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South Korea's President says US investment demands would spark financial crisis

258 points by donsupreme 1y ago

anigbrowl 1y ago
You're going ot keep seeing more of this. The Japanese went through multiple rounds of the WH announcing they'd reached a deal and the Japanese saying politely but firmly that negotiations were still ongoing. The Japanese insisted on having everything in writing, and if you look at the executive order that was eventually published it's full of loopholes like 'best efforts' and 'aspirations' that articulate shared goals, but little the in the way of binding commitments.
- calmbonsai 1y ago
  Agreed. It was, initially, quite alarming (though no longer anymore) at how different the actual words in the Executive Orders differ from what was said about the policies they were, ostensibly, enforcing or creating.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  The truth is Trump is a bad negotiator. He's easily played. He's also predictably dishonest. The only real move is to string him along, which he seems to be glad to do, particularly if someone flatters or threatens to punch him.
  - wombatpm 1y ago
    He negotiates in bad faith. No deal is final. He will change the terms to meet his whims. The Chinese understand. Notice how there are no soybean purchases from China this year. They do not trust the US on important things like food.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > He negotiates in bad faith Plenty of great negotitors across history did, too. Trump gets played. Repeatedly. Predictably. His political instincts have been sharp enough that I'm increasingly chalking this up to age, but maybe he just had a better team around him the first time around.
      - defrost 1y ago
        > increasingly chalking this up to age I've always had high regard for Trump as a talented scumbag grifter of note. He's been noticeably and increasingly off game since it seemed he was only campaigning for re-election to avoid a mountain of looming bad legal outcomes. Much of his early second term "wins" I've marked as momentum success from having a ready to go game plan care of the Project 2025 crowd. His carry through on tariffs, dodging Epstein complications, handling free speech issues, etc. have been more chaotic than cunning.
      - dboreham 1y ago
        No. It's explicitly self-destructive. He gets off on setting things on fire, including himself.
      - Prickle 1y ago
        He singlehandedly annihilated the US soybean market. That's not a good thing. Lots of farmers going bankrupt now.
        jrs235 1y ago
        But his crony buddies stand to benefit from farmers going to bankrupt. Makes it difficult to understand if this is incompetence or intentional malice at play...
        ZeroGravitas 1y ago
        > He singlehandedly annihilated the US soybean market. Again... He's done this twice now.
    - 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
      I assumed the soybean thing was more about sending a message. Soybeans are the number one US export crop. Shutting down the market is a big financial blow, makes the trade deficit worse, and angers farmers who otherwise would have happily sold to the Chinese.
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    Do you even think he's sitting in on these negotiations? He can't remember Ishiba's name and just called him 'Mr Japan' when occasionally asked questions about him. My impression (and I've been watching these specific trade negotiations pretty closely) was that Scott Bessent was doing all the legwork and the Japanese seemed perfectly happy to talk to him instead of Trump. Whatever one might think of the policy arguments, Bessent seems coherent and professional whereas Trump comes off as shallow and erratic. I find it hard to imagine having hours-long focused and strategic conversation with him on a dry topic like trade policy. It's an musing irony that Japan is a demographically much older society than the US and LDP in particular looks like a gerontocratic party, but between factionalism and parliamentary instability they actually cycle through leaders pretty efficiently
- somenameforme 1y ago
  People are confused about what these published agreements (like with the EU as well) are. They're not legal agreements, treaties, or even executive orders, although the corresponding orders to reduce the tariffs are of course executive orders. But the agreements themselves are completely informal and an overview of what the US expects to see happen in order to maintain the tariff reductions. The interpretation of whether the other country or group of countries is abiding the agreement is entirely at the discretion of Trump. So there's no such thing as a loop hole. If Trump isn't satisfied with e.g. the EU's progress towards implementing said agreement, he can increase tariffs back to where they were at his discretion, with or without reason given. So there's no such thing as a loop hole in this sort of agreement.
  - tensor 1y ago
    The loop hole is every nation just agrees to stop dealing with the US and isolate them. Sure, we’d all suffer horribly but at least the west would have a future, vs we all suffer horribly anyways and fall along with the US.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      This is the ideal outcome. Just produce the trade blockade that the US is trying to achieve through policy. And like other blockaded nations, North Korea and Palestine, the US will reach its intended levels of greatness within minutes.
    - bruce511 1y ago
      I don't think agreement is necessary. I think each will, in turn, come to their own conclusions. In boardrooms around the world there is of course concern to protecting the existing US market. And in the short term there are lots of noises to placate the US. At the same time there's a recognition that the US is not a stable long-term partner. The bigger conversation is around new markets, building diversity of markets, diversity of investment and so on. "Global Trade" is mostly not an organised thing. It's a zillion small transactions between individuals, small companies and so on. Ultimately my (US) customers will pay the tarifs to their govt, or not (shrug). In the meantime I'm looking for non-US customers for my business growth. I'm investing anywhere except the US, because the current uncertainty is bad for making investment decisions. Ultimately this process is a wake up call to suppliers who have focused on the US market. And to those future businesses to come. Diversify markets, because then you aren't beholden to them. In 10 years time, regardless of who is in power, or the conditions then, the lesson will remain.
- akudha 1y ago
  insisted on having everything in writing Just curious, how would this help with anything, other than documentation purposes?
  - slater 1y ago
    Paper trail, to be referenced later, so TFG can't be all "huh, never said that, never agreed to that" etc. etc.
    - riku_iki 1y ago
      and then what? Trump put specific numbers about trade balance on paper with China during previous trade war, which China just ignored.
      - vkou 1y ago
        1. "Specific numbers about trade balance' isn't a negotiation term. It might be a prior that feeds into your position in negotiation, but it's not an outcome. 2. He lies when his lips move. When you're dealing with a pathological liar, there's no reason to believe anything he says that paints him in a good light - until it's been independently confirmed.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      I don’t understand why you think it would stop that, given how comprehensive a record of self-contradiction he already has.
      - 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
        Maybe more in that it gives the Japanese an easy out to change terms when America inevitably breaks the deal.
      - anigbrowl 1y ago
        True, but the Japanese government is accountable to Japanese voters and their business community. If they see Trump reneging on or twisting an agreement they'll be more likely to blame Trump than the LDP. He's not popular there nowadays except among Sanseito members.
- yongjik 1y ago
  Funnily enough, according to some South Korean news, the Korean government deliberately postponed having a final written deal, or at least that's what some news articles claim, because it was such a horrible deal for Korea. I think there's an implicit understanding that having a written deal would be worse for Korea because the deal will bind Korea and restrict its options, while Trump is a crazy guy and can and will do anything he wants, whether he signed something or not. I.e., any written deal with Trump has negative worth. Such is the state of global trade negotiation these days.
- seydor 1y ago
  The more times you can announce you "made a deal" , the better the TV ratings
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    And if you say "in two weeks", people - and the media - will forget and won't check up on it later. They just remember you made something happen.
- MangoCoffee 1y ago
  >everything in writing Agreements on paper doesn't mean anything to Trump. Despite negotiating the USMCA with Canada and Mexico during his first term, Trump still threatened to impose tariffs on both countries. What is the point of having an agreement like USMCA?
  - BiteCode_dev 1y ago
    No but him and his crowd have been keen on denying reality on a daily basis, and it's scary how well it works. I have people around me who drink this BS, and will argue in support for it because the arguments against it requires nuance thinking. At least, with a paper, it's harder to do this. You have to admit he pretended the sky was red, when it's obviously blue. There is less nuances if you get something clear in writing. It's not much, but it's better than the alternative.
  - mahirsaid 1y ago
    Just remember all of the treaties that were signed (by you know who) before invading that very same country there after, leading up to WW2. A common strategy to give yourself the first move. the strategy is to cripple ongoing negotiating the east is succeeding in with other countries that no longer trust the US, this was going on way before ORang man election. Just remember not everything is public, that goes for other countries as well. Like really china is enemy all the sudden " Why exactly, oh wait you said " Because they're growing faster then US" What!!! oh i get it now" nooo I don't get it. Also the war torn countries tend to be under developed and are rich in natural reserves of what ever the world needs. The world is not as simple as even what the corrupt media tries to make it also. It does indeed go much deeper than that and without emotion but decisions that are occurring with opinions of many heads to influence any giving decision. Yet even the most sense you can make out of this whole mess well still leave you lost even more than before you calculated the "WHYS" and the "noes". Forget the problem, i tend to think that with each disastrous decision made how long will it take to fix THAT decision later. Something like telling Afghanistan to give back the ( Bagram base) back to US and simply receiving fuck off reply by the Taliban government is simply stupid. none other than Russia not that long ago met their government to spark relationship initiatives. Umm hello Afghanistan is literal the country of mountain men defeated the invasion of Russia in the past. Well this is good for two groups of the three, Russia and Afghanistan leaving US out. US you left Afghanistan, well because there was defeated in controlling the countries ( very strategic land being so central to everything in that land mass. Now leaving Israel is saying whats happening is bad like every human on this earth, is in no way possible for the US. This will be yet another HUGE might i add in capital letters LOST in the middle east. The massive mission of the US to achieve this in controlling the middle east. Sadly the people taking this blunt is the people in that small town taking the hit. Have you seen how many men they are detaining in each photo you see of the chaos happening. In the Blue and white flag there is no consideration for the children and men, They must stop reproduction of that ethnic group so their ability to take back that land from within is impossible. Why? because this same thing happened in Iraq, Syria Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia "kinda", Libya, Various other African countries, along with some eastern European countries. The World is moving on to the future, It's what happens yet we are supposed to learn from our mistakes but, the only thing we really learn from what history has to tell us is that we get good at replicating that same mistake to others or ourselves. A 100 years ago we were trying to make car run on gasoline and go pas 20 mph, a 100 years ago we were trying to figure out how we can expand the use of electricity, a 100 years ago Photographs have to be mobile, but how. The point is humans are animals and have the ignorance as a tribute because it's helped us survive. Its natural. whats not natural is for a planet to sustain an orbit for lengthy time period for life to to be sustained so evolution can exist. evolution./
