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The problem with China is that it has taken a hostile non-cooperative approach, ie it’s acting in bad faith. This is evidenced by its diplomatic failures with t

The problem with China is that it has taken a hostile non-cooperative approach, ie it’s acting in bad faith. This is evidenced by its diplomatic failures with the region and with the world. The CCP is using economic leverage to coerce smaller players in the global system. The US has its hands tied here, there really are no other options geopolitically. I live in Europe as well, and sometimes it feels like European leadership is extremely confused: EU is a shitshow that nobody seems to be able to lead (just look at how long it took for agreeing on debt mutualization/Eurobond, Brexit, VDL apologizing to Italy, etc), Germany working with Russia on Nord stream 2 after its actions in Ukraine, Sweden pretending like the lax virus approach has nothing to do with its hyper leveraged banks and heavily indebted households, list goes on... and all we can do is entertain ourselves by making fun of Trump. We are a joke, we can’t even keep our union together. We can’t even pay for our military because daddy America has to foot the bill and if they don’t our European leaders start whining about lack of US leadership. The US Fed had enough vision to extend the dollar swap lines to more central banks including the Swedish central bank. For the ECB there is a permanent arrangement. Despite the “tough love“ we Europeans are getting on trade from the US, ultimately Europe will soon enough realize the US is its best ally. We just want freedom and fair economic practices. We won’t get it if we let China play communist game theory with the only planet we have.

kaveh_h 6y ago
DJT fucked both US and EU when it started to create a wedge with trade tariffs and other issues. Instead of strengthening EU and US ties he weakened it and gives china more space to operate in. China can play any games it wants when the rest of us are locked on making cheap political points by pointing finger at eachothers inadequate response to this pandemic.
- snogaraleal 6y ago
  What are you talking about? The EU runs a current account surplus with the US, and it's a protectorate of the US through NATO. Europe is absolutely delusional and ungrateful.
  - snogaraleal 6y ago
    @kaveh_h You can downvote all you want if it serves you as a distraction to avoid counting the money. Maybe you can do one downvote for each dollar in the EU surplus with the US.
  - kaveh_h 6y ago
    I didn’t down vote you. Multinational companies are not bringing profits home. This was perhaps the best decision Trump made was to even the playing field and brought it down to about the same as most EU countries. Europe is a much larger population but it’s not as rich as US per capita so don’t expect europeans to buy more US goods. I agree that sometimes the tariffs are too high. But the situation is more complex. VAT in Sweden is 25%, a Tesla Model S cost about 100k$ here because of VAT mainly not just tariffs. Many US products are simply too expensive for the same reasons and a Europea generally lower purchase power. Americans like to buy European luxury goods many europeans themselves can’t buy. Trade is not a single transaction. I would love to own Tesla or buy more american, but I can only afford iPhone not Tesla. And iPhones are made in China... Nato has protected EU, but not against the refugee crisis which affect EU much more than US. US seems to infact increased the problems and is simply trying to leave now. US cares about mexican immigration but don’t do much to help situation in ME.
    - snogaraleal 6y ago
      The US manufacturing produces things that Europeans can buy, but in some instances US companies can't compete with their heavily subsidized European counterparts. At some point Trump got angry at us and said "OK no tariffs, but ALSO no subsidies". Obviously Europe didn't agree, and the US put tariffs in place. All this is logical, I get it that Trump is hyperbolical and extreme, but he's not that crazy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

kaveh_h 6y ago

DJT fucked both US and EU when it started to create a wedge with trade tariffs and other issues. Instead of strengthening EU and US ties he weakened it and gives china more space to operate in. China can play any games it wants when the rest of us are locked on making cheap political points by pointing finger at eachothers inadequate response to this pandemic.

snogaraleal 6y ago
What are you talking about? The EU runs a current account surplus with the US, and it's a protectorate of the US through NATO. Europe is absolutely delusional and ungrateful.
- snogaraleal 6y ago
  @kaveh_h You can downvote all you want if it serves you as a distraction to avoid counting the money. Maybe you can do one downvote for each dollar in the EU surplus with the US.
- kaveh_h 6y ago
  I didn’t down vote you. Multinational companies are not bringing profits home. This was perhaps the best decision Trump made was to even the playing field and brought it down to about the same as most EU countries. Europe is a much larger population but it’s not as rich as US per capita so don’t expect europeans to buy more US goods. I agree that sometimes the tariffs are too high. But the situation is more complex. VAT in Sweden is 25%, a Tesla Model S cost about 100k$ here because of VAT mainly not just tariffs. Many US products are simply too expensive for the same reasons and a Europea generally lower purchase power. Americans like to buy European luxury goods many europeans themselves can’t buy. Trade is not a single transaction. I would love to own Tesla or buy more american, but I can only afford iPhone not Tesla. And iPhones are made in China... Nato has protected EU, but not against the refugee crisis which affect EU much more than US. US seems to infact increased the problems and is simply trying to leave now. US cares about mexican immigration but don’t do much to help situation in ME.
  - snogaraleal 6y ago
    The US manufacturing produces things that Europeans can buy, but in some instances US companies can't compete with their heavily subsidized European counterparts. At some point Trump got angry at us and said "OK no tariffs, but ALSO no subsidies". Obviously Europe didn't agree, and the US put tariffs in place. All this is logical, I get it that Trump is hyperbolical and extreme, but he's not that crazy.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]