The left calls tariffs a sales tax on Americans. It’s not. What happens when you put a tariff on China? China eats the tariff because there are several low labor cost competitor countries. If you put an across the board tariff on other countries, they will eat the cost to remain competitive. That is generally how it works for low barrier to entry goods. Most of what China sells.
For high barrier to entry goods like cars, you set the tariff at a point where they choose to build the product in the US. Thus avoiding the tariff. Why does that happen? Because the US is the biggest and most profitable market for most international goods.
What about strategic things like steel? That will cost a little more (but decrease with energy prices). However, material costs are a very small fraction of the cost of consumer goods. Labor and overhead are much bigger factors. And typically, other countries will not move a strategic good to the US.
What about exports if the other countries do something similar. Well they already are. Tariff targeting will get them to lower their tariffs and make it better for our goods. And a lot of things we export are things that they don’t make or make to our level.
That is the short version.
They usually argue that 100% tariffs will cause imported prices to double. But this ignores that our incomes will essentially go up 100% when income taxes are removed.
Not everything we buy is imported, such as houses, some cars, and many food products. It will be a net win for Americans. There are also small amounts of manufacturing still in America which spans virtually all industries. Those currently expensive American-made products will become cost competitive.
Additional cost competitiveness will come from American companies having a strategic future that provides for productivity, efficiency and product improvement investments.
And that's why if you prefer, for example, Japanese cars you're probably fine in the future as many of the models are already built in the USA as well as some German models are built here as well (I remember years back driving past a Mercedes plant in Mississippi). If a model is really popular in a big market like the USA it's more economical anyway to build it here than to ship them all across the ocean. I remember many years back some old lady who didn't get this trying to shame me for driving a Honda at the time and she was even more indignant when I pointed out that my car was built in Ohio by Americans while her Ford was one of the many models made in Mexico.
For anyone that is paying attention, it looks like the economy in China is on the verge of crashing. It appears that there has been some type of coup in China that occurred at the last plenary session of the CCP and Xi has been stripped of his power. For the time being Xi is only there as a figurehead to give some semblance of stability while the world is distracted on other things. The main players with the power right now seem to be the head of the military, the premier, and the minister of public security. Along with Xi, several of his hand picked cronies have also been put in check.
To think that Trump may have triggered this snowball rolling with his tariffs is more than coincidence. He obviously was way ahead of everyone else when it came to dealing with China. He knew which cards to play in order to bring the house down. In addition, my understanding is that most of the military is against any move on Taiwan because the military is not ready for prime time despite what the propaganda says. Many in the CCP are fed up with Xi and his grandiose emperor delusions that have all but wrecked China's economy and put them on a trajectory of confrontation with the US. Like elites anywhere, the CCP's worst nightmare is pitchforks and torches - which the Chinese public is not far from at the moment. It will take them years to climb out of the hole - if the CCP lasts that long.
The Chinese have been papering over a financial collapse for years. It is getting harder and harder to do that. Xi and the power families of the CCP have been battling for years now. I think he took out two families. The other families may have ganged up on him though. My inside conduit passed away almost two years ago.
You are correct. As long as the money kept flowing they had no reason to fix any systemic problems that are now biting them in the asteroids. The whole system is built on corruption. The CCP has systematically destroyed Chinese culture and created a society of competitive mutual harm for money - and the elites are always left with the lion's share.
With Xi's purging to consolidate power he made a lot of enemies. Now that he has been stripped of power, the shoe is on the other foot. The wolf warrior has become a kitten trying to extend an olive branch to those he tried to stomp out. General Zhang Youxia, who seems to be in control of the military, has been smiling like a Cheshire cat as of late. My understanding is that on the first day of the July plenary session Xi confronted Zhang Youxia to get him to step down. Instead, Xi had a serious health crisis and the others took advantage of the opportunity to remove Xi. It is rumored Xi had a stroke. The doctor that saved his life has since disappeared. At any rate, things are changing within the power structure at Zhongnanhai.
I have been a China watcher for several years. It is hard to see into that black box of the CCP, but if you know what to look for, it can be seen. What seemed like rumors a few months ago have taken on new importance and signal major power shifts within Zhongnanhai. The question now is how the CCP is going to hold on to power with everything collapsing around them. There are protests breaking out all over the place despite efforts to suppress them. When the people have nothing left to lose they are not afraid. They are at the tipping point.
I am hoping that Taiwan invasion plans can be trash canned. General Zhang Youxia is from the Army. Xi over his term has shifted importance of the PLA from the Army to the Navy and Rocket Force to further invasion plans of Taiwan. The general seems to already be trying to shift the emphasis back to the army - which means stripping power from the Navy and Rocket Force. We will see what kind of power struggles that will cause in the future. It does not appear the brass is in favor of a Taiwan invasion. That may be the primary reason Xi purged most of the military leadership. He did not allow opposing viewpoints and sought to place yes men in positions of power. The CCP right now has to be concerned with simply maintaining their hold on power in the face of a failing economy and very negative public sentiment. It will be interesting.
Solid intel. Thanks! I will watch for your future posts.