charcircuit 1y ago
>“Without a currency swap, if we were to withdraw $350 billion in the manner that the U.S. is demanding and to invest this all in cash in the U.S., South Korea would face a situation as it had in the 1997 financial crisis,” he said through a translator. So do a currency swap? South Korea isn't failing, do surely there would people to offer liquidity or financing to make it possible.
- msy 1y ago
  There aren't a lot of counterparties to a $350Bn currency swap. SK is manoeuvring to make the Fed offering the swap and thus taking the FX risk as a requirement for this deal, which is I suspect why you're reading about this.
  - bfg_9k 1y ago
    That's... not how FX swaps work. FX swaps are where Korea fronts up with however many trillion KRW, giving it to the Fed (or whoever else, but the Fed would be the only counterparty that would be able to accommodate that size), the Fed then hands over the USD to the Koreans. Presumably, the Koreans would then invest that USD. Then at some point in the future the trade would be unwound and each side would receive their own currency back. There's no currency risk in the trade for either side (unless one side defaults).
    - mamonster 1y ago
      Of course there is currency risk, that's why the swap would get marked to market. There is no "currency risk" in the sense that you are locked into an exchange rate and (in case of fixed for fixed) the interest rates on the principal, but there is still currency risk. It's like saying there is no price risk in a long term LNG contract.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - msy 1y ago
instagib 1y ago
$350 billion investment to avoid tariffs. “Trump says the investments will be "selected" by him and controlled by the U.S., meaning Washington would have discretion over where the money will be invested.”
- dchftcs 1y ago
  You can choose to invest 350 billion in the real economy, or 350 million in TrumpCoin.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > $350 billion investment to avoid tariffs $500 billion for Stargate! How many of Trump's investment deals from the first term panned out?
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  It's really astonishing to me how quickly we all (or, more specifically, Congress, which as done absolutely nothing to push back) accept that this is just how things work now. Like the president deciding exactly where business investment should be made is the definition of a government command economy (remember that "Communism" bogeyman???), which used to be the antithesis of American economic policy (at least in theory), and now we're just all like "OK, cool". It's so sickening.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    At this point the debate has been reduced to which flavor of central planning you prefer or dislike least.
  - slt2021 1y ago
    [dead]
  - jayd16 1y ago
    Really goes to show how full of hot air all the pearl clutching and hand wringing was over any Biden policy.
  - 1y ago
sidcool 1y ago
There's a problem here. World depending so much on one country. It's a single point of failure.
- ares623 1y ago
  Up until recently it was a good trade-off.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    The US sold trust, and it burned it all up for someone's ego. Unfortunate.
    - testrun 1y ago
      This is the crux of the problem. The value of US treasuries and the USD is based on the trust of the world in the US. Now, who knows what will happen to the USD. Will have to wait and see.
    - freefrog334433 1y ago
      Freezing Russian assets was the beginning. Sanctions against Russia backfired, cutting them off from SWIFT encouraged alternatives as did Lloyd's of London refusing to insure Russian ships. All it did was make the non-NATO world develop alternatives.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- protocolture 1y ago
  The US has more foreign dependencies, than it has countries depending on it, on every level except military. And even then, a lot of its military dependants are just kidding themselves that the seps will come to their aid if required. Its ephemeral.
- herbst 1y ago
  But does it really or is it just something Americans learned to think? Everything is still well here in Switzerland.
cozzyd 1y ago
With so many investments, imagine how many ICE raids there could be!
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Oh man, this but unironically
ArtTimeInvestor 1y ago
If one country manages to outpace all others in the race to better AI, all other countries are at the mercy of that one country. Depending on how the one country treats the others, it might be ok - like it is kind of ok for some animals to live in a zoo, I guess. Or it could turn out very bad - all other countries becoming slave colonies of the one that rules the world. Currently it seems like only two countries are really taking part in the AI race. The USA and China. On a political level, I am not sure if there is still time for the rest of the world to try and avoid becoming 100% dependent on them. It looks like there is not even awareness of the issue. On a personal level, it is an interesting question, how one should brace themselves for the times ahead.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > If one country manages to outpace all others in the race to better AI, all other countries are at the mercy of that one country History is replete with these supposed silver bullets. (See: Marinetti.) They rarely pan out that way in the long run. And if AGI really is that level of civilisation changer, the country it's discovered in matters much less than the people it's loyal to. (If GPT or Grok become self aware and exponentially self improving, they're probably not going to give two shits about America's elected government.)
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    > the country it's discovered in matters much less than the people it's loyal to. (If GPT or Grok become self aware and exponentially self improving, they're probably not going to give two shits about America's elected government.) People are loyal (to whatever degree they're actually loyal), because it is a monkey virtue. Why would an AGI be loyal to anyone or anything? If we're not smart enough to carefully design the AGI because we're stumbling around just trying to invent any AGI at all, we won't know how to make loyalty fundamental to its mind at all. And it's not as if it evolved from monkeys such that it would have loyalty as a vestige of its former condition.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
palmfacehn 1y ago
It isn't immediately clear that the administration's heterodox approach to state capitalism is more destructive than what passes as orthodox. Personally I'm not a fan of either option. Given the general mainstream preference for interventionism, one could characterize it as a "progressive" approach to central planning. A more coherent critique might lay out the shortcomings of both flavors of economic interventionism. Instead, we're stuck in a partisan debate over who has a better central planning approach. Maybe there are reasonable or pragmatic points to be made there, but admitting as much allows the possibility that perhaps Trump's interventions should be measured empirically, rather than rejected based on the a priori flaws of interventionism. Partisans are free to pick and choose which statistics and time periods they feel best illustrate their case. Easy to see how this devolves into incoherence.
- XorNot 1y ago
  US unemployment is up, inflation is up, tourism is down, defence sales are being cancelled admidst the largest procurement expansion in history, foreign investment is down, business confidence has been shattered by an incoherent and arbitrarily changing tarrif regime. Oh and the President is advocating that businesses should stop quarterly reporting...
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    I agree that the outcome will be destructive. The questions are: Is it is more or less destructive than the alternative destruction? Who is it more economically destructive for? Over what time period is it more or less destructive than the alternative interventionism? Is 6 months a meaningful time horizon? It becomes muddled very quickly. I would appeal for a consistent approach which opposes both forms of destructive interventionism.
    - dboreham 1y ago
      Many things are luck and uncontrollable events. So what you do is focus on not f.ing things up. Current usg is doing the exact opposite.
cryptonector 1y ago
Without commenting on any of the details or economics, the smart thing to have done would have been to make the $350bn thing be over 10 years and be slow to ramp up, then wait Trump out. I'm surprise he didn't do that.
- kumarvvr 1y ago
  trump and his cronies would never accept that. I think this is what Japan did initially. Announce a huge number, 500 bn I think, and then slowly trickle out the news that it will be over 10 or so years. But that didn't sit well with trump. There was news immediately that Japan must invest the whole amount immediately to escape tariffs.
  - dathinab 1y ago
    I'm not sure a single country will to the "invest immediately" thing, like at all. In the same way politician outside of the US trust anymore what Trump says when it comes to economics, a lot of countries seem to have started to response the same way. I.e. speak with Trump like he did with them, do hollow promises, and then backtrack and/or circumvent them.
    - prmoustache 1y ago
      Also, appart from authocratic ones, no country can or should decide where private companies will invest.
      - dathinab 1y ago
        and EU isn't even a country, and all(?/most) EU countries have the budged strictly sitting with the senate, i.e. outside of the hand of any of the leaders discussing deals with Trump the chance that anything like that will pass those Senats also isn't exactly high and all of this is public knowledge, so either Trump is incredible badly consulted to a point you wonder if it's malicious or more likely he doesn't care, and only care about a meaningless legally void promise he can present now probably some way smaller immediate subset of the promised actions. And then a few years down it's the "evil other countries" which he knowingly pressured to give him hollow promises they legally can't give, instead of it's seemingly bad/incompetent deal making (if you assume the goal is to actually make working deals and not to rail up people to have excuses for increasingly more extreme actions).
rapnie 1y ago
The tariffs. The overall situation. I do not understand why Wall Street isn't yet in a freefall. Did they find good sources of bubble fuel then to keep on the heat?
