Yao Jian, a spokesmen for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce spoke Wednesday in the Beijing capital concerning the current economic situation with the United States. He reiterated that the economic relationship between China and US are “extremely extensive”.
This hostility has lost momentum since the Wikileaks release of secret cables.
Yao was referring to the aggression by American politicians over the value of the Chinese yuan. He made clear that the US and China had mutual interests in trade between the two nations. The recent hostilities are completely unnecessary because both sides have something to gain, thus relations are beneficial.
Specifically targeting these Chinese economy with import tariffs does not help the US economy or create employment in the United States. This is a measure that the World Trade Organization has recently joined the United States by supporting punitive tariffs on Chinese tire imports.
As one could easily expect, these tariffs have not halted the US from importing at all. These tariffs have only decreased the number of imports from China specifically, because they target China specifically. These taxes on imports have only encouraged the purchase of tires from other nations. There has been no increase in domestic tire manufacturing because they are simply purchased from some other low cost labour country.
In a further sign of the futility in taxes on Chinese imports, U.S. tire manufacturing sector declined by 10 percent. At the same time jobs in tire wholesaling were also lost. Another draw back has been that American consumers will begin paying at least 10 percent to 20 percent more on tires due to price increases.
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Don’t misunderstand my position on tariffs and duties on foreign goods. These measures will boost particular industries domestically and creating jobs. With a lack of imports available, this will encourage petite and big bourgeoisie to invest in these industries. The problem is the for that these tariffs are currently taking under the US plan.
The imports are on Chinese goods, which means that it is intended to discourage imports from China. This clearly does absolutely nothing to discourage imports from Vietnam or Taiwan or Latin America. Consumers of these goods still don’t purchase domestically, they just purchase from a different foreign source. Since the importing is still being done, the domestic investment is not made and thus no jobs are created.
This clearly an attack on China itself and not an attack on importation of commodities. If it were the tariffs would be on goods coming from any foreign country, not just China. This is, as I said, an aggressive attack toward China and it’s economy.
American business and political elite are lying to you when they say Chinese imports are hurting the US economy. the reality is that imports in general are hurting the economy, not just Chinese ones. The economic and business elite have been sending manufacturing overseas deliberately in order to maximize profits and kill the power of workers at home.
Now all this outsourcing has finally caught up with the US economy and has been devastating, turning the US economy into one big service industry. These were actions made deliberately by those in power. Now those decisions are being turned into aggression and propaganda against China.
The prevalence Chinese imports to the US are being blamed on China. Capitalism demands the cheapest source of commodities and natural resources, this is the very essence of the system. It is not China’s fault that US businesses and consumers are buying their goods. They are simply reacting to their own immediate and rational economic interest, which marginal utility theory, capitalism, says they will.
It is certainly obvious now that the laws of markets and competition are good and fine when they work out in favour of the US capitalist. However when they work out in favour of the Chinese capitalist it is an act of trade aggression by the evil foreigners.
No doubt this “foreign invader image” is pushed by whipping up nationalist, ultra-patriot sentiment, the usual precursor to war.
If you truly believe in protecting American jobs, then promote tariffs on those specific products from all countries, not just China. Singling out China for tariffs is clearly no attempt to protect American jobs. It is only an attempt to harm China disguised as patriotism.