- Feb 22, 2017
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For those who claim that Trump is "the greatest negotiator that ever walked the planet" (beside Trump himself, that is) the surprise will be very disappointing.
Trump has picked the wrong fight, using the worst tools at his disposal probably because of his hatred of Obama. If you really wanted to have China buckle to our demands of better trade balances, less currency manipulation and have China curtail the stealing of our intellectual properties, THEN the best method would have been to REJOIN the TPP accords.
China will purchase her needs for soy beans and corn from such other countries as Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Mexico ,Peru, etc.......and we can expect that China may abandon its purchases of Boeing air crafts, opting for Air Bus from European (mostly France) manufacturers.
Yes, China may currently need our exports, but we are NOT the only suppliers of the commodities that Chain needs.....and once other suppliers step up to service China's needs, what would ever make that country seek supplies from her arch economic "enemy," the U.S.?
How China Can Win the Trade War with One Move
...rare earth metals.
These are elements like dysprosium, neodymium, gadolinium, and ytterbium. They aren't actually rare, but they do play crucial roles in everything from smart phones to electric car motors, hard drives, wind turbines, military radar, smart bombs, laser guidance, and more. They're also quite difficult to mine and process.
It turns out the United States is almost entirely dependent on foreign suppliers for rare earth metals. More importantly, it's almost entirely dependent on China specifically for rare earth metals that have been processed into a final and usable form...
It woudn't take much to bring our country to its knees...
So, while I don't disagree that something should be done about trade with China, I'm not convinced this plan of action was well thought out...
We could do without China's rare earth metals and mine our own, but at the present time it is cheaper to buy them from China than to mine them out of our own mine.
This could actually work to our advantage in the long run, right now China is mining them at record rates (granted they do have 30% of the world's supply on their (or should I say under) their soil. Let China keep sucking the earth dry and we can keep ours in the ground till they are really needed.