2.7% of GDP/year in outflows - plus at least that in IP/factory wealth loss and that again in debt payments - is not small or even relatively small.

No one favors tariffs, least of all Trump. He hates tariffs more than you do. All free traders do. You seem to like/want them in violation of economic theory, since you want to maintain status quo, and the status quo is massive tariffs by the Chinese.

It's the anti-free traders like you that want to keep letting China leverage large tariffs and all kinds of market barriers (basically forcing you to build factories in China and give the government half of your company and all your IP if you want to sell your products there), which is the absolute antithesis of free trade and is a pretty big global distortion of normal capitalist and free trade mechanisms.

The fake news media has really done your head in. I mean I don't blame you, you tend to trust constant repetition of the same BS from figures of authority no matter how ridiculous (which is also why religions stick), but this is such a black and white issue and Trump's position is so clear I find it a bit amusing that you all have it ass-backwards.

Why do you hate free trade, Pokerlogist?

Trump hates tariffs. At least the troll makes me laugh.

where is the evidence?

I'm greatly understating it. Both Congress and the USTR have investigated it and come up with various figures, averaging $300-$600 billion/year.

Here's the former director of the NSA and the former Director of National Intelligence opining in the NYT:

China’s Intellectual Property Theft Must Stop

It's an absolute scandal that the fake news media is playing this up as Trump being the bad guy and being the protectionist. The exact opposite is the truth.

What they're managing to do is undermine a very very important fight that needs to happen and in fact should have happened under Obama when they could easily have been brought to heel and forced to play by the rules. America would be much richer, growth and wages higher, GFC probably would not have happened, without China being a giant parasite on US wealth.

So some guy whose job is based on deception says 600 billion and I should believe it?
No wonder Trump won

He said "up to". And there is so much wrong with the post above I don't even know where to start.

Suffice to say that when the fake news media does a job on your head with repetitive fake news, just like religion, it's nearly impossible to escape it - because you'd have to implicitly admit that you're an utter fool who's been played and got reality 180 degrees wrong.

$300 billion as a reasonable estimate, possibly much higher, is broadly agreed by disparate sources - the US trade representative, congressional investigations, think tanks, national intelligence estimates.

This isn't even debatable, nor is it partisan. This thread is a towering monument to the fake news media and how it's seriously warped American's view of reality.

You asked for a source. You got multiple. You're in the wrong and choose not to change your opinion. So be it.

I'm sure this is all nonsense planted by Trump:

https://www.axios.com/semiconductor-...1e56e93db.html

How ill read do you have to be, how utterly ignorant of the world, to disagree with me in this thread? It's simple uncontroversial facts vs fake news and delusion. There's a massive problem with China's trade practices and it's drained and is draining large amounts of wealth. The forcing of manufacturers to set up in China - when many didn't want to but were forced to for market access - has also made supply lines excessively dependent on China, a creepy communist dictatorship with expansionist aims who's deliberately targeting US economic decline.

This is something that should never have happened, and should be stopped, as painful as it now is and as painless as it would have been years ago. And the only way to stop is by forcing them - a decade of "talks" have made bled American wealth and made China's bargaining position to continue its cheating far stronger.

IP theft is a problem and really the only real issue that should be addressed. But the costs are exaggerated and corporations take the risk or don't for a reason.
To push China to change its policies, you have to team up with your allies, who are also disadvantaged by this. Trump has done the opposite.

Again this isn't true. There are a number of real issues:

1. Massive tariffs and underhanded targeted regulatory barriers on US goods going into China, effectively making their market a closed one, greatly hurting US wealth and guaranteeing a large ongoing deficit that enriches China.

2. Using this closed market to pressure companies to build factories in China and hand over half of their company to the Chinese government in order to gain tariff free access. This is an enormous wealth bleed and makes supply lines dependent on a hostile cheating communist country.

