This is getting dark but at this point US is clearly on a path to start using their powerful military to invade and occupy other countries. They are becoming the Nazi Germany of the XXI century but since they have nuclear weapons no one will be able to stop them. This will basically mean new cold war between US and China (and maybe EU if they manage to unite and develop a common position). So yeah, a lot of suffering ahead of us with a chance of nuclear war.
Except that, if China went full cold war with the US, all they’d have to do is stop selling to the US and the entire US economy would collapse. Not to mention that economic sanctions against the US would cripple the country completely, because Trump would just immediately default on the country’s debt (as he loves to do) and, oh yeah, the entire NYSE would crater to 0 in about 5 minutes flat.
the scenario in which China just stops selling to the US would probably collapse China’s economy too. Think about it. Why is the national debt so high? How is it that high and yet “most prosperous nation in the world”? International investment. There’s a lot of money invested from China and other countries. Their investments are only good so long as the American economy is good. International investors can leverage American debt to them as sort of capital asset to thereby invest in other things…
It’s a giant domino effect. When China pulls out, the American economy will likely collapse… but, then all the money people had invested and had leveraged also collapse… and so then those international investors can’t pay their debts because they have nothing to leverage it with and thus also collapse… and so on and so forth… the ripple is wide.
The EU is almost the same size of market as the US, and the southeast Asian countries as a group are a larger customer than either of those.
Cutting off the US won’t cripple China. Plus the Chinese government is very willing to play the long game if they can foresee an eventual positive outcome for themselves.
This is getting dark but at this point US is clearly on a path to start using their powerful military to invade and occupy other countries. They are becoming the Nazi Germany of the XXI century but since they have nuclear weapons no one will be able to stop them. This will basically mean new cold war between US and China (and maybe EU if they manage to unite and develop a common position). So yeah, a lot of suffering ahead of us with a chance of nuclear war.
Except that, if China went full cold war with the US, all they’d have to do is stop selling to the US and the entire US economy would collapse. Not to mention that economic sanctions against the US would cripple the country completely, because Trump would just immediately default on the country’s debt (as he loves to do) and, oh yeah, the entire NYSE would crater to 0 in about 5 minutes flat.
the scenario in which China just stops selling to the US would probably collapse China’s economy too. Think about it. Why is the national debt so high? How is it that high and yet “most prosperous nation in the world”? International investment. There’s a lot of money invested from China and other countries. Their investments are only good so long as the American economy is good. International investors can leverage American debt to them as sort of capital asset to thereby invest in other things…
It’s a giant domino effect. When China pulls out, the American economy will likely collapse… but, then all the money people had invested and had leveraged also collapse… and so then those international investors can’t pay their debts because they have nothing to leverage it with and thus also collapse… and so on and so forth… the ripple is wide.
While the US may be one of their biggest single customer (representing about 16% of China’s exports), they’re far from China’s only customer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_China
The EU is almost the same size of market as the US, and the southeast Asian countries as a group are a larger customer than either of those.
Cutting off the US won’t cripple China. Plus the Chinese government is very willing to play the long game if they can foresee an eventual positive outcome for themselves.