- tommica 1y ago
  Would it be possible that the tariffs are working? I'm clueless when it comes to these things, so it's a pure guess.
  - leptons 1y ago
    It depends on from what angle you are looking at it. If the goal is to destabilize the US, then yes, the tariffs are working.
  - idle_zealot 1y ago
    Considering that investment in local manufacturing is down, it's pretty safe to say they're not "working" in the sense of reinvigorating local industry.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWjpDxvqSSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWjpDxvqSSE Here's an even handed approach and overview of some of the tariff related stats. The presenter is a critic of tariffs, but concedes that the results thus far are not as simple as some here would suggest. 6:22 > This is just a matter of acknowledging the data on the graph and saying this is quite a difference from the way it was a year ago. And so, people who said this wouldn't happen, that's wrong. It did happen. There it is. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. Um, not only that, but a lot of people said, "Well, this is going to lead to the price of goods, especially automobiles, coming into the United States, is going to skyrocket." Well, so far that hasn't been the case. >In fact, prices have come down. And you can go to Google and you can look it up and there's many articles discussing the fact that the Chinese automakers have largely been eating the tariffs so far.
    - 1y ago
arunabha 1y ago
It's mind blowing to witness the speed and rapidity with which we have * Completely alienated key allies via an erratic and unpredictable tariff policy * Significantly undermined faith in US economic data and fiscal policy via overt politicization of key economic institutions * Increased the deficit by almost $3 trillion after vowing to reduce the deficit * Signaled far and wide that pay for play is the new norm, whether for pardons or favourable policy. Preferably paid in crypto, but with in kind payments being acceptable. Is there any wonder that other countries are unwilling to trust the US? The only hope we have is that the current bout of madness in Washington DC is a one time aberration, but who knows!
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  He did say we'd get tired of all the winning.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Source?
    - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
      Actual reality.
      - DaSHacka 1y ago
        Interesting, I seem to notice the exact opposite from "actual reality", how do you suppose we correct this incongruity?
- dboreham 1y ago
  Not really when you realize people elected a seriously mentally ill person.
joshdavham 1y ago
I'm curious how the average Korean feels about what's going on in the US, or even how much they think about this stuff? I know for example that in Canada and Europe, we're mostly all pretty disturbed about these trade disruptions, but I'm curious if Korean's feel equally 'put off'. Are they as dependent on the US as Canada and Europe?
- joules77 1y ago
  Matters to exporters. Not to everyone. SK is a 2 Trillion $$$ economy. What numbers are involved here is in the 20-50 Billion a year. Not like life or death.
  - pointlessone 1y ago
    1-3% of GDP is nothing to sneeze at. I’m having hard time believing this investment into US would pay off anytime soon if at all.
- boodleboodle 1y ago
  Average korean: We just hope Americans realize some day that the world is not taking advantage of them like Trump wants them to believe. Korea is very dependent on America but this is a mutually beneficial situation. We are their customers and they are ours. Except Korea is more desparate so the US can afford to rip us off or kill contracts whenever it feels like it. We are always thankful to UN allies and the US for freeing SK from NK but Americans are not here to save us. They are here to snoop into beijing and control the pacific ocean.
  - Herring 1y ago
    You don't understand. Americans elected a rapist. YOU are his next target. Read Aesop's "The Wolf and the Lamb", and good luck. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they will do it again.
deleted 1y ago
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MangoCoffee 1y ago
Many comments focus on Trump, but I think the deeper problem lies with America itself. After all, America elected Trump twice. I don't agree with Peter Zeihan on many of his views, but I think his point about the collapse of the global order set up by America is what's happening. Trump is dismantling the global order/rule of laws established by America after WWII and the Cold War. I find it ironic that Ian Bremmer said the Chinese care more about the rule of law (established by America) than Americans do in this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvvzx-ecTrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvvzx-ecTrw
- dboreham 1y ago
  Both can be true. Historians can dig into economic conditions in interwar Germany, lack of deep sea ports, colonies, etc. But also: Adolf he one mad cookie.
- contrarian1234 1y ago
  > Ian Bremmer said the Chinese care more about the rule of law (established by America) than Americans do in this interview I was confused why they didn't support Ukraine more. By not strongly condemning stuff like Crimea they seem to deeply undermine their position with regards to Taiwan
  - Tadpole9181 1y ago
    After two decades of reports on Trump's ties to Russian crime in his real estate and Russian government in his politics... You were confused why Trump and the Party of Trump do not strongly condemn Russia and regularly take stances that strengthen that geopolitical group's goals?
    - contrarian1234 1y ago
      given the context.. the "they" here means China
  - freefrog334433 1y ago
    China knows NATO will turn on them if Russia is defeated. Also, the narrative that Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine isn't strong outside the West. It's more complex, starting with Bush announcing Ukraine eligible for NATO membership, the Maidan coup, and 8 years of civil war against the 4 Eastern Oblasts that voted to secede from Ukraine.
yongjik 1y ago
I think it's pretty significant that President Lee mentioned the 1997 financial crisis: arguably, it was Korea's version of 9/11. It shook the country in a way people didn't realize was possible, and the country was, in a sense, never the same after that. Imagine a US politician saying "agreeing to this would be a disaster at the same level as 9/11." Lee is basically telling Koreans that this is something he can never let go through, and he'll do everything to stop it from happening. (Of course whether Koreans buy it is another matter, but after watching ICE arresting hundreds of workers, I think most are willing to believe Lee rather than the US government.)
- thijson 1y ago
  I heard that he was considering going to the recent Beijing meeting where Putin was, however he heard that Kim Jong Un would also be there, so he decided against it.
hunglee2 1y ago
Converting allies into vassals is logical mid point of 'America First'. Best ROK can do is string US along and hope for a more benign successor regime.
aussieguy1234 1y ago
Seems to be a dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45328828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45328828
donkeylazy456 1y ago
I can't take these nonsenses anymore. America has made more profits than countries that take manufacturing jobs from USA. It was totally win-win. Now America destroying these relationships by themselves. Even asking allies economic failure to fulfill their (or trump administration's) greed. Those economic failure possibilities will make their allies' manufacturing capabilities degrade. They don't even have any capabilities and proper plans for re-buliding domestic manufacturing industries to satisfy their needs. (price, capability)
- geremiiah 1y ago
  They just want to feel like they are perpetual victims. It appeals to them and it justifies their cruelty towards others. I guess this is a major difference between the far-left and the far-right. The far-left go out of their way to join the cause of various victims of oppression because they love to always be rooting for the underdog. The far-right also loves the under-dog arch but they don't go around trying to join desperate causes. Instead they manufacture their own narrative in which they are the perpetual victims. Much less noble, much more self-serving.
  - Herring 1y ago
    It's an old story. Check out Aesop's "The Wolf and the Lamb".
contrarian1234 1y ago
Why have nations not come together to collectively shut down this whole tariff blackmail thing? If everyone came together and signed up for a Chinese-style reciprocal tariff system then wouldn't this whole charade be over instantly? I get some nations decided flattering Trump would work out (Vietnam? UK?) but even in the best case they still get tariffs.. just lower.. And how has the tariffs not completely tanked the stock market? Are markets assuming this is just temporary madness and it'll get rolled back?
- ragebol 1y ago
  > Why have nations not come together ... > If everyone came together Finally winning that Nobel peace prize by unifying all the countries that are not the US would be amazing. Independent California, Texas and some other parts left sorta-kinda OK-ish after the new American civil war can then also join that alliance later, achieving world peace. Trump gets a posthumous Nobel peace prize and each year we all celebrate by gold plating a hamburger or something.
  - contrarian1234 1y ago
    It's not super crazy for all nations to agree on something. For instance with Gaza everyone except for the US kinda agreed what's going on is no good. I think tariffs are arguably even easier to agree on. I don't think there's a single nation that's ambivalent about the US tariffs - or feel it's "maybe not so bad"
    - raincole 1y ago
      Not sure if you're joking. The Gaza thing is pure virtue signal and you know it. It's easy for countries to recognize Palestine because recognizing requires them to do nothing. Reciprocal tariffs against the US is the opposite of nothing.
    - ragebol 1y ago
      Agreeing something is bad is easy. Agreeing how go about fixing it is not easy.
8bitsrule 1y ago
Crazy request of $350 billion investment by SK. That's 20% of it's estimated 2025 GDP of $1700 billion. Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Awfully nice of Myung to be so understanding after the US arrest of 300+ SK workers in Georgia a month ago.
- iddan 1y ago
  Arrest of illegal workers that is
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Strange, how they always seem to 'forget' that part
    - Modified3019 1y ago
      What specific illegal activity was happening? Honest question, I’ve not seen any reference to such a thing before your and the other guy’s comment.
      - weberer 1y ago
        >The individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses. People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-operation-targeting-illegal-employment-and-federal-crimes https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...
        nosianu 1y ago
