IQ-challenged United States threatens China with tariffs — this will go about as well as sanctioning Russia did

15 May 2024

Let's suicide ourselves . . .

Before everyone else recognizes how stupid we are?

For example:

The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of a package of measures designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports.

In a move that is likely to inflame trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the White House said it was imposing more stringent curbs on Chinese goods worth $18bn.

Sources said the move followed a four-year review and was a preventive measure designed to stop cheap subsidised Chinese goods flooding the US market and stifling the growth of the American green technology sector.

As well as a tariff increase from 25% to 100% on EVs, levies will rise from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, from zero to 25% on critical minerals, from 25% to 50% on solar cells, and from 25% to 50% on semiconductors.

Tariffs on steel, aluminium and personal protective equipment – which range from zero to 7.5% – will rise to 25%.

The new tariffs will kick in after 90 days from Tuesday – a period that will be closely watched for signs of tit-for-tat retaliation by China. White House sources said the aim was not to escalate trade tensions but to help parts of the US economy where there had been a cycle of disinvestment.

Logic?

First, US electric vehicles are already so expensive that virtually no one buys them. God forbid that we import affordable Chinese ones.

Second, the United States has long been struggling with having outsourced its own rare earths and minerals industries. So now, it is going to tax available substitutions from China. How is that going to help anyone?

Third and more broadly, the American economy is currently tanking. Contrary to the Biden administration's made-up numbers. But nevertheless, we want to make the situation worse by raising the prices of imported Chinese manufactured metals.

Fourth, these American measures almost certainly violate World Trade Organization rules. Rules which you may recall, the US helped put into place, when our Grand Imperium thought that it had the dominant hand.

And fifth, it was not disinvestment that brought American manufacturing and mining down. It was our American Establishment's greed. Which saw US oligarchs and corporatists voluntarily move the most critical elements of the Americaqn economy to foreign lands and cheap (and often easily abused) labor.

Last, there's the obvious core question

If manufacturing subsidization is a purportedly China-originated economic problem, why shouldn't we in the United States subsidize our own supposedly critical industries?

The moral? — It is apparent to most of the world . . .

. . . that the United States is trying to suppress China's superior entrepreneurial and manufacturing skills. Via the United States' customarily nihilistic measures.

With that in mind — who of right mind would want to hang out with these perpetually whiny American Neocon destroyers?

Fewer folks everywhere.

A fact that poses a major problem for future American influence.

PeteFree.com

IQ-challenged United States threatens China with tariffs — this will go about as well as sanctioning Russia did