The Clintons, The Red Cross and
Boxes of Billions in Cash
This is an Awareness Blog to consider the future of your world. Actions are being done now to restore our freedom. County, State, and National Assemblies are forming across our world nullifying the corrupt corporations. Watch and become AWARE! Participate and be a part of making history! 62 MILLION VIEWS PER MONTH Exclusive public outlet for documentation and notices from The Original Jurisdiction Republic 1861 circa 2010.
'there is a reasonable danger' that disclosure [of evidence] will ‘expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.’ The invocation must come from “the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration of that office.Admiral Rogers, Director of the NSA, Head of all 16 Intelligence Agencies, the man who briefs the President every morning, is an interesting figure in all of this.
A trade war isn’t a certainty, but if it comes, it will look nothing like the battles that raged in the 1980s over Japanese semiconductors, cars and TV sets.Anti-trade rhetoric has been embraced by both sides, with President Donald Trump’s “America First” proclamations and President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” scenario.
The forces are more evenly matched this time: America has never faced off in a trade skirmish with an opponent like China in terms of economic size, industrial capabilities and global ambitions.
Japan was a U.S. ally, China increasingly a rival. That raises the risk of tit-for-tat escalation, especially since support for Beijing is crumbling across the U.S. political spectrum as well as in the U.S. business community, traditionally a strong advocate for China trade.
In this brewing battle fueled by protectionists in both camps (Mr. Trump’s “America First“ finds its nationalist counterpoint in President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream”), each side has an exaggerated sense of its own advantages.Global markets are wildly unprepared for a full-blown China-US trade war, WSJ reports. Earlier this month, the Eurasia Group highlighted “protectionism” as one of the biggest geopolitical risks of 2018. One of the reasons, Eurasia Group argues, is because industrialized economies are embracing a wider tool chest of pro-trade measures, including indirect subsidies and bailouts.
“A trade war is coming because of ideological zealotry and absolutely contradictory estimates of who has more leverage,” says Scott Kennedy, an expert on Chinese industrial policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Governments aren’t just trying to protect comparative advantages in traditional sectors such as agriculture, metals, chemicals, and machinery out of concern for lost jobs or domestic economic interests. They’re also intervening in the digital economy and innovation-intensive industries as protecting intellectual property becomes an increasingly important priority.WSJ agrees: Once under way, the repercussions of a trade war would be felt well beyond the combatants themselves. US friends and allies along Asian supply chains would be early collateral damage. China is still to a large extent the final assembly point for imported high-tech components from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Navigating increasingly complex global supply chains in a constant state of disruption would be hugely problematic for businesses across industries.
But instead of traditional measures such as import tariffs and quotas, today’s tools of choice include “behind-the-border” measures such as bailouts, subsidies, and “buy local” requirements designed to bolster domestic companies and industries. These measures don’t necessarily circumvent WTO commitments; they rely on a collective inability to update and strengthen existing global trade rules.
Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks China would win. Among his reasons: China’s ability to concentrate pain, and the outcry from affected businesses in America’s more open political system. He argues that “the political costs to the Trump administration of maintaining new protectionist measures will be much higher than the costs of retaliation to the Xi regime.”Still, China has other leverage: Rumblings about China ditching Treasurys – reports that have been denied by Chinese authorities but still managed to rattle markets – show the PBOC might be willing to use its balance sheet as leverage against the US.
Derek Scissors, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute argues that the major US advantage is that China is far more dependent on trade for its financial health.
“A shorter, smaller-scale trade conflict favors China due to its comparative agility,” he says. “The more serious it gets, the worse China would fare because it’s badly outmatched monetarily.”
In the 1980s, Japan had to back down, agreeing to voluntary export restraints and moving large parts of its auto manufacturing base to the US to create jobs and defuse tensions. China won’t be pushed around in the same way.