        That is wrong. Summary: https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html I myself once worked for a large German company at a large US software company, porting code to my company's platform. After a few flights back home to Germany and back immigration took me into the backroom, and I described in detail what I did. They stamped my passport and let me in for another 6 months of that work. I did that for a year before switching to another visa. It also worked out because I never even tried the slightest evasion and gave them everything I got, it's not like I cared, if I had been sent back, so what, I had no desire to immigrate. I'm sure under the exact same circumstances somebody giving them a worse impression of hiding something might not have been approved. But in any case, it's definitely legal, you CAN do some kinds of actual work on just a B1, even for an entire year. It was legal, because I still was 100% employed and paid in Germany, and the job could not be done otherwise, the US company would not send us their source code. Similarly, in the context of the Korean raid. One other important point you neglect is that from what I read the legality of the activities were never even questioned to begin with! They simply arrested everyone. They did not know what they wer4e doing, they just needed the arrest numbers because ICE is under pressure themselves. They did not even have any interpreters. That makes any argument about the legality useless, since it didn't even matter for the arrests.
shubhamjain 1y ago
No one needs to make an investment. The playbook—as all countries are figuring it out—to navigate the crisis is simple: agree in principle to the demands, let the narcissistic toddler self-pat, brag about how fantastic of a deal maker he is. Stall, delay to make things official. Let it all die down slowly. Need more time? How about blatant corruption like approving Trump Towers, or gifting a corporate jet? Or make a token investment, just enough to let him brag again. What every country is doing is buying time. Just enough till the next election or (hopefully) sooner.
- xp84 1y ago
  It should definitely never be overlooked how easy to manipulate he is with flattery, and by tiny (by standards of whole nations' economies) bribes that enrich his family company directly.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- timeon 1y ago
  > What every country is doing is buying time. Just enough till the next election or (hopefully) sooner. Is that enough? I do not think this is about one person. US seems to be changed.
- hiddencost 1y ago
  Anyone playing for the next election isn't paying attention. Power has been seized, it will not be released.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    He has only been able to do what he has done because of the Republican bootlickers in Congress. If the Democrats can take both houses in the midterms they can shut him down.
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      Will there be a midterm? Will the national guard prevent elections from happening in the cities controlled by the Democrats where they are being deployed ensuring the "correct" outcome?
Yoric 1y ago
I remember some estimates made after the US elections of what Stephen Miller's policy would cost. According to these estimates, following Miller's plan would require more or less the entire world's GDP to be invested in the US for several consecutive years. Obviously, this would require more than a little bullying to get there. So far, we got the bullying, plenty of non-binding agreements, 100% of goodwill and soft power loss, increased soft power for China, a looming financial crisis, two wars between major powers getting closer by the day. We'll see whether the investments are coming, too.
- mnky9800n 1y ago
  Is almost like a foreign agent is in charge.
  - reeredfdfdf 1y ago
    Yep, most things Trump does make sense if we assume he's a Russian puppet. Russia really wants to divide West, to keep world hooked on fossil fuels, and to undermine democracy everywhere.
    - WJW 1y ago
      The things Trump does *also* make sense if you assume he's not a Russian puppet. He also wants to divide Europe against itself, keep the world hooked on (US) fossil fuels and to undermine threats to his rule. He doesn't need Russia for that, but their interests do sometimes align and it would be stupid not to take advantage of it.
      - timeon 1y ago
        > but their interests do sometimes align I think this is more likely than some 'agent' plot. These people do not really care about countries, but what benefits them and their extended family. As Italians would say: "our thing".
        1y ago
derelicta 1y ago
It's a shame SK is a vassal state. Koreans deserve better than serving thankless americans.
Animats 1y ago
On November 5, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether Trump even has the authority to impose tariffs. Nobody should make a deal until that's decided.
- curiousgal 1y ago
  Hes been stacking the Supreme Court for years, how do you think that will go?
- epolanski 1y ago
  To me, an European, what's troubling about US is the amount of power the presidential office has. It's reaching disturbing levels under this administration. I'm Italian, used to our president mostly approving laws, commanding the armed forces (in theory, not in practice) and very few other things. And the best thing about our president is that it gets elected by the parliament requiring a very sensible majority. Thus pretty much all parties need to agree on one and they end up electing non-political figures (or politicians that have demonstrated high level of trust regardless of their party). I think our system works great to be honest, and I already see the huge problems having an election-based president in Poland has with the government and president being from different parties and clashing with each other and the president vetoing for years a democratically elected government just to stir trouble.
  - cjs_ac 1y ago
    In practice, the system of government in the US most closely resembles the system of government in Britain prior to Robert Walpole becoming the first prime minister in 1721. American culture places too much emphasis on talking and not enough on listening - it's very easy to claim to have the best constitution in the world if you pay no attention to what anyone else has done in the past two and a half centuries.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    >president vetoing for years a democratically elected government I guess the president is democratically elected too. Clashing between political parties is normal, and one can argue that a system which makes them limit each other is just fine. The current layout (parliament majority belongs to A, the president is of B) may reverse in future. And then the same people who now claim that president's vetoes should be abolished may start to see it in a very different light.
motbus3 1y ago
I am stupid. Why there is no economical block being discussed to nullify or reduce those effects?
butifnot0701 1y ago
Also Trump asked for 90% of the profit from investment? If that's the case then that is not investment at all.
- nosianu 1y ago
  Protection money. Pay or we will withdraw our military support.
- psyklic 1y ago
  Also Trump asked to direct where the investment goes himself. It looks more like a gift than an investment.
orwin 1y ago
What's missing from this is China making a lot of soft calls to SK, basically saying 'we like you, we can pressure NK into a more peaceful position, invest with us, we're all Asians', and SK seems to be responding positively. SK being closer to China would be a game changer for geopolitics, and they would need _very strong_ guarantees from China, so strong I don't think it's possible in the short term (unless NK has a regime change).
- Mr_Minderbinder 1y ago
  Do not assume that the rest of the world follows the US view of ethnic identity. Groups that would all be classified under “Asian” in the US would be considered different races in China. Regardless it is true that the PRC, even despite political differences, would be more in tune with the ROK culturally due to the long history of Korea falling under the influence of the Sinosphere which is something the United States should be more wary of as a competitive disadvantage when trying to maintain influence over the region.
ultim8k 1y ago
They should effectively immediately freeze and potentially cancel any Korean investment in US and investigate all US companies based in their country. US behaving rogue should not go unpunished.
manoDev 1y ago
If you think being an US antagonist is bad, try being an ally. South Korea, Japan, Philippines, are all proxy states and hostages to the US defense budget.
pessimizer 1y ago
I'm starting to think that HNs soft prohibition against politics only applies to women and black people talking about their experiences in tech (disappeared.) At least four or five of these non-news items that just serve for endless anti-administration comments are hitting the front page every day. The Wikipedia page for goddamn Horst Wessel almost hit the front page last night, because according to people with George W. Bush's politics, everybody is a Nazi. No, South Korea's new president saying something about an unfavorable trade treaty that hasn't happened yet is not news. Their last president declared martial law because he declared that the opposition party was subverted by Russian propaganda. The NYT, as they do, pretended not to know that it was wrong because US interests were hoping it would succeed. And when you rail about how awful it was to raid a factory where Koreans on visas that didn't allow them to do physical work were doing physical work, and where one of them had been killed and another worker not from Korea cut in half in an accident; a site that was being reported over and over again for safety and workers rights violations, consider how that makes working people think of you. Reference, notorious Nazi outlet The American Prospect: Following ICE Raid in Georgia, Concerns Raised About Human Trafficking at Hyundai https://prospect.org/justice/2025-09-08-ice-raid-georgia-plant-human-trafficking-concerns-raised-hyundai/ https://prospect.org/justice/2025-09-08-ice-raid-georgia-pla... Why do the outlets that you get your news from simply ignore things? Simply choose not to report on them? Instead we get "Somebody says something." You shouldn't see a story like that being reported as news unless there is nothing else going on. Israel is killing everyone in Gaza City right now. But tariffs, though. Protectionism! Grover Norquist is smiling in Hell. That being said, I understand that a lot of people are not from, in, or have any loyalty to the US. But US policy is not made for you. We've hollowed out our working population, and kept them alive with credit. America itself has to deleverage. AI is not going to save us, because it is stupid, and wringing productivity gains from it will be difficult and will not give us any relative advantage because it will be cheap to imitate. That's a couple trillion that we can expect to be wiped out in the very short term future. We need to take some medicine now (the wildly overvalued dollar has been our heroin for 50 years), and anyone who has been relying on US debt (whether in the form of US deficit spending on defense, or otherwise) to float their economies has to get off the teat. We're a bad influence on SK anyway, and should never have been there. If they want to stop investing in the US they're free to, they're just going to feel it when they try to export to the US. If your economy will collapse when that happens, it's because your economy is making out better than our economy. Also, it's nothing like the IMF crisis to insist on a favorable trade deal. US elites have been bribed by ownership in foreign concerns not to insist. It'll still work - look at the people in office now, they love a bribe - but you have to renegotiate. That's how dirty business works; your counterparties are as trustworthy as the leverage you have over them. Nobody is going to cry over you being screwed because the people you bribed before are out of power.
Xorakios 1y ago
Since SCMP was confiscated by the CCP it is constantly writing stories that undermine Korea, Japan and Australia, primarily for US and European audiences. There are individual humans, and certainly mainly companies and countries, that could invest $350billion in the USA or the EU and not be destroyed. Buying land, building, expanding manufacturing or investing in new companies generally is considered a good thing!