3. Control of resources like rare earths, where China forces companies to move factories from the US to China in order to access these commodities, again in violation of WTO standards

4. Targeted destruction of US industries by subsidizing the building of overcapacity in China.

There's more but that's a start, and the above are as large as IP theft. Claiming "IP theft is the only problem" is just ridiculous.

I get it, you don't like Trump, so everything he does must be bad and incompetent. This is the toddler level analysis we get from the fake news media, which you've swallowed, but it's not a rational position though.

Citation that the costs are exaggerated?

Companies take the risk because they often have no choice. Competitors who access the Chinese market will outgrow for a time and establish a foothold. Pay less for rare Earths. And China also runs a blackmail type system. whereby they threaten to target and steal from companies that don't comply.

The idea that this is "all fine because it's voluntary" is toddler level analysis.
Which is being done. You don't read about much in the fake news media though. Also, Obama teamed up with allies on this. What did he achieve? A worsening o the situation and the continuation of the massive drain of wealth, factories and IP. At this point we know WTO doesn't work - it has no teeth and it's not set up for a determined large cheater. Look at the last decade and how well it's worked.
More fake news. Countries are sophisticated...they can cooperate on one thing while disagreeing on another. And they are cooperating on China.

The real problem is the media, strongly supporting the preferred narrative of the communist state hostile to the US economy in order to attack a president. The entire positioning of the media is "Trump is anti free trade! How dumb!" rather than "Trump is pro free trade and trying to end China's horrific anti-free-trade practices which harm the US".

Look at the utter ignorance in this thread bred by the fake news media. If the media presented this honestly (not even from a pro American; just honestly!) Trump would be able to exert a lot more pressure to force China to cease being anti free trade, and bring this to a close faster, as the Chinese would see no path to avoid changing their behavior.

back to the original question of ag tariffs and subsidies, the house of representatives just passed a 5 year farm bill which continues the standard, massive subsidies the farming industry receives. Trump will obviously not veto this. therefore his argument is all bluster and he isnt a free markets guy, just a standard protectionist.

https://agriculture.house.gov/upload...rt_summary.pdf

So because Obama didn't veto the ag bill, Obama was a standard protectionist? Seems like a weak argument. Even a veto would be overridden; Trump lacks the power to stop it.

Also, the farm subsidies amount to $17 billion and most of that is domestic consumption - 25% by value is exported so that's about $4 billion in export subsidies. Stacked up against 300% tariffs from Canada to protect their own dairy industry and their own farmer subsidies, stacked up against $500 billion in trade deficits, it seems a drop in the ocean and a red herring.

Your argument doesn't support your conclusion, at all.

This is misleading: China's trade practices are pretty standard considering it's communist ruling government with tight control over businesses. China is a net exporter, mostly importing fuel or raw materials for manufacturing. This makes it a one sided market not even close to a closed market; They greatly encourage US companies to manufacture in China and many companies do and save money. I would argue this hurts China more than the US since they are exploiting both their people and natural resources while US companies save money.

This is not accurate: Either forming a joint venture or using local representation to enter a foreign market is extremely common in many countries. This is not equivalent to "handing over half of their company"; A new entity is formed and a local partner get's a stake in that entity.
This is false. China tried to use it's dominance in rare earth mining in 2010 to control global supply and it backfired the result was increased global production.

This is more or less true, but not relevant.

Here is the report:
http://ipcommission.org/report/IP_Co...pdate_2017.pdf

The low end is 225 billion and top end is 600 billion. The report explains why these difficult to estimate.

What the Obama administration and allies did is form global trade alliances (TTIP, TPP, TISA) that would subvert China, Russia and others while meeting the US demand for low cost imports and raw material exports.

What you are arguing is that the US should regulate its companies more like communist China does so we can gain a trade advantage over them.

Everything you write is basically you first saying it's not accurate and then agreeing with me.

