[mevile]

The chances are not close to zero, they are much higher. The trade war with China is one of the very few topics where many Democrats support the administration. If the US caves now China will have won an enormous victory and will be able to dictate any further terms of trade with the US, which is a really bad outcome. There is very little chance that the current administration will accept a loss here on a fight they started or that Trump cares about how much every day people will be hurt by the trade war.

In fact further US economic decline plays to his advantage because he can clearly blame China and blaming foreigners is something that works with his base.

[emilsedgh]

US can barely put sanctions on Iran as of now and the rest of the world is hesitant to follow. It took ~8 years to get the sanctions on Iran to that point.

Even if US wanted to go nuclear and push for China being cut from SWIFT:

1. It will be suicide. Cutting China from SWIFT will have very very big impact in the US.

2. US corporations have too much interest to lose in here. No way corporate America allows that to happen.

3. The rest of the world is already pissed at US for pulling out from Iran deal. They are not following US regarding Iran. How do you propose they would follow US' lead to put such sanctions on China and suffocate themselves?

Again, the chances of China being cut from SWIFT are close to zero.

[adventured]

> US can barely put sanctions on Iran as of now and the rest of the world is hesitant to follow.

The US has crushed the Iranian economy. What are you talking about? Have you seen the collapse of their economy since the US left the nuclear deal and began pursuing sanctions? Have you seen the extreme inflation rate, the plunge in their currency, the plunge in their oil exports, and their increasingly wild behavior?

If entirely crushing their economy equates to barely, what would be a successful version of sanctioning Iran?

Apr 2019 "Iran inflation could reach 40 percent this year as economy shrinks further"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-economy-imf/iran-inf...

Apr 2019 "Trump's maximum pressure campaign hammers Iranian economy"

"The World Bank predicted in an April report that the Iranian economy would "contract sharply," and it expects GDP to shrink by 3.8% in 2019 on the back of U.S. sanctions."

"Iran's currency, the rial, lost more than 60% of its value compared to the U.S. dollar last year, and inflation surged fourfold to an estimated rate of more than 40% by the end of 2018. (In 2019, the Central Bank of Iran has stopped publishing inflation data, leading some analysts to believe that the rate has kept rising beyond 40%.)"

https://www.axios.com/iran-economy-trump-sanctions-irgcc-0a8...

Apr 2019 "Iran's Latest Inflation Figure Tops 50 Percent - Food Prices Jump 85 Percent"

https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-s-latest-monthly-inflation-...

[emilsedgh]

I am Iranian and I follow the news very very closely. I have family and friends in Iran.

You are right. The Iranian economy is crushed and basically the country is starving.

Here's what happened (oversimplified of course):

1. US has had sanctions on Iran for a long time (> 3 decades). No US entity can deal with Iran.

2. Obama extended these sanctions to the world: No entity form any country is allowed to work with Iran. If they do, they cannot work with the U.S.

3. Europe was happy with those sanctions and pushed for it.

4. JCPOA (Iran Deal) was signed.

5. Iran stopped nuclear activities.

6. US got out of the deal and push-forced everyone else out

7. The rest of the world, being powerless and bullied, bowed to it, but Europe, UK, China, Turkey and Japan have all been vocal in supporting Iran now. They even have exemptions from the sanctions to work with Iran.

8. Europe even has been working on a back-channel [0] (with no success though) to trade with Iran.

It is true that sanctions are crushing Iran but that's due to years of pressure that was already built-up during Obama era where the Europe and rest of the world did agree upon that.

US cannot cut China from world trade overnight without the support from rest of the world.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_in_Support_of_Trade...