Trump 2.0 official thread

Sinnavuuty

Sinnavuuty

Senior Member
Registered Member
nativechicken said:
Massive highly-skilled professional workforce (currently, both South Korea and Japan face shortages of shipbuilding workers).
Low-cost raw materials (steel, specialty materials).
Vast variety of industrial components (high-quality and cost-effective).
Efficiency in shipbuilding (inefficiency leads to high costs; delayed deliveries would incur catastrophic penalties—shipbuilding contracts mandate strict deadlines, with daily penalties starting at hundreds of thousands of USD per day of delay).
Specialized vessels and small-tonnage ships can only be produced by China, or only China can manufacture them at costs that align with current maritime shipping expenses.
Therefore, excluding Chinese shipbuilding is utterly impossible—freight costs would multiply. China now produces all types of maritime vessels, while Japan and South Korea combined cannot fully cover all categories. For example, Japan and South Korea have never built 100,000-ton aircraft carriers or large high-tech cruise ships. Behind these industrial feats lies an exceptionally long and ultra-efficient industrial supply chain. If China ceases to provide these capabilities, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., and Europe would need at least 10 years to rebuild such a system and refine the required technologies. Crucially, STEM talent shortages plague the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, and India—many fields already lack both talent pools and engineering expertise. Relying on novice designers would result in unstable products (industrial products require long iteration cycles, typically 10-15 years of refinement). Once deployed commercially, failure rates during operation would inflict devastating losses on shipowners.
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All valid points, there is no way to completely eliminate China's shipbuilding and block global maritime trade, but I think that is not really the case, the case may actually be to narrow the growing gap and supremacy of Chinese shipbuilding over the rest of the world, in a way, this is achievable.

While that is probably the goal, I think even the most optimistic about the US attack on the Chinese shipbuilding industry should be aware that China would remain relevant and probably still the country with the largest shipbuilding industry in the world, surpassing the ROK and Japan.
 
R

reservior dogs

Junior Member
Registered Member
plawolf said:
There will be no list of demands because there will never be a return to the previous relationship. China didn’t really want the previous relationship to start with, and has been working hard for a decade to disentangle itself from that relationship with minimal cost and disruption.

Trump made a colossal strategic fuckup trying to impose a Plaza Accords 2.0 on China, but doing it in the most stupid and idiotic manner imaginable.

He thought he was holding China hostage, but all he managed to do was massively accelerate China’s timetable and make it a hell of a lot easier for Beijing to achieve full decoupling with only a fraction of the costs it originally thought such a move would cost it.

It’s similar to someone who has been weaning themselves off of cigarettes for years, who has been steadfastly following a plan to quit and has made massive progress, and was planning on going to rehab as a final step but was putting it off due to the costs and stigma of that move, but suddenly the cigarette company announced they will cut him off unless he smokes twice as much as he used to and pay triple the price. And now that China has said ‘fuck you very much’ and finally quit altogether, the cigarette company is asking to go back to business as usual like he is doing you a massive favour because his factory is about to be foreclosed without your business. China will have to be a bigger moron than Trump to take that shitty deal.

I think this will become one of the most studied and cited blunders in world history in time, and one of the conclusions will be that this is perhaps one of the most incredible examples of loosing the next war because you were so totally obsessed with re-fighting the last war.

Trump’s crazy tariffs is basically the ultimate evolution of what his first term trade war against China should have been like. Had he made this move totally out of the blue back during his first term when China wasn’t expecting it and was not remotely prepared for it, it would have indeed been a strong move that would have put Beijing under a massive amount of pressure and forced it to make real painful concessions.

The problem is that he played this card a decade too late, after having fully telegraphed his intentions well in advance, and most crucially, after having already effectively vaccinated China previously against this exact same move with his first term play. Trump was so obsessed with perfecting his own move that he completely did not register all of the preparations and counters China has spent so much time, energy and resources to specifically develop to counter it, such that in the end, his Ultimate Evolution Signature Death-Move ended up being reflected with interest right back at him and America by China’s Tai Chi counter with little apparent effort.

We are now in the calm before the storm, the tiny gaps in time between when a blow hits and the damage first manifests.

Rather than seek to make a deal, what China is doing is preparing its own counter attack. It has already started with a few testing jabs to test America’s reaction and capabilities. But be assured, as it gets a better measure of its opponent, and gains more confidence in its own capabilities, the blows will start to come much fast and harder.

Trump has given China an opportunity beyond its wildest dreams, and the Chinese civilisation would not have survived until now if it doesn’t have the cunning and ruthlessness to go in for the kill when an enemy presents them with the opportunity, and this is a golden opportunity that might not come once even in a hundred years. China will not waste it for a shitty trade deal.
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This might well be the turning point in the balance of power between the two countries, but is very far from the collapse of the U.S. If I were making the decisions in China, I would not be seeking to maximize the damage, but to return to status quo while extracting a very large concession. It is still a long ways off from the final show down. What you want in this situation is to remain steady to keep the other guy from completely flipping the table. Time is on your side. Get concessions to accelerate your rise. Use this opportunity to make deals with the rest of the world. Trump has done enough damage to the U.S. all by himself. You don't want him to use this to make you the scapegoat, even to his own people.

This is not the final showdown, we are still running the Marathon.
 
vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Overbom said:
This shouldn't be allowed. So it's a good move that China has asked for all "liberation day" tariffs on it to be reversed. It sounds logical to the world, but Trump's ego would never allow him to do such a humiliating retreat

In the rare case that Trump actually backs down very quick, China could then also ask for removal of all Trade War 1 tariffs. This would stretch world opinion towards believing China but it would be logical enough to accept it.
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"The US should respond to rational voices in the international community and within its own borders and thoroughly remove all unilateral tariffs imposed on China, if it really wants to solve the problem," Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said at a regular briefing on Thursday in Beijing.
 
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