And how well did that work in reducing the trade deficit, or stopping IP theft (hint: it didn't at all, and the US continued to bleed wealth like crazy).
I'm not arguing anything of the sort. I'm arguing that China, like a psychopath, has no interest in agreements and playing by the rules, cannot be talked to or negotiated with, and needs to be forced painfully to abide by its WTO obligations and respect international norms. There is 15 years of evidence backing up this view.

I'm not suggesting any change to how US companies do business. US companies in fact broadly want China brought to heel.

I see. You equate misinformation, misleading and false statements to accurate statements. No wonder you think Trump is credible.

We're talking about this guy:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/03/1...ace-force.html

Toothsayer is good in that he creates a lot of insightful discussion, he is capable of arguing brilliantly in clear cut black/white cases where almost any idiot can see the right answer. He is very convincing and has a way with words, that being said I highly disagree with most of his statements and do not think he has a decent grasp on complicated situations. That won't stop him from voicing his uninformed opinion and doing it in a convincing fashion.

No, your statements are self evidently ridiculous; you read like a propagandist, one of the millions of paid Chinese sockpuppets. You're not of course, just saying that's what you read like as there's little evidence or rationality in your posts and they're spun as hard as possible toward China apology when the facts and morality are very clear. To go through them.
Wait, what? So because it's a communist government controlling the economy, they get a pass? And no, no other communist government that I know of acts like this, massively cheating in world trade. Name one?

But why are they a net exporter? Because:

- They break trade agreements to force companies to create local factories
- They make it hard to impossible for targeted foreign made good to get into the country, despite strong local demand.

This is massive cheating and exploitation of the free trade system they agreed to follow a condition of joining the WTO.

This is not a take agreed to by US businesses, who quietly (quietly because they fear Chinese backlash for speaking out) lobbied a deaf/incompetent Obama to do more to curtail China's forced transfers. Long term, handing over your IP and training the Chinese is suicide to your business.

A forced joint venture where you hand over 50% of control, plus handing over all your IP to the government, is "extremely common" in other countries in order to access the market under free trade agreements? You're a stone cold liar dude. This was very well spun by the way. Why the extreme China apology?

China still controls most of the supply and use of rare Earths. And they use it in exactly the way I say. It's not as bad since losing the WTO case, but there's still a strong advantage for manufacturers moving to China for easier rare access. Recently, they're buying up rare Earth mines to continue their global control of the resource.

Massive anti-free-trade practices "aren't relevant"??? They're part of the trade imbalance, they're basically predatory monopolistic behavior underwritten by a communist state, to destroy US industry. It's as relevant as it gets to a trade dispute.


Right, so I said there are a range of estimates that average $300 billion/year in IP (i.e. as large as the trade deficit). Thank you for helping educate chytry on this, who balked at this number.

Yes. And they didn't work in reducing the level of predatory, parasitic cheating by China that's draining US wealth.

I'm not arguing anything of the sort. I'm arguing that US needs to bend China's am with force until they start abiding by WTO rules they agreed to as a condition of signing up. China merely opening up their market to foreign goods, and removing all barriers, would be sufficient. Basically following their WTO commitments. Failing to do that, pain should be applied. China is a basically a psychopathic government who will cheat, steal and lie however they can they to keep their 1993 Nazi-level nation and military building project going and reduce US powe. They are not a responsible global actor and they won't voluntarily abide by agreements.

Trump is busy building an international coalition on this issue. You won't read about it in the fake news media because it's contrary to their narrative, but here's the Phnom Penh Post.

Im replying to the poster who said trump wants to do away with all subsidies and tariffs and would get rid of the USAs. Thats clearly not true, but if it his here is Trumps chance to show it.

Vetoing the farm bill isn't viable, so I don't think that's a reasonable take.

Some trading relevant trade related news this morning. According to Mnuchin just on CNBC:

Market is loving this this morning; went from quite negative back into the green.

IP belongs to shareholders unless it was heavily subsidized.