258 points by donsupreme 1y ago

You're going ot keep seeing more of this. The Japanese went through multiple rounds of the WH announcing they'd reached a deal and the Japanese saying politely but firmly that negotiations were still ongoing. The Japanese insisted on having everything in writing, and if you look at the executive order that was eventually published it's full of loopholes like 'best efforts' and 'aspirations' that articulate shared goals, but little the in the way of binding commitments.

calmbonsai 1y ago
Agreed. It was, initially, quite alarming (though no longer anymore) at how different the actual words in the Executive Orders differ from what was said about the policies they were, ostensibly, enforcing or creating.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
The truth is Trump is a bad negotiator. He's easily played. He's also predictably dishonest. The only real move is to string him along, which he seems to be glad to do, particularly if someone flatters or threatens to punch him.
- wombatpm 1y ago
  He negotiates in bad faith. No deal is final. He will change the terms to meet his whims. The Chinese understand. Notice how there are no soybean purchases from China this year. They do not trust the US on important things like food.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > He negotiates in bad faith Plenty of great negotitors across history did, too. Trump gets played. Repeatedly. Predictably. His political instincts have been sharp enough that I'm increasingly chalking this up to age, but maybe he just had a better team around him the first time around.
    - defrost 1y ago
      > increasingly chalking this up to age I've always had high regard for Trump as a talented scumbag grifter of note. He's been noticeably and increasingly off game since it seemed he was only campaigning for re-election to avoid a mountain of looming bad legal outcomes. Much of his early second term "wins" I've marked as momentum success from having a ready to go game plan care of the Project 2025 crowd. His carry through on tariffs, dodging Epstein complications, handling free speech issues, etc. have been more chaotic than cunning.
    - dboreham 1y ago
      No. It's explicitly self-destructive. He gets off on setting things on fire, including himself.
    - Prickle 1y ago
      He singlehandedly annihilated the US soybean market. That's not a good thing. Lots of farmers going bankrupt now.
      - jrs235 1y ago
        But his crony buddies stand to benefit from farmers going to bankrupt. Makes it difficult to understand if this is incompetence or intentional malice at play...
      - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
        > He singlehandedly annihilated the US soybean market. Again... He's done this twice now.
  - 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
    I assumed the soybean thing was more about sending a message. Soybeans are the number one US export crop. Shutting down the market is a big financial blow, makes the trade deficit worse, and angers farmers who otherwise would have happily sold to the Chinese.
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  Do you even think he's sitting in on these negotiations? He can't remember Ishiba's name and just called him 'Mr Japan' when occasionally asked questions about him. My impression (and I've been watching these specific trade negotiations pretty closely) was that Scott Bessent was doing all the legwork and the Japanese seemed perfectly happy to talk to him instead of Trump. Whatever one might think of the policy arguments, Bessent seems coherent and professional whereas Trump comes off as shallow and erratic. I find it hard to imagine having hours-long focused and strategic conversation with him on a dry topic like trade policy. It's an musing irony that Japan is a demographically much older society than the US and LDP in particular looks like a gerontocratic party, but between factionalism and parliamentary instability they actually cycle through leaders pretty efficiently
somenameforme 1y ago
People are confused about what these published agreements (like with the EU as well) are. They're not legal agreements, treaties, or even executive orders, although the corresponding orders to reduce the tariffs are of course executive orders. But the agreements themselves are completely informal and an overview of what the US expects to see happen in order to maintain the tariff reductions. The interpretation of whether the other country or group of countries is abiding the agreement is entirely at the discretion of Trump. So there's no such thing as a loop hole. If Trump isn't satisfied with e.g. the EU's progress towards implementing said agreement, he can increase tariffs back to where they were at his discretion, with or without reason given. So there's no such thing as a loop hole in this sort of agreement.
- tensor 1y ago
  The loop hole is every nation just agrees to stop dealing with the US and isolate them. Sure, we’d all suffer horribly but at least the west would have a future, vs we all suffer horribly anyways and fall along with the US.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    This is the ideal outcome. Just produce the trade blockade that the US is trying to achieve through policy. And like other blockaded nations, North Korea and Palestine, the US will reach its intended levels of greatness within minutes.
  - bruce511 1y ago
    I don't think agreement is necessary. I think each will, in turn, come to their own conclusions. In boardrooms around the world there is of course concern to protecting the existing US market. And in the short term there are lots of noises to placate the US. At the same time there's a recognition that the US is not a stable long-term partner. The bigger conversation is around new markets, building diversity of markets, diversity of investment and so on. "Global Trade" is mostly not an organised thing. It's a zillion small transactions between individuals, small companies and so on. Ultimately my (US) customers will pay the tarifs to their govt, or not (shrug). In the meantime I'm looking for non-US customers for my business growth. I'm investing anywhere except the US, because the current uncertainty is bad for making investment decisions. Ultimately this process is a wake up call to suppliers who have focused on the US market. And to those future businesses to come. Diversify markets, because then you aren't beholden to them. In 10 years time, regardless of who is in power, or the conditions then, the lesson will remain.
akudha 1y ago
insisted on having everything in writing Just curious, how would this help with anything, other than documentation purposes?
- slater 1y ago
  Paper trail, to be referenced later, so TFG can't be all "huh, never said that, never agreed to that" etc. etc.
  - riku_iki 1y ago
    and then what? Trump put specific numbers about trade balance on paper with China during previous trade war, which China just ignored.
    - vkou 1y ago
      1. "Specific numbers about trade balance' isn't a negotiation term. It might be a prior that feeds into your position in negotiation, but it's not an outcome. 2. He lies when his lips move. When you're dealing with a pathological liar, there's no reason to believe anything he says that paints him in a good light - until it's been independently confirmed.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    I don’t understand why you think it would stop that, given how comprehensive a record of self-contradiction he already has.
    - 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
      Maybe more in that it gives the Japanese an easy out to change terms when America inevitably breaks the deal.
    - anigbrowl 1y ago
      True, but the Japanese government is accountable to Japanese voters and their business community. If they see Trump reneging on or twisting an agreement they'll be more likely to blame Trump than the LDP. He's not popular there nowadays except among Sanseito members.
yongjik 1y ago
Funnily enough, according to some South Korean news, the Korean government deliberately postponed having a final written deal, or at least that's what some news articles claim, because it was such a horrible deal for Korea. I think there's an implicit understanding that having a written deal would be worse for Korea because the deal will bind Korea and restrict its options, while Trump is a crazy guy and can and will do anything he wants, whether he signed something or not. I.e., any written deal with Trump has negative worth. Such is the state of global trade negotiation these days.
seydor 1y ago
The more times you can announce you "made a deal" , the better the TV ratings
- theshrike79 1y ago
  And if you say "in two weeks", people - and the media - will forget and won't check up on it later. They just remember you made something happen.
MangoCoffee 1y ago
>everything in writing Agreements on paper doesn't mean anything to Trump. Despite negotiating the USMCA with Canada and Mexico during his first term, Trump still threatened to impose tariffs on both countries. What is the point of having an agreement like USMCA?
- BiteCode_dev 1y ago
  No but him and his crowd have been keen on denying reality on a daily basis, and it's scary how well it works. I have people around me who drink this BS, and will argue in support for it because the arguments against it requires nuance thinking. At least, with a paper, it's harder to do this. You have to admit he pretended the sky was red, when it's obviously blue. There is less nuances if you get something clear in writing. It's not much, but it's better than the alternative.
- mahirsaid 1y ago
  Just remember all of the treaties that were signed (by you know who) before invading that very same country there after, leading up to WW2. A common strategy to give yourself the first move. the strategy is to cripple ongoing negotiating the east is succeeding in with other countries that no longer trust the US, this was going on way before ORang man election. Just remember not everything is public, that goes for other countries as well. Like really china is enemy all the sudden " Why exactly, oh wait you said " Because they're growing faster then US" What!!! oh i get it now" nooo I don't get it. Also the war torn countries tend to be under developed and are rich in natural reserves of what ever the world needs. The world is not as simple as even what the corrupt media tries to make it also. It does indeed go much deeper than that and without emotion but decisions that are occurring with opinions of many heads to influence any giving decision. Yet even the most sense you can make out of this whole mess well still leave you lost even more than before you calculated the "WHYS" and the "noes". Forget the problem, i tend to think that with each disastrous decision made how long will it take to fix THAT decision later. Something like telling Afghanistan to give back the ( Bagram base) back to US and simply receiving fuck off reply by the Taliban government is simply stupid. none other than Russia not that long ago met their government to spark relationship initiatives. Umm hello Afghanistan is literal the country of mountain men defeated the invasion of Russia in the past. Well this is good for two groups of the three, Russia and Afghanistan leaving US out. US you left Afghanistan, well because there was defeated in controlling the countries ( very strategic land being so central to everything in that land mass. Now leaving Israel is saying whats happening is bad like every human on this earth, is in no way possible for the US. This will be yet another HUGE might i add in capital letters LOST in the middle east. The massive mission of the US to achieve this in controlling the middle east. Sadly the people taking this blunt is the people in that small town taking the hit. Have you seen how many men they are detaining in each photo you see of the chaos happening. In the Blue and white flag there is no consideration for the children and men, They must stop reproduction of that ethnic group so their ability to take back that land from within is impossible. Why? because this same thing happened in Iraq, Syria Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia "kinda", Libya, Various other African countries, along with some eastern European countries. The World is moving on to the future, It's what happens yet we are supposed to learn from our mistakes but, the only thing we really learn from what history has to tell us is that we get good at replicating that same mistake to others or ourselves. A 100 years ago we were trying to make car run on gasoline and go pas 20 mph, a 100 years ago we were trying to figure out how we can expand the use of electricity, a 100 years ago Photographs have to be mobile, but how. The point is humans are animals and have the ignorance as a tribute because it's helped us survive. Its natural. whats not natural is for a planet to sustain an orbit for lengthy time period for life to to be sustained so evolution can exist. evolution./

charcircuit 1y ago

>“Without a currency swap, if we were to withdraw $350 billion in the manner that the U.S. is demanding and to invest this all in cash in the U.S., South Korea would face a situation as it had in the 1997 financial crisis,” he said through a translator. So do a currency swap? South Korea isn't failing, do surely there would people to offer liquidity or financing to make it possible.

