https://fortune.com/2023/04/06/us-trade-representative-katherine-tai-friendshoring-trade-tariffs/ POLITICS TARIFFS AND TRADE Top U.S trade negotiator says allies annoyed about Washington’s policy should stop complaining and propose their own ideas. Katherine Tai called for a strategy of what's known as “friend-shoring’’. BY PAUL WISEMAN , JOSH BOAK , AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS April 06, 2023 6:31 AM EDT The Biden administration is pressing its case for a new approach to global trade, arguing that America’s traditional reliance on promoting free trade pacts failed to anticipate China’s brass-knuckled brand of capitalism and the possibility a major power like Russia would go to war against one of its trading partners. In a speech Wednesday at American University, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai called for a strategy of what’s known as “friend-shoring’’—building up supply chains among allied countries and reducing dependence on geopolitical rivals such as China. Rising tension with Beijing and supply-chain bottlenecks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the risks of relying too heavily on Chinese suppliers. “Trade policy cannot solve all the wrongs in the world, but it can help more people both at home and abroad share the benefits of increasing economic growth,” Tai said. “Let us not be content with reruns of the old. Let us write a new script for a brighter tomorrow.” The rethinking of trade goes beyond the simple issue of lowering tariffs and signing broad pacts. In her speech, Tai noted the elimination of regulatory barriers last year that allowed U.S. farmers to export potatoes to Mexico, ongoing talks to form an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that could possibly counter China in Asia, and the recent agreement on critical minerals with Japan. Tai said that the Biden administration settled “long-standing disputes” with the European Union to focus on shared goals such as a 2021 agreement to put tariffs on “dirty” steel and aluminum produced by China, while supporting the mills in Europe and North America. The administration is also seeking to work with allies to reform the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based agency that enforces global trade rules. The WTO has been crippled for more than three years: Its top appeals court hasn’t functioned since the United States blocked the appointment of new judges to the panel. The U.S. and others had argued that the WTO was ill-equipped to deal with China’s unconventional blend of capitalism and state control of the economy. “We did not anticipate that China would end up being so globally dominant in so many ways,’’ Tai said in an interview Tuesday ahead of her speech. When China joined the WTO in 2001, many in the U.S. assumed that it would open its economy and even allow for more political freedom. Instead, China ran up huge trade surpluses with the United States as it became a leading center of manufacturing and the world’s second largest economy. The Chinese government took advantage of its access to the U.S. market while often discriminating against U.S. and other foreign firms. And China has continued to crack down on political dissent. For decades after World War II, U.S. trade policy was based partly on the idea that increased global trade would reduce tensions among countries, that nations that did business with each other would not go to war. But Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine flies in the face of how we thought things would work,’’ Tai said. The Biden administration has upset many of its traditional allies, especially in Europe, by keeping some of former President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies and by aggressively promoting Made-in-America manufacturing. But Tai insisted the United States wanted to work with allies to build a better, fairer world trading system. The problem, she told reporters, is that U.S. allies are only offering criticisms, instead of putting together their own plans to overhaul the trade system. “We’re the only ones who are out there putting forward an affirmative vision,” she said. © 2022 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eur...n-signal-game-over-china-investment-deal-cai/ European Commission signals game over for China investment deal Comprehensive agreement on investment was not discussed in Xi-von der Leyen meetings. BY SUZANNE LYNCH APRIL 6, 2023 5:26 PM CET BRUSSELS — A landmark trade and investment pact sealed by the EU and China in recent years is effectively dead. On Thursday, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who is in Beijing to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping, gave her strongest signal yet that the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) deal is dead in the water as the pact had not even been discussed. “The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment did not come up,” she told a press conference following her meeting with the Chinese president. “You know our position. We started negotiations round about 10 years ago and concluded the comprehensive agreement on investment two years ago. A lot has happened since then,” she said, including deterioration in market access for EU companies in the Chinese market. Von der Leyen had made similar comments last week in a keynote speech on China in Brussels, saying the EU needs to “reassess” the pact. “Our position is that we do have to reassess the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment,” she said Thursday. The CAI was agreed between the EU and China in December 2020, with strong support from France and Germany, though it provoked criticism from the incoming Biden administration in Washington at the time. The agreement was put on hold in 2021 after China sanctioned several EU lawmakers.
The chess game is on. The outcome could be dire. I expect Xi will launch a take over assault of Taiwan within 3 years, unless the CCP determines the outcome could threaten its grip on power in China, in which case they will arrest Xi for corruption, make him disappear, and reassure the world that China isn't a waring nation. In this case the markets will go to the moon.
Because why? You have been out on the Mothership orbiting around the Hale-Bopp Comet for the last thirty years or what?
And the winner will be... China! The western idiots shooting in own foot b/c prices soar due to inflation and shortages... The current generation of western "woke" politicians are IMO nothing but brainless amoebas! You cannot disturb the global economy and expect no negative consequences. That's economy basics 101.
Loaded answer that needs a long reply... Let's remember that a Republican government helped China come out of its isolation. It made sense after all, Republicans were the open trade globalist party, pushing for access to new markets in far away places and China was the mother lode. Protectionist Democrats where less inclined to open the country to foreign products made by low paid labor. It didn't occur to anyone that China would be savy enough to entice foreign businesses in but, with time, started imposing requirements that everyone was willing to abide by. US and European businesses and shareholders made fortunes while China's economy grew at the fastest pace ever seen and, in the process, pulled hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. The free market had won. Well, the free market had won for some. Clearly, China's hard work, massive investments and centralized government created an economic, political and military powerhouse. The US and Europe on the other hand had made a few frightfully rich and the middle class wealthier, but the working classes sunk. Unemployment rose, the dominant happy go lucky white working class was starting to cave in as manufacturing couldn't keep up with much cheaper Chinese imports. At the same time in the US a growing influx of Central Americans were taking over jobs of traditionally white labor and businesses in the construction industry. Customers certainly appreciated getting jobs done from Jose instead of Bob for half the price. The construction boom lasted for a long time, until consumers ran out of credit and shit hit the fan. Over the last 60 years, the American political agenda of Democrats and Republicans switched 180 degrees. The roots of reactionary radical right and left politics seeped in from Europe. Republicans were questioning globalism, the white working class has suffered from it and uncontrolled immigration. The internet allowed everyone to say anything. The more radical the discourse, the higher the ranking. This was exactly what the far right dreamed of to push its agenda. Globalism is a leftist cancer. Salvation comes from separation of races, ultra conservative social norms, Christianity over all other religions. While Democrats embraced human diversity, open social norms, humanism over religion, the Republican party should embrace the opposite without shame. Trump became the white working class and far right extremists prophet. He split the Republican party and split the Democrat union base and became president. More than that, with the help of right wing intellectuals, Trump set the agenda at home: overt or covert support for Whites, Christians, nationalists. On the international front, support dictators as caring nationalists, end decades of anti Russia US propaganda and embrace Putin for Whites will need to unite against true evil, China. The yellow people are communist, anti Christian and militarily dangerous. We will need White unity to destroy them and free the good Chinese from the evils of the CCP. America has played that card in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and every time Americans rallied to spread light were darkness lies.
the kind of people that try to wax poetic about this kind of obnoxious drivel are the ones that like to hear themselves talk. for me, the sound of wind or birds chirping is more enlightening and true