Also China is taking further steps to protect IP:
http://m.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/a...small-platform

this is really lazy and only moderately related to thread.....

why is harley davidson thinking of moving production offshore? i see the reason given as trade war.

i would assume that the majority of HD's sales are in the USA, so they are moving production from the USA to avoid tariffs?.. that makes no sense but my assumptions and reading of situation may be way off.

thx advance

ToothSayer, great knowledge and comments....

this is semi-grunch on your thoughts... but if china and dishonest/immoral behaviour is ultimately the problem, why is trump saber-ratting to so many friendly countries over tariffs?

note: i may be confusing your ideas and trump's. or i may have not have described your position correctly.

i do think the low education, highish pay jobs have disappeared to a bunch of areas like china, mexico, "right to work" states..... but the big one i've mentioned before is automation. i don't see trump doing anything here. no idea though what could/should be done about it anyway.

They weren't going to move all production offshore, just probably the exports. Also, input costs would probably go way down as domestic steel and such is too expensive

Well there is a notion out there that $US going off shore will eventually find their way back to the USA in terms of investment in the USA among other things. Might be interesting to know how many Chinese companies have established themselves in the USA and how USA citizens they employ. How much of the USA govt debt does China own anyway? I forget.

Milton Friedman on trade deficits:

Quote:

In the international trade area, the language is almost always about how we must export, and what’s really good is an industry that produces exports. And if we buy from abroad and import, that’s bad. But surely that’s upside-down. What we send abroad we can’t eat, we can’t wear, we can’t use for our houses. The goods and services we send abroad, are goods and services not available to us. On the other hand, the goods and services we import, they provide us with TV sets we can watch, automobiles we can drive, with all sorts of nice things for us to use. The gain from foreign trade is what we import. What we export is the cost of getting those imports. And the proper objective for a nation as Adam Smith put it, is to arrange things, so we get as large a volume of imports as possible, for as small a volume of exports as possible.
This carries over to the terminology we use. When people talk about a favorable balance of trade, what is that term taken to mean? It’s taken to mean that we export more than we import. But from the point of view of our well-being, that’s an unfavorable balance. That means we’re sending out more goods and getting fewer in. Each of you in your private household would know better than that. You don’t regard it as a favorable balance when you have to send out more goods to get less coming in. It’s favorable when you can get more by sending out less.

I used to think if china wanted to be our slaves then why not let them? Look at our standard of living vs. theirs. We basically export paper IOU's to them and in return get real goods at rock bottom prices. They're like the kid down the road who mows my lawn, weed eats, trims the shrubs, cleans my inground pool and jacuzzi, washes and waxes both of my Mercedes and I give him a couple bucks and a glass of water.Then he eagerly shows up again next week to do the same.

But now Im starting to rethink my previous beliefs. Its far too simplistic of a way to look at things. Toothsayer and Warren Buffet make some convincing points....

Let's get clear on Warren Buffet's current view on Rump's self-destructive US tariffs. Buffets quotes of May, 2018:

"We both may do things that are mildly foolish from time to time," the Berkshire Hathaway CEO said.
Buffett also insisted the trade deficit, which Trump has consistently bemoaned, is not really a problem for the US.
"When you think about it, it's really not the worst thing in the world for someone to send you things you want and you hand them a piece of paper," Buffett said.

http://www.businessinsider.com/warre...tension-2018-5


What was brought up earlier this thread was an old Buffet article from 2002 when the world situation was quite different, and still there he did not advocate those idiotic self-destructive US tariffs. China will never negotiate with someone that they and the rest of world perceive as a bungling fool.


Who is it that is fleecing the average American citizen the most?: Rump and his Republican cucks, thats who. There are massive problems for average americans that include the destruction of healthcare, destruction of social security, low wage jobs, high costs of education, and an inflated Federal deficit after tax cuts for the ultra-rich, that should be addressed but they are not because of these "rumpholes". Instead the buffoon is running around the world making enemies of our democratic friends and praising dictators.