Winning (per Trump Dictionary)! US-China Trade

Chad Bown, US-China Phase 1 Tracker:

No matter how you look at it – use data on China’s imports or US exports – through November, China purchased only slightly more than half of the US goods Trump pledged it would buy over all of 2020 under his Phase One deal.

 

46 thoughts on “Winning (per Trump Dictionary)! US-China Trade

  1. Not Trampis

    well to ‘win’ you would have to keep the economy in recession and thus depress imports. Only a genius would want that

          1. pgl

            Of course by then we knew we were in the Great Depression and we figured out that we were also in store for stupid fiscal austerity – so hey use trade protection on the hope that other nation would not notice.

          2. Moses Herzog

            Very astute observation Boy Wonder, but Smoot Hawley was not the initial cause of the Great Depression. Those ingredients were there before Hoover took office. Including deflation, a drop in investment purchases of goods, and high interest rates. Trade only entered the picture in the latter stages. You can argue Hoover didn’t “help” the situation, but the groundwork for the Great Depression was there before Hoover took office. And even among the more educated members of society circa late ’20s–early ’30s, knowledge about the impacts of money supply, along with knowledge about the negatives of the gold standard were relatively limited.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            MH,

            There is ongoing debate about the role of Coolidge, but it is now not so widely viewed that he was a major player. Capital investment was rising well after Coolidge left well into 1929. There was mild deflation 1925 and 26, but from 1927 through 1929 prices were rising, no deflation. About all you have is that interest rates rose some from late 1927 into 1929 but not by much. Also, although you did not bring it up, Coolidge actively discouraged stock market speculation.

            As it is, the beginning of the Great Depression was mild, basically what we now call a recession, although that term was not invented until 1937. But in fact Smoot-Hawley played a major role in pushing a recession further down. Keep in mind that this was the full blown trade war that everybody has warned about since, with major reactions by UK, France, Canada, Germany, and other UD trade partners to Smoot-Hawley, which was indeed a whopper of a tariff, over 100%. International rrade basically massively collapsed starting in 1930.

            As it was it was 1931 when what had been an increasingly unpleasant recession finally turned into the Great Depression. Ultimately it was the international financial collapse that started in Europe in the spring but with it going full on in the US in the fall, when the Fed sis not respond with an expansionary policy. But the trade war played a major role in pushing the international financial collapse that started with the Creditanstalt bank failing in Austria in May, 1931.

            Anyway, most of the action happened after Coolidge was out, and you do not have several of your facts right, Moses. And while there is also debate about how important Smoot-Hawley was, it was certainly more important than anything that happened while Coolidge was president. You are just off on his matter. Sorry.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Excuse you Not Trampis~~~you meant to say “very stable genius”. HIs intimate friends like me call him “the VSG”.

  2. pgl

    Twitter has suspended Donald J. Trump for a long time. Oh my – Sammy will call this a violation of the 1st Amendment. After all advocating racist hate and overthrowing the government is protected free speech.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Trump got “PK-ed” by Twitter. Vicious…….. Personally I think “Princeton”Kopits should litigate this.

  3. pgl

    “Through November 2020, China’s year-to-date total imports of covered products from the United States were $86.9 billion, compared with a prorated year-to-date target of $153.8 billion. Over the same period, US exports to China of covered products were $82.3 billion, compared with a year-to-date target of $141.7 billion. Through the first eleven months of 2020, China’s purchases of all covered products were thus only at 58 percent (US exports) or 56 percent (Chinese imports) of their year-to-date targets.”

    I appreciate your reply to my question whether our overall trade balance decline was a drop in exports v. a rise in imports. Now this is a bilateral trade issue but the message is on point for this discussion. We are not exporting nearly what we had planned for.

    Of course JohnH will miss the big picture here as he will insist on focusing on the divergence of how we report this v, how China reports this. Which btw is a well known issue but one that has little to do with what the author was trying to convey.

  4. pgl

    Actually one can be winning even if one’s offense scores half of what people expected assuming one’s defense can shut down the other team. But Trump’s attempt at curtailing China’s imports reminds me of how the Jets defense would stack up against the KC Chiefs.

    1. pgl

      The FBI has been warning us that the biggest terrorist threat is from these domestic thugs. It is about time we paid attention and did something to take them down.

      1. Moses Herzog

        They’ve been discussing the Michigan militia (militias??) for what seems like decades now. There is a strong white supremacist contingent on the Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas shared borderline all a long there, and that’s a group that had a lot of connections to McVeigh and the modus operandi for the Murrah building bombing (which BTW the recent Nashville bombing had an element of similarity to Murrah). Arguably all of Oklahoma has this problem because the one single time President Obama came here to visit all it did was bring out the pick-up truck hicks and their large dixie flags. That’s all the respect dumb Okies could muster for the former Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

        1. Moses Herzog

          James Nichols was also tight with that Michigan militia bunch. There are some people who believe James Nichols was the true “mastermind” of the Murrah bombing, and there was strong circumstantial evidence found in his home. The northwest Oklahoma based lawyer Stephen Jones spells all of this out in his book, which is the best “laymen’s record” of the Murrah bombing events.