msy 1y ago
There aren't a lot of counterparties to a $350Bn currency swap. SK is manoeuvring to make the Fed offering the swap and thus taking the FX risk as a requirement for this deal, which is I suspect why you're reading about this.
- bfg_9k 1y ago
  That's... not how FX swaps work. FX swaps are where Korea fronts up with however many trillion KRW, giving it to the Fed (or whoever else, but the Fed would be the only counterparty that would be able to accommodate that size), the Fed then hands over the USD to the Koreans. Presumably, the Koreans would then invest that USD. Then at some point in the future the trade would be unwound and each side would receive their own currency back. There's no currency risk in the trade for either side (unless one side defaults).
  - mamonster 1y ago
    Of course there is currency risk, that's why the swap would get marked to market. There is no "currency risk" in the sense that you are locked into an exchange rate and (in case of fixed for fixed) the interest rates on the principal, but there is still currency risk. It's like saying there is no price risk in a long term LNG contract.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - msy 1y ago

instagib 1y ago

$350 billion investment to avoid tariffs. “Trump says the investments will be "selected" by him and controlled by the U.S., meaning Washington would have discretion over where the money will be invested.”

dchftcs 1y ago
You can choose to invest 350 billion in the real economy, or 350 million in TrumpCoin.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> $350 billion investment to avoid tariffs $500 billion for Stargate! How many of Trump's investment deals from the first term panned out?
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
It's really astonishing to me how quickly we all (or, more specifically, Congress, which as done absolutely nothing to push back) accept that this is just how things work now. Like the president deciding exactly where business investment should be made is the definition of a government command economy (remember that "Communism" bogeyman???), which used to be the antithesis of American economic policy (at least in theory), and now we're just all like "OK, cool". It's so sickening.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  At this point the debate has been reduced to which flavor of central planning you prefer or dislike least.
- slt2021 1y ago
  [dead]
- jayd16 1y ago
  Really goes to show how full of hot air all the pearl clutching and hand wringing was over any Biden policy.
- 1y ago

sidcool 1y ago

There's a problem here. World depending so much on one country. It's a single point of failure.

ares623 1y ago
Up until recently it was a good trade-off.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  The US sold trust, and it burned it all up for someone's ego. Unfortunate.
  - testrun 1y ago
    This is the crux of the problem. The value of US treasuries and the USD is based on the trust of the world in the US. Now, who knows what will happen to the USD. Will have to wait and see.
  - freefrog334433 1y ago
    Freezing Russian assets was the beginning. Sanctions against Russia backfired, cutting them off from SWIFT encouraged alternatives as did Lloyd's of London refusing to insure Russian ships. All it did was make the non-NATO world develop alternatives.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
protocolture 1y ago
The US has more foreign dependencies, than it has countries depending on it, on every level except military. And even then, a lot of its military dependants are just kidding themselves that the seps will come to their aid if required. Its ephemeral.
herbst 1y ago
But does it really or is it just something Americans learned to think? Everything is still well here in Switzerland.

cozzyd 1y ago

With so many investments, imagine how many ICE raids there could be!

DaSHacka 1y ago
Oh man, this but unironically

ArtTimeInvestor 1y ago

If one country manages to outpace all others in the race to better AI, all other countries are at the mercy of that one country. Depending on how the one country treats the others, it might be ok - like it is kind of ok for some animals to live in a zoo, I guess. Or it could turn out very bad - all other countries becoming slave colonies of the one that rules the world. Currently it seems like only two countries are really taking part in the AI race. The USA and China. On a political level, I am not sure if there is still time for the rest of the world to try and avoid becoming 100% dependent on them. It looks like there is not even awareness of the issue. On a personal level, it is an interesting question, how one should brace themselves for the times ahead.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> If one country manages to outpace all others in the race to better AI, all other countries are at the mercy of that one country History is replete with these supposed silver bullets. (See: Marinetti.) They rarely pan out that way in the long run. And if AGI really is that level of civilisation changer, the country it's discovered in matters much less than the people it's loyal to. (If GPT or Grok become self aware and exponentially self improving, they're probably not going to give two shits about America's elected government.)
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  > the country it's discovered in matters much less than the people it's loyal to. (If GPT or Grok become self aware and exponentially self improving, they're probably not going to give two shits about America's elected government.) People are loyal (to whatever degree they're actually loyal), because it is a monkey virtue. Why would an AGI be loyal to anyone or anything? If we're not smart enough to carefully design the AGI because we're stumbling around just trying to invent any AGI at all, we won't know how to make loyalty fundamental to its mind at all. And it's not as if it evolved from monkeys such that it would have loyalty as a vestige of its former condition.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago

palmfacehn 1y ago

It isn't immediately clear that the administration's heterodox approach to state capitalism is more destructive than what passes as orthodox. Personally I'm not a fan of either option. Given the general mainstream preference for interventionism, one could characterize it as a "progressive" approach to central planning. A more coherent critique might lay out the shortcomings of both flavors of economic interventionism. Instead, we're stuck in a partisan debate over who has a better central planning approach. Maybe there are reasonable or pragmatic points to be made there, but admitting as much allows the possibility that perhaps Trump's interventions should be measured empirically, rather than rejected based on the a priori flaws of interventionism. Partisans are free to pick and choose which statistics and time periods they feel best illustrate their case. Easy to see how this devolves into incoherence.

XorNot 1y ago
US unemployment is up, inflation is up, tourism is down, defence sales are being cancelled admidst the largest procurement expansion in history, foreign investment is down, business confidence has been shattered by an incoherent and arbitrarily changing tarrif regime. Oh and the President is advocating that businesses should stop quarterly reporting...
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  I agree that the outcome will be destructive. The questions are: Is it is more or less destructive than the alternative destruction? Who is it more economically destructive for? Over what time period is it more or less destructive than the alternative interventionism? Is 6 months a meaningful time horizon? It becomes muddled very quickly. I would appeal for a consistent approach which opposes both forms of destructive interventionism.
  - dboreham 1y ago
    Many things are luck and uncontrollable events. So what you do is focus on not f.ing things up. Current usg is doing the exact opposite.

cryptonector 1y ago

Without commenting on any of the details or economics, the smart thing to have done would have been to make the $350bn thing be over 10 years and be slow to ramp up, then wait Trump out. I'm surprise he didn't do that.

kumarvvr 1y ago
trump and his cronies would never accept that. I think this is what Japan did initially. Announce a huge number, 500 bn I think, and then slowly trickle out the news that it will be over 10 or so years. But that didn't sit well with trump. There was news immediately that Japan must invest the whole amount immediately to escape tariffs.
- dathinab 1y ago
  I'm not sure a single country will to the "invest immediately" thing, like at all. In the same way politician outside of the US trust anymore what Trump says when it comes to economics, a lot of countries seem to have started to response the same way. I.e. speak with Trump like he did with them, do hollow promises, and then backtrack and/or circumvent them.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    Also, appart from authocratic ones, no country can or should decide where private companies will invest.
    - dathinab 1y ago
      and EU isn't even a country, and all(?/most) EU countries have the budged strictly sitting with the senate, i.e. outside of the hand of any of the leaders discussing deals with Trump the chance that anything like that will pass those Senats also isn't exactly high and all of this is public knowledge, so either Trump is incredible badly consulted to a point you wonder if it's malicious or more likely he doesn't care, and only care about a meaningless legally void promise he can present now probably some way smaller immediate subset of the promised actions. And then a few years down it's the "evil other countries" which he knowingly pressured to give him hollow promises they legally can't give, instead of it's seemingly bad/incompetent deal making (if you assume the goal is to actually make working deals and not to rail up people to have excuses for increasingly more extreme actions).

rapnie 1y ago

The tariffs. The overall situation. I do not understand why Wall Street isn't yet in a freefall. Did they find good sources of bubble fuel then to keep on the heat?

