The broad policy goals are for China to cease engaging in writ large currency manipulation, overbuilding, subsidization, product dumping, lack of reciprocity, forced technology transfers and the state directed intransigent strategy for the outright theft of intellectual property and trade secrets
that violate their WTO free trade agreements and undercut US output, competitiveness, employment, investment, research, development, innovation and strategic domestic industries (a few of which America literally brought into existence) invaluable to our sustained economic growth and national security.
The problem is, the PRC isn't going to willingly cease doing any of that because those are fundamental tenants of their development model and a significant factor in how they've managed to build themselves up to present day status; asking nicely whilst maintaining the shitty status quo isn't exactly working out and the relationship we have with them isn't free trade.
So there's a number of things the US either can, has and/or should do to punish them for those activities including but not limited to: blocking all foreign investment in US tech assets (Lattice, Xcerra, Qualcomm), choking off access to US components critical to the global operations of Chinese corporations (ZTE, Fujian Jinhua), banning the sale of products in the US (Huawei) and controversially implementing tariffs on imports. However...
Does this actually hurt us more than what has been outlined in the Administration spanning, bipartisan accounts detailed in the
2011 USITC,
2016 USTR,
2017 USTR or
2017 IP Commission reports? I'd sincerely welcome the input of
@Gandhi,
@Trotsky,
@japman40,
@Rational Poster,
@Edison Carasio,
@Darth_Inv1ctu5 here as well, all posters I respect and agree with on a number of other domestic political issues from browsing topics on here.
This is where we are right now and as noted it can change, although I'm going to have some difficulty buying any feigned sympathy for a large chunk of Trump's base being the most affected. The US is the world's largest agriculture exporter by a considerable distance and it was a given that the sector - less than 1% of US GDP output - would be collateral damage.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/...g-for-most-of-trump-s-trade-war-research-says
President Donald Trump The United States of America is succeeding in making China pay most of the cost of his the trade war it has been begging for.
That’s the conclusion of a new paper from EconPol Europe, a network of researchers in the European Union. U.S. companies and consumers will only pay 4.5 percent more after the nation imposed 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, and the other 20.5 percent toll will fall on Chinese producers.
According to Zoller-Rydzek and Felbermayr, the tariffs will do what Trump has longed for: They will cut American imports of affected Chinese goods by more than a third, and lower the bilateral trade deficit by 17 percent.
The Trump administration Robert Lighthizer (ND: as if Trump is running the show here) selected products with the highest “price elasticity,” or high availability of substitutes. The Chinese products hit by US tariffs can mostly be replaced by other goods, forcing exporters to cut selling prices to keep buyers.
“Through its strategic choice of Chinese products, the U.S. government was not only able to minimize the negative effects on U.S. consumers and firms, but also to create substantial net welfare gains in the U.S.,” the researchers wrote.
For China to cease being the only country in the world in which all of the above is a profound problem, something which virtually all of America's Western and East Asian allies are in agreement with. There are reasons Dem leadership is backing the DJT Admin actions, the EU is looking to establish its own incarnation of CFIUS, Germany moved to block multiple state-backed Chinese acquisitions of national assets and Australia has banned the likes of Huawei and ZTE from its telecom industry.
Well, at least I have you. I miss Homer, man.
