US China tariff back to pre tariff war level

 Asean states are concerned and troubled by the harsh tariffs imposed on them by the Rump regime. And the difference is stark after the agreement by US and China to reduce their respective tariff to pre tariff war level. Though the rates was 30% on China and 10% on American goods, the rate was actually 10% each. The Americans raised the tariff by 20% on China using the fentanyl drug as an excuse, blaming China for America's drug problem. China is calling the American lie and telling the Americans to take care of their own drug problems.  China has nothing to do with drugging Americans. This additional 20% due to fentanyl is still being contested. 

When this issue is settled, the effective tariff for both sides would be 10%. Comparing this to the tariffs Trump imposed on the rest of the world, in particular to ASEAN countries, China would not look like being better off. Trump has capitulated after understanding the interdependence of trade of both countries and would have to tone down his war cry against China. Hitting China with high tariffs is as good as hitting the American consumers and industries and slapping his own face.

On the other hand, hitting and bullying smaller countries around the world, including ASEAN, is easy, a piece of cake. For countries that solely depended on the American consumer market, this is a bit too hard to swallow. Trump is a big bully and would bully everyone he could, but not China.

See how he swaggered into the Middle East like John Wayne, and taking billions from the Arabs with no resistance. See how he treated Panama, Mexico and Canada. And he is still trying to take over Greenland and the Gaza. Trump is a ruthless gangster and he is proud of it. There is no one out there to stop him from taking anything he fancies.

ASEAN under Anwar's chairmanship has taken a new approach to tackle the American bullies. ASEAN alone is not enough. Anwar is bringing together China and the Gulf States to act as one to face the Americans. This combination is good for all three parties. Only Anwar can pull this through as an international statesman with some standing and influence and with good relations with the Gulf states and China. How impactful is this move is too early to tell, but it is another sign of the rest of the world collaborating to take on the Americans directly and to isolate the Americans from the rest of the world.

The tariff war is not over. After the 90 day truce with China, Trump, if he is still around, would start to misbehave again. The world must expect incessant warmongering and posturing by Trump through his term in office until he is taken out or down.

Cost of modern warfare...duds can be very expensive when sold to suckers

 US$240m per shot. This is what it costs India to lose a Rafale fighter jet in the India Pakistan War. And India bought 36 pieces of Rafales from France. In this war it was reported that India lost 3 Rafales or US$720m just on Rafales alone. It also lost a SU30, MiG29 and a Mirage2000. The total cost or loss for India in the 4 day war, just on aircraft shot down is nearly US$1 billion. That is cool.

The Americans ordered the Indians and Pakistanis not to use the F16s bought from the Americans as they are meant to be used for anti terrorism purposes. And each F16 is likely to cost around US$60m. Using a US$60m aircraft to fight terrorists that are mostly rag and tag soldiers, carrying small arms and gathering in small numbers is definitely not very economical. And if they fire missiles at the terrorists, costing at least US$1m each, is small bang for big bucks.

Both the Americans and the Israelis are finding it super expensive to be firing their multi million dollar missiles at cheap Palestinian or Houthi drones and rockets that cost a couple of thousand dollars each. In the process the Americans also lost 3 F18s, each costing nearly US$100m. 

Modern warfare American or western style, using expensive firepower is not going to be cheap or affordable to small countries. The Israelis and Americans are using expensive aircraft and bombs to bomb the Houthis and Palestinians, costing millions, and reporting 10 or 20 killed each time, sometimes less. This does not look economical at all.

The Pakistanis have proven that there is no need to spend huge money to fight a winning war. They used the Chinese PL15 missiles, each costing likely to be less than US$1m, maybe US$100k, to bring down a US$240m Rafales or the slightly cheaper SU, MiG or Mirage. Still very good value for money. Small buck big bangs.

Why would country spend hundreds of millions or trillions to acquire overpriced western weapons when they could do the same job better using many times cheaper Chinese weapons? Indonesia has ordered 30 Rafales, say at US$200m each, think the French overcharged the Indians at US$240m each, it would cost the Indonesians US$6 billion just on the aircraft alone. A J10 costs only US$40m! The Indonesians could have 30 J10s for US$1.2 billion with US$4.8 billion to spare.

China is telling the world that there is no need to spend so much on weapons to do the same job effectively. The western lies that countries must spend billions and billions to buy expensive but average western weapons is falling through, just like spending tens of thousands on luxury branded goods when the same item costs a fraction of the price. The Americans are selling the rich Arabs AI machine costing billions when China has proven that the same job can be done for the cost of peanuts.

