Just look at India, with Modi rushing to Washington before everyone else, thinking he is going to catch the early worm and be patted on the head by Trump. Instead, Modi was humiliated and forced to buy expensive weapons from the USA and even now coerced to buy agricultural products that had been rejected by China. Some of the agricultural products have also been rejected by the EU due to genetically modified issues which the EU is very strict about. This is going to kill Indian farmers.
Farmers in USA are going bankrupt without the Chinese market, which is never going to return. The USA will face a National Security Issue with regard to food in time to come, if more farmers bite the dust. In the initial stages of the trade war during Trump's first term, subsidies were used to keep farmers in business. Long term subsidies are not going to work, just like subsidizing semiconductor manufacturers. It sounds good for a start, but not feasible for the longer term. Even monopolizing the semiconductor sector needs a big enough market and if they cannot break into the China market, that spells doom and gloom. Samsung has seen the reality and having cold feet, refusing to go deeper into investing in the USA. Lack of demand was the reason, and who is fueling the demand? Not the USA manufacturers for sure.
Anonymous
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Lee Hsien Loong just made a pointed remark that the 'best framework is the world minus one' which is directed at the USA. Everybody in the world is now fighting a trade war with the USA and has to look at the bigger picture of why not just ignore the USA market and concentrate on the Global South and BRICS.
China has afforded least developed African countries with zero tariffs on 100% of their exports to China from December l, 2024. China has also signed a free trade agreement with ASEAN countries. Such African countries and ASEAN know who is giving them a better deal in trade moving forward. China is a much bigger market than the USA for products from such least developed countries of Africa and they will benefit greatly in mutual co-operation in decades to come. The Africans know that China will be in Africa for the long term, as China has done decades in the past when Africa was facing grave difficulties due to exploitation by the Western colonizers. At that time China was a poor country, but the fact is China still went ahead to aid Africa in fighting against colonialism. Now we are seeing more African countries taking up the fight, like Burkina Faso.
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