Don't believe Merck is going to have manufacturing bases in each country they do business in. That's just a smoke screen. I've been saying this a long time that Western countries are going to have to have two manufacturing bases if they want to do business internationally. One for the US and one in China. That's the only way they can compete internationally if the want to keep making money. The one for the US is about avoiding US and any domestic politics. The one in China is for selling to the rest of the world. What is the US going to do? Tell their companies and their allies' companies where they could only manufacture? If that happened they won't be in business after that. This is the part where they realized threatening to decouple from China was bad for them hence why now they're changing it to de-risking. They still want access to the Chinese consumer market and manufacturing. Without it, they make no money and every one of their products goes skyrocketing in price. Why now? Because Tesla is implementing that model and is selling their cars around the world from their China factory hence why VW is planning to do that and now Merck.
Yup, agree with everything you are saying.
Just like to make one comment.
It is about the timing things, and how things develop.
We could figure out that some many big multinational companies, they will have a production center in China and a production center in America. That could be the future.
What is unclear, is that after the dust settles with these production centers being built and making product, what exactly will be the picture when that happens?
My guess is that China could win big because costs are lower there.
But, until we actually arrive at that point, then a lot can happen still. Such as a pandemic, or some major war.
Soon I expect that these same Western politicians clamoring for decoupling will look at this situation horrified.
Look at the US Commerce Secretary Gina, who has been threatening Nvidia for over a year now.
They threaten Huawei for over 5 years, and now they threaten Nvidia for over 1 year. This is kind of nuts. Is this what they really wanted? LOL!
But, some people still think and wholly believe that this containment of China is somehow working, that there is a new cold war, and this will be a struggle where US has the position of strength.
More like the old world order is dissolving as we read these messages, to be replaced by something that no one really knows.
