[x0x0]

We are being run by abject morons who will never be able to understand simple truths, one of which is China is in a far stronger position: their factories are missing dollars. We are missing goods. One of those is easy for a central bank / government to replace.

Watching these people discover where the world's rare earths come from is equally amazing and terrifying.

[nickff]

Rare earth metals aren’t very rare, they’re just messy to extract and refine.

There are reasons that the Chinese (government) want so many dollars, and the external funds are not easy to replace (or they would have done it already). This is not to support the current trade ‘war’, but just to point out that it’s a bit more complicated than you can describe in a pithy comment.

[libertine]

But now Greenland being annexed through military means is on the table - we can't make this up.

[pstuart]

I just learned why the interest -- apparently the TechBros™ have eyes on using Greenland to host their new corporate city states.

[seanp2k2]

Don't worry, we'll just mine everything we need ourselves in the active warzones in Ukraine! I bet Yosemite has tons of the rare earth we need, we just have to dynamite everything in there to find it! /s

[photonthug]

The sooner we kill all the animals, the quicker we can find where they are hiding all their gold.

[monocasa]

I swear to god, if we set off the Yosemite supervolcano from heavy mining there...

[BobaFloutist]

The supervolcano is in the other iconic, international-destination national park starting with Y, Yellowstone.

[PKop]

What do you think the point of rebalancing trade is? To get out of dependence on foreign suppliers. "China's economy, copmposed of massive domestic production, industrial capacity, and manufacturing inputs is in a stronger position"

Yes, sounds like something that should be changed to increase the strength of the US. China has protectionist economic policy and trade barriers. If that equals strength why shouldn't we do it too?

[no_wizard]

>If that equals strength why shouldn't we do it too?

Tall order to prove this. Does it actually equal strength? What is strength and does China actually have said strength? None of this is defined.

Additionally, China has economic policies that if the US followed would be very, like the games they play with their currency valuation for example. They also have stringent capital controls, many of their largest businesses are the government has a large slice of the ownership, they subsidize export corporations to a much broader degree etc.

Are you also arguing for those things as well? Because its not simply tariffs that mark the only difference in economic policy between the US and China

The other asinine thing is we implemented tariffs against all countries, without a plan, and without a definitive proven reason as to why. As many economists have pointed out, the trade deficit is very deceiving and does not equate to there being a problem for the US inherently.

[x0x0]

> without a definitive proven reason as to why.

profound, comprehensive stupidity

[mindslight]

The current nonsense is the opposite of strength - it is empty bluster, based on ideas two decades out of date, by a "man" who talks like he's had a frontal lobotomy and who can't even sit on a chair properly.

Actually righting the severe damage done to our industrial base would take constructive direction by the government to build it back - once again the complete opposite of what they're actually doing by attacking our still-existing educational/research institutions.

At best high tariff taxes are just closing the barn door long after the horse ran away. But really it's just the same old pattern of the same type of hollow politicians using pent up frustration about the last scam to drive support for their next scam.

[sharken]

I agree with the barn door analogy and that the US badly needs a plan for building manufacturing.

It also needs a plan for mining rare earth minerals as well as a plan for processing them.

On the flip side the deal with Ukraine for rare earth minerals might just end the war, if not Russia see this as an opportunity to get all of the territory it currently occupies.