tommica 1y ago
Would it be possible that the tariffs are working? I'm clueless when it comes to these things, so it's a pure guess.
- leptons 1y ago
  It depends on from what angle you are looking at it. If the goal is to destabilize the US, then yes, the tariffs are working.
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  Considering that investment in local manufacturing is down, it's pretty safe to say they're not "working" in the sense of reinvigorating local industry.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWjpDxvqSSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWjpDxvqSSE Here's an even handed approach and overview of some of the tariff related stats. The presenter is a critic of tariffs, but concedes that the results thus far are not as simple as some here would suggest. 6:22 > This is just a matter of acknowledging the data on the graph and saying this is quite a difference from the way it was a year ago. And so, people who said this wouldn't happen, that's wrong. It did happen. There it is. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. Um, not only that, but a lot of people said, "Well, this is going to lead to the price of goods, especially automobiles, coming into the United States, is going to skyrocket." Well, so far that hasn't been the case. >In fact, prices have come down. And you can go to Google and you can look it up and there's many articles discussing the fact that the Chinese automakers have largely been eating the tariffs so far.
  - 1y ago

arunabha 1y ago

It's mind blowing to witness the speed and rapidity with which we have * Completely alienated key allies via an erratic and unpredictable tariff policy * Significantly undermined faith in US economic data and fiscal policy via overt politicization of key economic institutions * Increased the deficit by almost $3 trillion after vowing to reduce the deficit * Signaled far and wide that pay for play is the new norm, whether for pardons or favourable policy. Preferably paid in crypto, but with in kind payments being acceptable. Is there any wonder that other countries are unwilling to trust the US? The only hope we have is that the current bout of madness in Washington DC is a one time aberration, but who knows!

CamperBob2 1y ago
He did say we'd get tired of all the winning.
FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
[flagged]
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Source?
  - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
    Actual reality.
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      Interesting, I seem to notice the exact opposite from "actual reality", how do you suppose we correct this incongruity?
dboreham 1y ago
Not really when you realize people elected a seriously mentally ill person.

joshdavham 1y ago

I'm curious how the average Korean feels about what's going on in the US, or even how much they think about this stuff? I know for example that in Canada and Europe, we're mostly all pretty disturbed about these trade disruptions, but I'm curious if Korean's feel equally 'put off'. Are they as dependent on the US as Canada and Europe?

joules77 1y ago
Matters to exporters. Not to everyone. SK is a 2 Trillion $$$ economy. What numbers are involved here is in the 20-50 Billion a year. Not like life or death.
- pointlessone 1y ago
  1-3% of GDP is nothing to sneeze at. I’m having hard time believing this investment into US would pay off anytime soon if at all.
boodleboodle 1y ago
Average korean: We just hope Americans realize some day that the world is not taking advantage of them like Trump wants them to believe. Korea is very dependent on America but this is a mutually beneficial situation. We are their customers and they are ours. Except Korea is more desparate so the US can afford to rip us off or kill contracts whenever it feels like it. We are always thankful to UN allies and the US for freeing SK from NK but Americans are not here to save us. They are here to snoop into beijing and control the pacific ocean.
- Herring 1y ago
  You don't understand. Americans elected a rapist. YOU are his next target. Read Aesop's "The Wolf and the Lamb", and good luck. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they will do it again.

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MangoCoffee 1y ago

Many comments focus on Trump, but I think the deeper problem lies with America itself. After all, America elected Trump twice. I don't agree with Peter Zeihan on many of his views, but I think his point about the collapse of the global order set up by America is what's happening. Trump is dismantling the global order/rule of laws established by America after WWII and the Cold War. I find it ironic that Ian Bremmer said the Chinese care more about the rule of law (established by America) than Americans do in this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvvzx-ecTrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvvzx-ecTrw

dboreham 1y ago
Both can be true. Historians can dig into economic conditions in interwar Germany, lack of deep sea ports, colonies, etc. But also: Adolf he one mad cookie.
contrarian1234 1y ago
> Ian Bremmer said the Chinese care more about the rule of law (established by America) than Americans do in this interview I was confused why they didn't support Ukraine more. By not strongly condemning stuff like Crimea they seem to deeply undermine their position with regards to Taiwan
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  After two decades of reports on Trump's ties to Russian crime in his real estate and Russian government in his politics... You were confused why Trump and the Party of Trump do not strongly condemn Russia and regularly take stances that strengthen that geopolitical group's goals?
  - contrarian1234 1y ago
    given the context.. the "they" here means China
- freefrog334433 1y ago
  China knows NATO will turn on them if Russia is defeated. Also, the narrative that Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine isn't strong outside the West. It's more complex, starting with Bush announcing Ukraine eligible for NATO membership, the Maidan coup, and 8 years of civil war against the 4 Eastern Oblasts that voted to secede from Ukraine.

yongjik 1y ago

I think it's pretty significant that President Lee mentioned the 1997 financial crisis: arguably, it was Korea's version of 9/11. It shook the country in a way people didn't realize was possible, and the country was, in a sense, never the same after that. Imagine a US politician saying "agreeing to this would be a disaster at the same level as 9/11." Lee is basically telling Koreans that this is something he can never let go through, and he'll do everything to stop it from happening. (Of course whether Koreans buy it is another matter, but after watching ICE arresting hundreds of workers, I think most are willing to believe Lee rather than the US government.)

thijson 1y ago
I heard that he was considering going to the recent Beijing meeting where Putin was, however he heard that Kim Jong Un would also be there, so he decided against it.

hunglee2 1y ago

Converting allies into vassals is logical mid point of 'America First'. Best ROK can do is string US along and hope for a more benign successor regime.

aussieguy1234 1y ago

Seems to be a dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45328828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45328828

donkeylazy456 1y ago

I can't take these nonsenses anymore. America has made more profits than countries that take manufacturing jobs from USA. It was totally win-win. Now America destroying these relationships by themselves. Even asking allies economic failure to fulfill their (or trump administration's) greed. Those economic failure possibilities will make their allies' manufacturing capabilities degrade. They don't even have any capabilities and proper plans for re-buliding domestic manufacturing industries to satisfy their needs. (price, capability)

geremiiah 1y ago
They just want to feel like they are perpetual victims. It appeals to them and it justifies their cruelty towards others. I guess this is a major difference between the far-left and the far-right. The far-left go out of their way to join the cause of various victims of oppression because they love to always be rooting for the underdog. The far-right also loves the under-dog arch but they don't go around trying to join desperate causes. Instead they manufacture their own narrative in which they are the perpetual victims. Much less noble, much more self-serving.
- Herring 1y ago
  It's an old story. Check out Aesop's "The Wolf and the Lamb".

contrarian1234 1y ago

Why have nations not come together to collectively shut down this whole tariff blackmail thing? If everyone came together and signed up for a Chinese-style reciprocal tariff system then wouldn't this whole charade be over instantly? I get some nations decided flattering Trump would work out (Vietnam? UK?) but even in the best case they still get tariffs.. just lower.. And how has the tariffs not completely tanked the stock market? Are markets assuming this is just temporary madness and it'll get rolled back?

ragebol 1y ago
> Why have nations not come together ... > If everyone came together Finally winning that Nobel peace prize by unifying all the countries that are not the US would be amazing. Independent California, Texas and some other parts left sorta-kinda OK-ish after the new American civil war can then also join that alliance later, achieving world peace. Trump gets a posthumous Nobel peace prize and each year we all celebrate by gold plating a hamburger or something.
- contrarian1234 1y ago
  It's not super crazy for all nations to agree on something. For instance with Gaza everyone except for the US kinda agreed what's going on is no good. I think tariffs are arguably even easier to agree on. I don't think there's a single nation that's ambivalent about the US tariffs - or feel it's "maybe not so bad"
  - raincole 1y ago
    Not sure if you're joking. The Gaza thing is pure virtue signal and you know it. It's easy for countries to recognize Palestine because recognizing requires them to do nothing. Reciprocal tariffs against the US is the opposite of nothing.
  - ragebol 1y ago
    Agreeing something is bad is easy. Agreeing how go about fixing it is not easy.