Thanks. I don't post much. I leave all the majority of posts to the others. This is one area however I know something about and thought I would chime in. No one else seems to be discussing it - or - they have a very distorted view of geopolitics which I don't feel like arguing over. Thanks for your attention.
Well, you should. Post more. This was outstanding input.
This forum has changed a lot in the last several years. It used to be a place with a good exchange of ideas - but not so much anymore. It has basically become like other social media with everyone throwing out their one or two lines of whatever their emotional outburst may be. Most don't have the patience for anything detailed not to mention daring to voice an opinion outside of their particular bias. Thank you for the compliment.
Here is some further intel. It is hard to read the tea leaves in that CCP black box. All the latest indications of a power shift within Zhongnanhai may end up being one big head fake to hide what the CCP is really up to. I heard some rumors last week about a different kind of shift taking place - moving key industries west and more inland. It has received some movement on Chinese social media - which always must be taken with a grain of salt but may be indicators of something happening. It is always hard to know. Usually when there are rumors I wait until there is some more evidence before giving these rumors any serious consideration. People have been reporting industrial relocations to more western inland areas like Sichuan and Chongqing. Some people were reporting that locals there were getting rich due to relocation compensations - but I don't believe that for one minute. Yes, there could be relocation demolitions taking place, but the local population beyond government officials certainly will not be getting rich from the transfers.
I ran across this video today that deals with some of those rumors I was hearing - it is chilling to think about. Guangdong Giants Huawei, Gree, TCL Are Moving to Sichuan. Is China Relocating Its Capital for War?
I would be curious as to your thoughts since you have had prior inside contacts within China. It would also explain several moves the US and other allies have been making as of late - all of them without much publicity. Things are never what they seem.
The Chinese reluctantly accepted capitalism but just along the coast for the most part. Lots of migration from the farms to the coast and they over built like crazy. This caused several internal problems on top of the floods, droughts and snow in non snow regions. It is a little more difficult if they move some targets inland, but not much. I think they need to move them for political unrest problems. They figure the solution is jobs.
I agree that they are thinking it could solve some of their employment problems. It could also be as you stated to move things further away from possible unrest in the more populated areas of the eastern coastal zone. From that standpoint the area could be better defended against public uprising. However, long term China watchers are saying there is more going on here. Xi is getting desperate. Is there some military strategic move being made here as well? They know that Taiwan has that entire coastal area in their crosshairs.
Like I already mentioned, reading those tea leaves of what the CCP is up to is difficult. Xi does not look well and he is being pressured to name a successor. Has he lost some control over the military or is that a head fake to expose more traitors in the ranks?
The West is taking things more serious and quickly addressing gaps along the first and second island chain. What do they know? The US has already foiled a couple of possible invasion attempts by China. Around the time of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan a couple of years ago there was one such attempt. There was an amphibious group that was turned back by US forces that suddenly dropped into the area. We were watching them for months build up that force by satellite imagery. China was forced to retreat and offload their forces - also noted by satellite. That whole incident got no coverage in Western media.
Something has drastically shifted in the region in last few years. Indonesia has decided to push China back by running off Chinese Coast Guard vessels out of their waters. Their naval capacities are much stronger than the Philippines so China backed down. Japan is also taking the threat very seriously. Hopefully all the changes can be just enough of a deterrent to make Xi think twice if he should try to start some kind of move to shift focus off the economic crisis hanging over China - something authoritative despots have done in the past. North Korea is also positioning itself to take northeast areas of China on their border should China become too weak to fight back and are distracted. All the happenings on their southern border with the south are distraction. They feel they are owed that area anyway. None of the players in that axis trust each other and though they publicly try to put on the face of friendship and unity, behind the scenes they are all jockeying for advantage and hedging their bets. Interesting times we are living in for sure.
Thanks for your feedback.
Thanks for the intel. Last I knew we had 3 or 4 carriers there; the English had a carrier there; the French had a carrier there; and the Japanese had two jump carriers there. But the Japanese call them something else. The US was actually flying F-35s off the Japanese ships. The Japanese pilots are probably up to speed by now.
I'm curious...
Were you for or against the last major event that occurred right before COVID? I'm speaking, of course, about the Hong Kong Extradition Attempt.
I think China may have released that bioweapon on purpose for several reasons - one being to bring the protests in Hong Kong under control. Covid for the most part shut Hong Kong down. I don't know if the CCP expected it to go world wide - then again, US interests had to change an upcoming election. Much of the press here in the US was fabricated to make things appear worse than they actually were - hence, mail in ballots. The deep state US interests were in bed with the CCP regarding what was coming out of that lab. That bug was created by Ft Detrick and DARPA. There are patent contracts that date back to 2018 and 2019 showing there were several entities playing with it.
Hong Kong was/is a tragedy. The changes to the security law was the nail in the coffin. A warning for Taiwan and I think most Taiwanese can see the handwriting on the wall. Did you hear the speech President Lai gave? He stated that the ROC is much older than the CCP - so who is the motherland? Brilliant! The CCP still does not have a come back and have been silent.
