Thursday, August 22, 2019

Quora: Will China make concessions on the US trade deal or will the US and Trump have to back down?

Ridzwan Abdul Rahman, Self employed (2000-present)
Answered Aug 8

China is not about to give any more concessions. In fact, it appears that they don’t even care anymore whether there is a trade deal or not.

They have stopped completely buying agricultural products from the US and have allowed the value of their currency to be determined by market forces.

Despite the tariffs, China’s exports are increasing. Worldwide export was worth $2.26 trillion in 2017. It increased to $2.48 trillion in 2018, despite the US tariffs. The US tariffs did not stop China from growing. This means that China has found new markets to more than make up for the drop in US purchases.

This puts the pressure on Trump. With China having stopped completely from buying US agricultural products, Trump will be under pressure to regain the support of the agricultural community who have now lost a good customer!

But that’s not all.

Boeing has built a manufacturing facility in China, hoping to win some of the 7,240 new planes that China will need over the next 20 years. The trade war may well work against them.

There are several US car manufacturers in China. Among them are Tesla, Ford and General Motors. The Chinese might ignore them and buy European cars instead.

There are many US technology companies in China. Among them are Apple and Dell. China has been a huge market for them. But they too might face a Chinese boycott.

Trump is wrong in considering only China’s imports from the US, because the bulk of US products that are bought by the Chinese are actually made in China! If the Chinese were to stop buying, then the US companies’ profits would drop significantly.

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