US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley threatened to see all US trade with China severed over the nation’s “continued business dealings” with North Korea, presenting such trade as a violation of UN sanctions, and accusing China of “encouraging trade” with Pyongyang.
This follows a consistent trend in the Trump Administration of demanding that China “solve” North Korea for them, praising Chinese cooperation, then quickly blaming China the moment the US policy doesn’t go according to plan.
Haley presented North Korea’s ICBM test as a “military escalation,” and reiterated that the US is prepared to respond militarily, but would prefer to use its massive power as a trading partner to do so. Since the US doesn’t trade with North Korea, that appears to just mean empty threats to China.
China exported over $500 billion in goods to the US in 2016, and cutting off what is literally their largest trading partner on the planet would have disastrous economic consequences for both the US and China. Even if China capitulates to the US and severs trade with North Korea, all that accomplishes is eliminating what little sway China still has with the North Korean government.
US officials appear increasingly eager to hype up the possibility of attacking North Korea, and suggesting that it could happen in extremely short order. All indications are that the administration intends to either get its way through sheer repetition of demands, or will just start picking fights randomly hoping that somehow gets things done.
The two most likely outcomes of a trace war with China are we lose or it will trigger another great depression.
Trouble is broke America with its worlds most expensive welfare for violent men and their deadly toys…. Just doesn’t leave enough for real effective carrots, so everything requires bluf, bluster and belligerence. Which begets unwanted and worse unexpected reactions… Sticks have a way of being dangerous….
Now, if someone were looking for something that might wake up the somnambulant American people, cutting them off from all the “toys” we purchase from the Chinese, this might do it. The shock of finding out just how much of what we use everyday, in everyday life, doing everyday things, comes from China. Hell, Wally World would go belly-up in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t that be a shame…
That’s right. A conflict in N Korea would hurt the Chinese the most. Americans are just the customers, and customers can vote with their feet. Take away trade from the Chinese, and watch their house of cards fall. Americans will just not buy all that cheap junk.
I think you’ve got your house of cards mixed up. Perhaps you don’t understand exactly how much of that cheap stuff (junk in your terms) Americans buy. And by companies, like Walmart, focusing most of their purchasing from companies in China and Japan, etc, the manufacturing base in the good ole USA has mostly disappeared. So, if the Chinese stop selling to the Americans, either by Americans boycotting them (unlikely) or the US government banning Chinese products (very possible considering the fools in charge), the Americans in many, many cases will have no other purchasing options because China is the only place that makes the stuff Americans buy at low prices. The only reason Walmart, for example, has such a large footprint is because the stuff they purchase to sell to Americans is priced low.
Perhaps if people walked the aisles at Wally World and flipped over every item on the shelves and looked at the tags that indicate where the item was made, they might just understand how much we are at the mercy of another country, especially one our leaders are actively trying to provoke.
It’s not a matter of Americans not buying all that cheap junk, they won’t have an option and when they realize that all that cheap stuff that was designed to fail sooner rather than later is not going to be available – when the cheap air conditioner in the window they bought from Walmart dies, well, I’m betting they let their Congress Critter know how they feel.
But DC stays the world sole superpower so its probably worth it.
B sure to see that Walmart gets this memo…