          It’s my feeling (yes conjecture, but I strongly believe this) the U.S. Federal government (FBI etc) was totally aware that James Nichols was a co-conspirator in the Murrah bombing. But for reasons of expediency, political convenience, and a fear of prosecutorial failure they chose not to charge a man (James Nichols) whom they very well knew had blood on his hands. It set a bad legal precedent that lingers to this very day.

  5. ltr

    January 8, 2021

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases   ( 22,456,902)
    Deaths   ( 378,149)

    India

    Cases   ( 10,432,526)
    Deaths   ( 150,835)

    UK

    Cases   ( 2,957,472)
    Deaths   ( 78,833)

    France

    Cases   ( 2,747,135)
    Deaths   ( 67,431)

    Germany

    Cases   ( 1,895,081)
    Deaths   ( 40,401)

    Mexico

    Cases   ( 1,493,569)
    Deaths   ( 131,031)

    Canada

    Cases   ( 644,348)
    Deaths   ( 16,707)

    China

    Cases   ( 87,331)
    Deaths   ( 4,634)

  6. ltr

    January 8, 2021

    Coronavirus   (Deaths per million)

    UK   ( 1,173)
    US   ( 1,139)
    France   ( 1,032)
    Mexico   ( 1,011)

    Germany   ( 481)
    Canada   ( 441)
    India   ( 109)
    China   ( 3)

    Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 8.8%, 2.7% and 2.5% for Mexico, the United Kingdom and France respectively.

  7. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-09/Chinese-mainland-reports-33-new-COVID-19-cases-WU070saHpm/index.html

    January 9, 2021

    Chinese mainland reports 33 new COVID-19 cases

    The Chinese mainland on Friday recorded 33 new COVID-19 cases – 17 cases of local transmission and 16 from overseas, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.

    The locally transmitted cases were reported in north and northeast China: 14 in Hebei Province and 3 in Liaoning Province.

    Moreover, 38 new asymptomatic COVID-19 cases were recorded, while 483 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation. No death related to COVID-19 was registered on Friday, while 19 patients were discharged from hospitals.

    The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in China has reached 87,364, and the death toll stands at 4,634.

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-09/Chinese-mainland-reports-33-new-COVID-19-cases-WU070saHpm/img/cb84c1b1855348e4971a337b095d4550/cb84c1b1855348e4971a337b095d4550.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-09/Chinese-mainland-reports-33-new-COVID-19-cases-WU070saHpm/img/2bfe16019bf642038c65d5486e5ac615/2bfe16019bf642038c65d5486e5ac615.jpeg

    [ There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since the beginning of last May.  Since the beginning of last June there have been only limited community clusters of infections, each of which was an immediate focus of mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, with each outbreak having been contained.  Symptomatic and asymptomatic cases are all contact traced and quarantined.

    Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine.  Cold-chain imported food products are all checked and tracked through distribution.  The flow of imported cases to China is low, but has been persistent.

    There are now 535 active coronavirus cases in all on the Chinese mainland, 16 of which cases are classed as serious or critical. ]

  8. CoRev

    Really!? “…China purchased only slightly more than half of the US goods Trump pledged it would buy over all of 2020 under his Phase One deal.” Was it Trump or China that made the PLEDGE?

    This quote is from that conservative paper the NYT, while many news articles from that announcement made the statement: ” China has committed to buying an additional $200 billion worth of American goods and services by 2021 and is expected to ease some of the tariffs it has placed on American products.”

    Menzie, how did this become a Trump promise and not a China failing to meet even another commitment?

    1. pgl

      Good grief CoRev. You know you might actually learn something if you read the excellent discussions from Chad Brown rather than your usual retarded rantings. His discussion of the semiconductor sector is excellent. Then again – it is probably over your head.

        1. pgl

          I’m apologize. I should remember facts are “at best marginally related”. Please proceed with your Alternative Facts.

    2. pgl

      Chad Brown was NOT writing for the New York Times. Try this old reader disabled fool:

      ‘The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical policy solutions.’

      Last I checked PIIE is not affiliated in any way to the New York Times. So your statement that this is some NYTimes statement is just another one of your pointless lies.

