Bloomberg (September 19)
“For the first time since at least the 1990s, China hasn’t bought any US soybeans at the start of the export season, a sign that Beijing is once again using agriculture as leverage in its trade fight with Washington.” In 2024, the US supplied “a fifth of China’s soybean imports, worth more than $12 billion, and accounting for over half of total US soy export value.” This year, “US farmers, flush with bumper harvests, are coping with prices near the lowest levels in years.”
Tags: $12 billion, 1990s, 2024, Agriculture, Bumper harvests, China, Export season, Leverage, Prices, Soybeans, Trade fight, U.S., Washington
Wall Street Journal (August 24)
“Not long ago it would have been hard to imagine a Republican President demanding government ownership in a private company, but here we are. And now the Trump Administration is toying with a tax on patents too—meaning, a tax on innovation.” Very bizarrely, to compete with China, “the U.S. is imitating its model of state-run business. Washington is becoming Chinatown” as, disturbingly, “corporate statism is riding high.”
Tags: China, Chinatown, Compete, corporate statism, Government ownership, Imitating, Innovation, Patents, Private company, Republican, State-run, Tax, Trump, U.S., Washington
South China Morning Post (May 19)
“China’s economy mostly remained resilient in April, despite feeling the effects of the astronomical tariffs in place before last week, when Washington and Beijing agreed to remove or pause most of the duties imposed as part of their tempestuous trade war.” Though consumption softened, manufacturing fared better than expected. “China’s industrial output rose 6.1 per cent, beating estimates, while domestic consumption up 5.1 per cent–slightly below expectations.”
Tags: Agreed, April, Beijing, China, Consumption, Duties, Economy, Estimates, Industrial output, Manufacturing, Resilient, Tariffs, Trade war, Washington
Foreign Affairs (March 25)
“Washington may have forged the open, liberal rules-based order, but China has defined its next phase: protectionism, subsidization, restrictions on foreign investment, and industrial policy. To argue that the United States must reassert its leadership to preserve the rules-based system it established is to miss the point. China’s nationalist state capitalism now dominates the international economic order. Washington is already living in Beijing’s world.”
Tags: China, Economic order, Foreign investment, Industrial policy. U.S., Leadership, Liberal, Nationalist, Open, Protectionism, Restrictions, Rules-based order, State capitalism, Subsidization, Washington
Financial Times (March 4)
“Washington’s greatest miscalculation may not be underestimating China’s chipmaking capabilities, but rather overlooking the forces that drive technological progress. History has shown that every industrial power that has tried to suppress a rival’s technological rise has, at best, delayed it — and at worst, accelerated it. Chips are no exception. The chip war is far from over, but in the long run, the US may have ensured that it is a war China cannot lose.”
Tags: Accelerated, Capabilities, China, Chip war, Chipmaking, Delayed, History, Industrial power, Miscalculation, Overlooking, Rival, Suppress, Technological progress, Underestimating, Washington
Washington Post (January 20)
“Big Tech’s power surge” was on clear display at Donald Trump’s inauguration. The event was also “an inauguration of the oligarchs, the billionaires’ ball come to Washington. Donald Trump did everything but invite the tech moguls to join him in taking the oath.” In a “revealing” scene, the moguls had “prime dais seating inside the cozy Rotunda while lawmakers and governors and other luminaries were relegated to watching on screens.”
Tags: Big tech, Billionaires, Governors, Inauguration, Lawmakers, Luminaries, Moguls, Oath, Oligarchs, Power surge, Relegated, Rotunda, Trump, Washington
The Economist (January 2)
“Already things have turned nasty. Donald Trump has not even got to the White House, and his raucous court of advisers have rounded on each other.” This marks only the beginning of “a clash of cultures” as tech invades Washington. Tech’s “worldview is strikingly at odds with the maga movement.” Yet, it is possible that “out of Trumpian chaos and contradiction, something good might just emerge.“
Tags: Advisers, Chaos, Clash of cultures, Contradiction, Maga, Nasty, Raucous, Tech, Trump, Washington, White House, Worldview
Washington Post (March 20)
“The proposed purchase of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel has done something few issues can do in Washington: forge a bipartisan consensus…. Members of both parties are absolutely molten about the prospects of a 123-year-old American manufacturer flying a Japanese flag.” They shouldn’t be. This is electioneering. “As long as the plant and the jobs there are protected, as Nippon Steel has promised, who owns it doesn’t really matter — unless you’re a politician.”
Tags: Bipartisan, Consensus, Electioneering, Japan, Jobs, Nippon Steel, Plant, Politician, Protected, Purchase, U.S. Steel, Washington
The Economist (October 5)
If you add all the various signs up, “it becomes clear just how systematically the presumption of open markets and limited government has been left in the dust.” Free trade and other “classical liberal values are not only unpopular, they are increasingly absent from political debate.” In Washington DC, “you will be scoffed at as hopelessly naïve” for advocating free trade and, “in the emerging world, you will be painted as a neocolonial relic from the era when the West knew best.”
Tags: Absent, Emerging world, Free trade, Liberal values, Limited government, Neocolonial, Open markets, Political debate, Presumption, Unpopular, Washington
Investment Week (November 12)
“The world’s two biggest emitters, who had been trading insults for the first week of the conference,” surprised the world with “a joint declaration that would see Washington and Beijing cooperate closely on the emissions cuts scientists say are needed in the next ten years to stay within 1.5C.”
Tags: Beijing, Conference, Cooperate, Emissions, Emitters, Joint declaration, Scientists, Trading insults, Washington