I do remember hearing a lot about the Hong Kong protests right before COVID hit and the way they suddenly died has always made me wonder if China released it early and that's why the Dems seemed so disorganized for the first couple months of 2020.
What if.... the globalists knew the CCP could not resist using that bioweapon to quell their own internal problems, but they were used by the globalists as cover for the much larger scale operation the globalists had already put into motion? Something to consider. I say this because China has paid a very heavy price and is still being effected by the outbreak. So much so, it could lead to the demise of the CCP itself. No matter what the CCP's hegemonic aspirations of global dominance may be, they would not deliberately set into motion a plan that could jeopardize their own existence. That is not how they operate.
It is an otherworldly ask, to ask a fellow GAW user to watch a video. But allow me to indulge. You are clearly thinking logically, but greater context on the Comms involved with the COVID event is necessary.
https://rumble.com/v50zauq-covid-19-global-military-op-decoding-symbols-05.html
Interesting. I was aware of many of those comms prior. Nice to see someone place them in one video. The format was original.
There is no doubt that the globalists had planned the scamdemic years in advance. But, to what extent was the CCP involved in the plan? I surmise that the CCP got played and were set up to be the fall guys? That scenario seems more likely to me based on the MO of the globalists and the Chinese.
According to my sources, people were already getting sick in China as far back as Sept. - possibly even Aug. I was reading reports of something happening with regards to a respiratory virus on the loose during the summer in China on a couple of global infectious disease reporting sites. It got my attention. I had patients come in with a weird bug during the summer and thought it was odd. It was too early for flu season and the symptoms were different - especially the crippling fatigue. Most told me it was the sickest they had ever been in their lives. Several of them were sick for months. So it was already on my radar.
The CCP was completely inept in their attempts to contain what was happening. No surprise there. They are still dealing with outbreaks and people continue to die. The jab only complicated the problem. It is still unknown how many in China have died in the last 4 years. It is in the millions.
I do not believe that the CCP were willing participants beyond a few corrupt individuals that would sell their own mother for a few bucks - but they still did not know the larger picture - few did. You can always count on the greed of the Chinese and no doubt that factor was taken into consideration. The fact remains that the bioweapon was conceived and developed in the US and then shipped to China. The Chinese are great at imitation, but lack innovation.
The globalists keep everything very compartmentalized. That is how they manage to pull stuff like this off. It is not until one stands back and takes all the data points and links them together does one get to see a larger picture and understand how all those seemingly disparate data points come together.
As a side: With all the hub bub talk lately about the BRICS, here is a video that may shed some light on what is happening currently to the RMB and why the BRICS is mostly propaganda and no real threat. The RMB was supposed to be the backbone of the currency foundation for BRICS. The CCP is always hyping up their capabilities to the point they actually believe their own propaganda. I could go on, but I will let you make of this what you will. This is a channel I watch frequently for good analysis on China. Irreversible Decline: The Unfolding Fate of the RMB. | Digging to China
Have a great day and thanks for sharing.
I got real sick for a couple weeks right after Thanksgiving in 2019 after having a plumber over who had just gotten over the flu he had said. I also recall stories of the virus being found in wastewater samples from as far back as October 2019 in some cities so the actual release was probably back in September and it had already spread to the US midwest at well before the news ever mentioned something going on.
Very quickly into the video, it is stated that the purpose of the COVID event was in the Lockdowns themselves. And how this was planned beforehand by the World Military Games that took place in, of all places, Wuhan China. Tell me, does "World Military" sound like something Q Team would be a part of? Why yes, that is in line with how Q views the battle against the Pyramid.
While no doubt 'pandemics' were in the Globalist playbook, an objective look at the Comms reveal that COVID itself was a Military Op from the very start.
"Same place 1 month apart.
100+ Countries Begin getting infected with COVID
100+ Countries Begin Military Olympics
What if this isn’t a coincidence? Notice the “preparation” done for the World Military Games exactly 1 month before COVID officially begins."
https://decodingsymbols.wordpress.com/2024/01/13/coronavirus/
EPA and OSHA regs on manufacturing just about everything here in the U.S. will have to be relaxed or flat out removed, too, to help the import tariffs do their job properly so that U.S. manufacturing can make a proper come back. It was the setting of those regulations as well as NAFTA that has almost killed the steel and auto industries, and TPP that allowed for the "cheaper" option of having our semiconductors and microchips manufactured in Taiwan.
You know something's wrong with our laws, rules, and regs when it becomes cheaper to have the crap you buy be manufactured in the other side of the globe and then shipped intermodally. It's something people have such a hard time understanding that their brains immediately shut down when asking them to explain it coherently.
I remember a time when Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Forn, GM, Hummer, Caterpillar, International, Mack, Freightliner, John Deere, Craftsman Tools, Great Value, Levi's, Lee, Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and even our military uniforms were made strictly here in the U.S. and we're not only the highest quality you could find, but we're also competitively priced that a single parent, single income family of 4 could afford them.
Think about the cognitive dissonance of the people who revel at the thought of dramatically increasing the corporate tax, but rail against tariffs.
Exactly!
Thx Fren 🐸
Tarriffs means more will be produced at home.