrown into the dustbin by Trump, so what is to become of the 90 days truce when it runs out.
China has learnt useful lessons from Trump's first term by attempting to use trade wars to cripple China. What did China do during that trade war? China retaliated and started seeking more trade links with other countries and meanwhile started to source for supplies like agricultural products from Brazil, Argentina and Russia to compensate for the decline in USA agricultural products. China also diverted its energy needs to Russia, Iran and Venezuela. China also embarked on a national scale to adopt clean energy like EVs, built more dams, installed more solar panels and wind turbines to be less reliant on fossil fuel. China also started building trade links and diverting exports to the Global South and helping countries with infrastructures to enable them to progress and will have the capacity to absorb Chinese products in the longer term.
Indonesia is going to benefit as well from trade with China opening up, especially farm products and perhaps energy. China was the first country that Indonesian President Prabowo visited after he took office and this was not incidental or without reason or intention.
Truth be told, USA farmers are still suffering and awaiting a slow death, with no return for exports to China ever coming back. Moreover, cost of keeping up the farm's operation will go up with the deportation of cheap undocumented workers. That is even provided USA workers are prepared to do the backbreaking jobs left behind by those immigrants.
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