Trade War: China V. America

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Why fight with China at all? Worst comes to worst we trade them Canada and a cut of the Iraqi oil to write off the debt, problem solved.

Well, wouldn't we first need to conquer Canada? Oh, wait... that wouldn't be so difficult, eh?

Given that China currently has a comparatively cheap and plentiful labor force, an existing and innovative manufacturing base, a global market, and the ability to sell off US debt thereby raising US interest rates, I think China would have the upper hand early on in a trade war. Which is not to say that the US wouldn't or couldn't eventually overcome, but I think it would be a long drawn-out war extending over decades and possibly up to half a century or more, and it could get pretty darn bloody both metaphorically and (hopefully not) literally. Which makes me think, the US is vulnerable right now.

This makes sense to some extent...

...but it would take decades.

No it wouldn't, we have manufacturing buildings still we just need to update them and find workers.

I'd be willing to be a factory worker if there were anyone hiring. More generally, high amounts of unemployed citizens equals no shortage in potential labor.

So in other words now would be a good time to return manufacturing to America?

We could buy cheap CNC machine tools from China and outsource the programming to India, put all our unemployed people to work feeding metal into the machines and assembling the parts; get back into manufacturing tomorrow. Hey, that started out as sarcasm but might actually work...

Let china continue with its current actions it won't be able to sustain its strategy indefinatly. The big moan is all those stock brokers unable to make as much money as they would like on their forex trading.

If not China, it will just start up in some other second world country with enough infrastructure and desperate people. The multinational corporations will just turn out of China and go to somewhere else cause its cheaper.

Vietnam could be the next China if cards fell right. It could be Pakistan or Indonesia, but security concerns there (esp. in Pakistan) crush their chances. Bangladesh certainly has the population, but lack of infrastructure and troubling neighbors don't help.

The only hope for American manufacturing is either (a) trade war or (b) sudden end of cheap oil supplies

Manufacturing in the U.S. generates about $1.6 trillion, or 12 percent of our gross domestic product, accounting for nearly three quarters of the nation’s industrial research and development (R&D), two-thirds of our nation’s total exports of goods and services, and supports more than 20 million high-paying jobs. Manufacturing also ensures we have a strong industrial base to support our national security objectives.


ruveyn

The USA is already loosing a trade war with China and without some complete reversal of national ambition and culture this is an inevitability, this is China's century and we had all best get used to the idea, personally I don't think that it could be any worse than the last century which the USA claimed as it's own.

Or the 19th century which was Britain's Century.

ruveyn

Good freakin god. I kinda glanced at this thread before but didn't really put much into it because I figured it'd be beyond stupid to try and leverage against China at this point but sure enough, I'm seeing news now that the US is taking complaints about China's policies and essentially starting a trade war.

What kind of hubris does one have to possess to try and start a trade war with the country holding however many billions or trillions of our dollars as loan collateral. All China would need to do would be feel comfortable enough in its economic and production sitting to just dump all that and completely devalue the dollar. And this trade war talk during a period where every moron is pushing less and less taxes against everyone. Sadly, a fiat monetary system means that we cannot live tax free. Especially those who hold the majority of the wealth...but they have the most effective lobby to get the tax breaks and cuts that they want (despite it being an absolutely lossy move for the country at this point). You cannot have 10% of the country with 80% of the wealth in a fiat system and have it be sustainable.

the hubris of being capable of supporting oneself if push comes to shove?

19 Facts About the Deindustrialization of America


What's that about us being capable of supporting ourselves?

http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-17/b ... ts-profits

We are very much capable of supporting ourselves those factories may be unused but they are not all demolished or converted to other uses.

EDIT: those corporations can be brought back by reestablishing tariffs and fining a company that does most of its manufacturing overseas.