    3. Moses Herzog

      CoRev
      CoRev, you bring a deeper meaning to the word obtuse. Do you think the if Chad Bown knew Phase 1 was A BIG FAT LIE over a year ago that the man selling himself as a master of negotiation and a “VSG” could have figured out the perennial liars in Beijing were lying to him??
      https://www.vox.com/world/2019/12/13/21020444/trump-china-trade-deal-phase-one-truce-tariffs

      Or did the orange abomination know it was a lie, but that he could SELL IT AS A “WIN” to illiterate losers such as yourself??

    4. 2slugbaits

      CoRev So just to be clear, you’re saying that Trump was snookered by the Chinese. Is that right?

      1. pgl

        He was snookered by Orin Hatch on that 2017 tax deform. He was snookered by racist Stephen Miller. He was snookered by Mitch McConnell on a lot of things. And Mitch is married to a Chinese gold digger. So why are you questioning whether this clown could be snookered by the Chinese government?

          1. Menzie Chinn Post author

            David O’Rear: The fact that Mitch McConnell’s wife belongs to a family closely associated with the political elites of China *is* relevant here, so I’ll allow, even though it would be more accurate to say Chinese-American (since she is a US citizen). Gold digger is pejorative but not inaccurate here.

          2. David O'Rear

            Elaine Chao was born in Taiwan.

            Her family made its fortune shipping rice to Vietnam under US government contract during the US presence there. More recently, it ships iron ore from Australia to China. Dad migrated to the US in 1958, and Mom and Elaine joined him when she (Elaine) was eight.

            I seriously doubt that Ms Chao brought the smaller amount of money into her marriage to Mitch McConnell.

  9. ltr

    Latin American countries have recorded 4 of the 13 highest and 6 of the 25 highest number of coronavirus cases among all countries.  Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

    Mexico, with more than 1.5 million cases recorded, has the 4th highest number of cases among Latin American countries and the 13th highest number of cases among all countries.  Peru, with more than 1 million cases, has the 5th highest number of cases among Latin American countries and the 18th highest number among all countries.  Mexico was the 4th among all countries to have recorded more than 100,000 and 130,000 coronavirus deaths.

    January 8, 2021

    Coronavirus   (Deaths per million)

    US   ( 1,139) *

    Brazil   ( 945)
    Colombia   ( 888)
    Argentina   ( 975)

    Mexico   ( 1,011)
    Peru   ( 1,149)
    Chile   ( 884)

    Ecuador   ( 797)
    Bolivia   ( 791)

    * Descending number of cases

  10. pgl

    https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/how-trumps-export-curbs-semiconductors-and-equipment-hurt-us

    Chad Brown’s ‘How Trump’s export curbs on semiconductors and equipment hurt the US technology sector’ is an excellent read. Let’s start with:

    “On China, President Trump has said, “We lose billions of dollars and, if we didn’t do business with them, we wouldn’t lose billions of dollars. It’s called decoupling.” But Trump has it wrong. His decoupling policy here could mean losses of billions of dollars of American sales not only to China but to other countries as well. And the unilateral nature of his policy could open new areas of conflict with the very same allies that are essential to mitigating the national security threat.”

    Trump’s comment is even dumber than the Abraham Lincoln defense of steel tariffs where Lincoln said something about having the steel and the $20. At least Lincoln recognized he did not know much about tariffs. But back to the discussion:

    ‘In the first half of 2020, six of the top ten firms in semiconductor design and manufacturing sales—Intel, Micron, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments—were headquartered in the United States.[2] The other four were Samsung and SK Hynix (South Korea), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Taiwan), and HiSilicon (China). Semiconductors are often designed and manufactured in different locations. Broadcom, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and HiSilicon are “fabless”—i.e., they design, market, and sell chips but contract out the fabrication to foundries, like TSMC, which are often located in other countries. (Hence the term “fabless.”) The main business of TSMC, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC, China), and GlobalFoundries (United States) is to produce chips for other firms. Some companies, such as Intel and Samsung, design and manufacture their own chips in house. They are called integrated device manufacturers (IDMs). A second important part of the semiconductor supply chain is software, or electronic design automation (EDA)—i.e., the companies that craft the software tools used to create integrated circuits and semiconductors. US-based companies like Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems, and Mentor Graphics make up 85 percent of the EDA market and sell or license critical software services to many American and foreign chipmakers.[3] Third, to make semiconductors, manufacturers require access to sophisticated equipment and tools, which are also produced by only a handful of companies. Three based in California—Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA-Tencor—held more than 40 percent of global market share in this sector in 2018.[4] ASML (the Netherlands) and Tokyo Electron (Japan) combined held more than 30 percent.’

    Trump has trouble understanding integrated industries. What follows is a detailed discussion of how Trump’s concerns over national security undermined the phase one targets for US exports to China.

  11. pgl

    Lincoln:

    I do not know much about the tariff, but I know this much, when we buy manufactured goods abroad, we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money. When we buy the manufactured goods at home, we get both the goods and the money.