Modern warfare, modern weapons do not have to be so expensive as charged by the Americans and the West. The markups and sales talks are not worth the money spent. Expensive is not necessarily good stuff, could be duds.

Trump chased out all heavy industries and now only has weapons industries to go by

Trump has now changed his tune. He is not trying to bring back manufacturing of sneakers and T-shirts. USA workers are too fat and lazy to work in sweatshops as shown by those mocking memes on Tik Tok that the Chinese made. He is now luring manufacturers of military tanks and technology. What about keeping out technology companies like Huawei and BYD and chasing away companies like John Deere, Ford, Harley Davison and now forcing Nvidia to set up a R & D unit in China and Amazon and Walmart setting up headquarters for their operation outside the USA? The narrative does not fit the reality of Trump's actions.

For a start, does the USA really have the skilled workforce for bringing back such high skilled industries? The USA can do that if it changes its education system now to turn out more engineers and scientist, not otherwise. That is going to take years, or even decades. Putting the cart before the horse is not going to fool anybody. And if that was the reason for his tariffs, why try to erect high tariffs on everything besides weapons and technology, which the USA can ill afford to do without? Another con exposed?


Anonymous

Indians are good at taking over American and western corporations

Does not able to build anything include toilets I just wonder. Such basic thing as building toilets is already beyond them, so you cannot expect them to build things of a higher order, right?
Now India is furiously touting about building AI and already gloating about success on Channel News America. Only some success in India is seen so far, if true, not globally yet and they are already making a song and dance about it, Bollywood style. And India's AI development is going up against the USA, EU and China. DeepSeek did not gloat about success, but when it rolled out, the whole world was taken by surprise. That is the real meaning of success, not kampong style success.

Let us be honest. What has India achieved in terms of Global success in anything after years of gloating? Does India have apps like Tik Tok that are able to compete globally? Does India have a global standing in Mobile phone usage worldwide? Does India have a Huawei instilling fear in Western circles that they have to invent propagandas to demonize it because they could not compete against it?

Yes, India is good as raiders, eyeing companies that invested and succeed in India before passing laws to punish them and force them to sell to cronies of Indian leaders. Now, those investors are running away from India with just their pants on. Trump is even telling Apple not to invest in India. Funny that Trump has not warned Apple not to invest in China or pull out of China so far.

Apple is now caught in between the devil and the deep blue sea. Making iPhone outside the USA will result in a 25% tariff for the moment, not knowing what else more is to come. Making iPhones in USA is not feasible. with prohibitive costs and supply chain issues and still dependent on China and still subject to tariffs being negotiated. And rare earth materials are not going to be so readily available in USA with China stepping up investigation and tightening the noose against other countries like South Korea and UK, discreetly buying and reselling rare earth materials to the USA.


Anonymous

After Zelensky, now Ramaphosa. Any silly leader still wants to be embarrassed meeting Trump?

Trump tried to rattle South Africa's President, Cyril Ramaphosa, during the latter's visit to Washington, with the accusation that South Africa is conducting genocide against White farmers. This has already been investigated earlier and proven to be false and just lies, given that such deaths of farmers occurred among all races and not just White farmers alone. What about the genocides committed during Apartheid by the White regime against the blacks? Conveniently forgotten?

Trump, as usual, the dumb fxxk that he is, takes such propaganda at face value from people in his orbit like Elon Musk, all with agendas against South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa was not cowed and exposed Trump's attempt to rattle him and put him in a bad light. And he had the support of other global leaders, putting Trump in a spot over his apparent ignorance about reality and recent history.

We all know that South Africa is a founder member of BRICS, a country that stands strongly behind the people in Gaza and had a pending case of genocide in Gaza against Israel at the International Court of Justice, a very brave stance to say the least. There were earlier attempts to demonize South Africa over accusations of sending military weapons to Russia. All these issues have put South Africa in the frontline of attacks by the USA, Israel and the West.

South Africa and now Burkina Faso have strong leaders that are brave enough to challenge the West, and the Western powers do not like it. There have been many attempts to assassinate Ibrahim Traore, the leader of Burkina Faso, even bribing his own bodyguards to do it. Such attempts will not stop until they succeed. Let us pray that God protects a good man.


Anonymous