8bitsrule 1y ago

Crazy request of $350 billion investment by SK. That's 20% of it's estimated 2025 GDP of $1700 billion. Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Awfully nice of Myung to be so understanding after the US arrest of 300+ SK workers in Georgia a month ago.

iddan 1y ago
Arrest of illegal workers that is
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Strange, how they always seem to 'forget' that part
  - Modified3019 1y ago
    What specific illegal activity was happening? Honest question, I’ve not seen any reference to such a thing before your and the other guy’s comment.
    - weberer 1y ago
      >The individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses. People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-operation-targeting-illegal-employment-and-federal-crimes https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...
      - nosianu 1y ago
        That is wrong. Summary: https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html I myself once worked for a large German company at a large US software company, porting code to my company's platform. After a few flights back home to Germany and back immigration took me into the backroom, and I described in detail what I did. They stamped my passport and let me in for another 6 months of that work. I did that for a year before switching to another visa. It also worked out because I never even tried the slightest evasion and gave them everything I got, it's not like I cared, if I had been sent back, so what, I had no desire to immigrate. I'm sure under the exact same circumstances somebody giving them a worse impression of hiding something might not have been approved. But in any case, it's definitely legal, you CAN do some kinds of actual work on just a B1, even for an entire year. It was legal, because I still was 100% employed and paid in Germany, and the job could not be done otherwise, the US company would not send us their source code. Similarly, in the context of the Korean raid. One other important point you neglect is that from what I read the legality of the activities were never even questioned to begin with! They simply arrested everyone. They did not know what they wer4e doing, they just needed the arrest numbers because ICE is under pressure themselves. They did not even have any interpreters. That makes any argument about the legality useless, since it didn't even matter for the arrests.

shubhamjain 1y ago

No one needs to make an investment. The playbook—as all countries are figuring it out—to navigate the crisis is simple: agree in principle to the demands, let the narcissistic toddler self-pat, brag about how fantastic of a deal maker he is. Stall, delay to make things official. Let it all die down slowly. Need more time? How about blatant corruption like approving Trump Towers, or gifting a corporate jet? Or make a token investment, just enough to let him brag again. What every country is doing is buying time. Just enough till the next election or (hopefully) sooner.

xp84 1y ago
It should definitely never be overlooked how easy to manipulate he is with flattery, and by tiny (by standards of whole nations' economies) bribes that enrich his family company directly.
deleted 1y ago
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timeon 1y ago
> What every country is doing is buying time. Just enough till the next election or (hopefully) sooner. Is that enough? I do not think this is about one person. US seems to be changed.
hiddencost 1y ago
Anyone playing for the next election isn't paying attention. Power has been seized, it will not be released.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  He has only been able to do what he has done because of the Republican bootlickers in Congress. If the Democrats can take both houses in the midterms they can shut him down.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Will there be a midterm? Will the national guard prevent elections from happening in the cities controlled by the Democrats where they are being deployed ensuring the "correct" outcome?

Yoric 1y ago

I remember some estimates made after the US elections of what Stephen Miller's policy would cost. According to these estimates, following Miller's plan would require more or less the entire world's GDP to be invested in the US for several consecutive years. Obviously, this would require more than a little bullying to get there. So far, we got the bullying, plenty of non-binding agreements, 100% of goodwill and soft power loss, increased soft power for China, a looming financial crisis, two wars between major powers getting closer by the day. We'll see whether the investments are coming, too.

mnky9800n 1y ago
Is almost like a foreign agent is in charge.
- reeredfdfdf 1y ago
  Yep, most things Trump does make sense if we assume he's a Russian puppet. Russia really wants to divide West, to keep world hooked on fossil fuels, and to undermine democracy everywhere.
  - WJW 1y ago
    The things Trump does *also* make sense if you assume he's not a Russian puppet. He also wants to divide Europe against itself, keep the world hooked on (US) fossil fuels and to undermine threats to his rule. He doesn't need Russia for that, but their interests do sometimes align and it would be stupid not to take advantage of it.
    - timeon 1y ago
      > but their interests do sometimes align I think this is more likely than some 'agent' plot. These people do not really care about countries, but what benefits them and their extended family. As Italians would say: "our thing".
      - 1y ago

derelicta 1y ago

It's a shame SK is a vassal state. Koreans deserve better than serving thankless americans.

Animats 1y ago

On November 5, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether Trump even has the authority to impose tariffs. Nobody should make a deal until that's decided.

curiousgal 1y ago
Hes been stacking the Supreme Court for years, how do you think that will go?
epolanski 1y ago
To me, an European, what's troubling about US is the amount of power the presidential office has. It's reaching disturbing levels under this administration. I'm Italian, used to our president mostly approving laws, commanding the armed forces (in theory, not in practice) and very few other things. And the best thing about our president is that it gets elected by the parliament requiring a very sensible majority. Thus pretty much all parties need to agree on one and they end up electing non-political figures (or politicians that have demonstrated high level of trust regardless of their party). I think our system works great to be honest, and I already see the huge problems having an election-based president in Poland has with the government and president being from different parties and clashing with each other and the president vetoing for years a democratically elected government just to stir trouble.
- cjs_ac 1y ago
  In practice, the system of government in the US most closely resembles the system of government in Britain prior to Robert Walpole becoming the first prime minister in 1721. American culture places too much emphasis on talking and not enough on listening - it's very easy to claim to have the best constitution in the world if you pay no attention to what anyone else has done in the past two and a half centuries.
- broken-kebab 1y ago
  >president vetoing for years a democratically elected government I guess the president is democratically elected too. Clashing between political parties is normal, and one can argue that a system which makes them limit each other is just fine. The current layout (parliament majority belongs to A, the president is of B) may reverse in future. And then the same people who now claim that president's vetoes should be abolished may start to see it in a very different light.

motbus3 1y ago

I am stupid. Why there is no economical block being discussed to nullify or reduce those effects?

butifnot0701 1y ago

Also Trump asked for 90% of the profit from investment? If that's the case then that is not investment at all.

nosianu 1y ago
Protection money. Pay or we will withdraw our military support.
psyklic 1y ago
Also Trump asked to direct where the investment goes himself. It looks more like a gift than an investment.

orwin 1y ago

What's missing from this is China making a lot of soft calls to SK, basically saying 'we like you, we can pressure NK into a more peaceful position, invest with us, we're all Asians', and SK seems to be responding positively. SK being closer to China would be a game changer for geopolitics, and they would need _very strong_ guarantees from China, so strong I don't think it's possible in the short term (unless NK has a regime change).

Mr_Minderbinder 1y ago
Do not assume that the rest of the world follows the US view of ethnic identity. Groups that would all be classified under “Asian” in the US would be considered different races in China. Regardless it is true that the PRC, even despite political differences, would be more in tune with the ROK culturally due to the long history of Korea falling under the influence of the Sinosphere which is something the United States should be more wary of as a competitive disadvantage when trying to maintain influence over the region.

ultim8k 1y ago

They should effectively immediately freeze and potentially cancel any Korean investment in US and investigate all US companies based in their country. US behaving rogue should not go unpunished.

manoDev 1y ago

If you think being an US antagonist is bad, try being an ally. South Korea, Japan, Philippines, are all proxy states and hostages to the US defense budget.

pessimizer 1y ago

I'm starting to think that HNs soft prohibition against politics only applies to women and black people talking about their experiences in tech (disappeared.) At least four or five of these non-news items that just serve for endless anti-administration comments are hitting the front page every day. The Wikipedia page for goddamn Horst Wessel almost hit the front page last night, because according to people with George W. Bush's politics, everybody is a Nazi. No, South Korea's new president saying something about an unfavorable trade treaty that hasn't happened yet is not news. Their last president declared martial law because he declared that the opposition party was subverted by Russian propaganda. The NYT, as they do, pretended not to know that it was wrong because US interests were hoping it would succeed. And when you rail about how awful it was to raid a factory where Koreans on visas that didn't allow them to do physical work were doing physical work, and where one of them had been killed and another worker not from Korea cut in half in an accident; a site that was being reported over and over again for safety and workers rights violations, consider how that makes working people think of you. Reference, notorious Nazi outlet The American Prospect: Following ICE Raid in Georgia, Concerns Raised About Human Trafficking at Hyundai https://prospect.org/justice/2025-09-08-ice-raid-georgia-plant-human-trafficking-concerns-raised-hyundai/ https://prospect.org/justice/2025-09-08-ice-raid-georgia-pla... Why do the outlets that you get your news from simply ignore things? Simply choose not to report on them? Instead we get "Somebody says something." You shouldn't see a story like that being reported as news unless there is nothing else going on. Israel is killing everyone in Gaza City right now. But tariffs, though. Protectionism! Grover Norquist is smiling in Hell. That being said, I understand that a lot of people are not from, in, or have any loyalty to the US. But US policy is not made for you. We've hollowed out our working population, and kept them alive with credit. America itself has to deleverage. AI is not going to save us, because it is stupid, and wringing productivity gains from it will be difficult and will not give us any relative advantage because it will be cheap to imitate. That's a couple trillion that we can expect to be wiped out in the very short term future. We need to take some medicine now (the wildly overvalued dollar has been our heroin for 50 years), and anyone who has been relying on US debt (whether in the form of US deficit spending on defense, or otherwise) to float their economies has to get off the teat. We're a bad influence on SK anyway, and should never have been there. If they want to stop investing in the US they're free to, they're just going to feel it when they try to export to the US. If your economy will collapse when that happens, it's because your economy is making out better than our economy. Also, it's nothing like the IMF crisis to insist on a favorable trade deal. US elites have been bribed by ownership in foreign concerns not to insist. It'll still work - look at the people in office now, they love a bribe - but you have to renegotiate. That's how dirty business works; your counterparties are as trustworthy as the leverage you have over them. Nobody is going to cry over you being screwed because the people you bribed before are out of power.

Xorakios 1y ago

Since SCMP was confiscated by the CCP it is constantly writing stories that undermine Korea, Japan and Australia, primarily for US and European audiences. There are individual humans, and certainly mainly companies and countries, that could invest $350billion in the USA or the EU and not be destroyed. Buying land, building, expanding manufacturing or investing in new companies generally is considered a good thing!