    Trump not to be outdone:

    President Trump on Thursday said options to “decouple” the U.S. economy from China were on the table. Decoupling refers to a process of separating the two countries’ intertwined economies and supply chains, which would amount to a major economic realignment. “It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but the U.S. certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-decoupling-from-china-on-the-table/ar-BB15GeVe

    It is really hard to tell which one of these comments is dumber!

  12. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-13/China-hopes-U-S-creates-conditions-to-implement-Phase-1-trade-deal-SVqDFva9DG/index.html

    August 13, 2020

    MOFCOM: China hopes U.S. creates conditions to implement Phase 1 trade agreement

    China hopes the United States will stop taking restrictive and discriminatory action against Chinese firms and create conditions for the implementation of a Phase 1 trade deal, Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) Ren Hongbin made the remarks at a news conference on Thursday.

    “The coronavirus pandemic and U.S. export control measures had undoubtedly had an impact on Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and services,” Ren said.

    The current situation demands that the two sides work together and step up cooperation to overcome these difficult times, he said.

    During the first seven months, China’s imports and exports to ASEAN, the European Union and Japan increased, while the trade volume with the United States declined.

    The total value of China-U.S. trade was 2.03 trillion yuan, declining 3.3 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 11.8 percent of China’s total foreign trade. Among them, exports to the U.S. were 1.56 trillion yuan, down 4.1 percent, while imports from the U.S. were 475.5 billion yuan, down 0.3 percent, with trade surplus down 5.7 percent, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Friday.

    [ President Trump made Chinese imports from the United States increasingly difficult from the beginning of the Phase 1 Agreement. The Chinese repeatedly asked Trump to facilitate importing from the US, Trump made importing more restrictive. ]

  13. Dr. Dysmalist

    Genuine question that I don’t know the answer to:

    I know from first-hand experience during this pandemic year that the company I work for has had trouble getting numerous products to sell due to supply constraints. This applies to both foreign produced goods, not the subject of this discussion, and domestically produced goods. So I wonder to what extent US supply constraints have contributed to US export difficulties.

  14. David O'Rear

    Let’s see … like the rest of the world, demand collapsed in China this year.
    Raise your hands everyone who expected China’s imports from America to trend strongly upward.

    1. Moses Herzog

      And the MAGA tariffs helped improve that situation HOW??? Please enlighten the class.

      The 2nd question I would ask rocket scientist Mr. O’Rear, if YOU yourself admit it was self-evident Chinese consumption would drop, why impose the Phase 1 quotas?? Kind of sounds like a dumb publicity stunt staged for idiots with the last name O’Rear.

      1. David O'Rear

        I’m not sure where the hostility comes from, Mr Herzog, but let’s try to keep this on a more civil basis, OK?
        I promise not to make silly jokes about your name if you promise not to make silly jokes about mine. Deal?

        Back to useful discourse …
        My statement said nothing about MAGA tariffs or any NTBs.
        It was all about Chinese domestic demand.
        Why were the tariffs imposed? To satisfy domestic US political posturing needs.

        1. Moses Herzog

          @ Mr. Rear
          You were attempting to make excuses for donald trump’s bad policy on trade. And unfortunately for you the readers of this blog aren’t as dumb as the losers that consume whatever media you do, so we can see through your poorly veiled attempts to throw stones from the bushes. Just say what you mean and don’t waste our time walking the fence James Lankford style. If you’re too rhetorically cowardly to hold your own ground, just join the Libertarian party. It saves time because then you just give the same answer everytime you get called out on your hypocrisy. You then can just say “Oh, I’m not Republican, I’m Libertarian”.

          1. David O'Rear

            Mr Herzog,
            OK, I’ll say what I mean.
            Where do you get off telling me what I mean in my own writing?
            Who are you to tell me what my political orientation should be?

            For your information, I have been an active Democrat since before I was eligible to vote.
            For your information, I happen to know what I mean and don’t need you to “explain” it to me.

  15. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-12-07/China-foreign-trade-up-7-8-in-November-W1ro07rSxi/index.html

    December 7, 2020

    China’s November exports rise by 21.1% on strong global demand, beating forecasts
    By Heather Hao and Yao Nian

    China’s exports in November rose at the fastest pace since February 2018, helped by strong global demand for industrial products and raw materials, data from the General Administration of Customs showed Monday.

    Exports surged by 21.1 percent year on year to $268 billion, beating forecasts. A Reuters poll earlier predicted a 12 percent growth in exports in November, while China International Capital Corp. Ltd. forecast a 10.8 percent increase.

    Imports rose by 4.5 percent to $192.6 billion, slower than October’s 4.7 percent growth, leading to a trade surplus of $75.4 billion….

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