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Comment by terryschiavo22 | Hacker News Reader

To what end? Xi Jinping can just wait until the next president to negotiate away the tariffs. The public certainly hates them. Right or left, I don't see how anyone can see these surviving through another administration.

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> The public certainly hates them. Right of left, I don't see how anyone can see these surviving through another administration.

Citation needed. Free traders certainly hate the tariffs, but only a tiny fraction of the public are committed free traders. Also Democrats are dispositionally far more favorable to tariffs and protectionism than Republicans, so unless Trump doesn't run or the Libertarians win the presidency (ha!), I don't see the next administration being much of a swerve in the direction of free trade.

This affects some of my family directly and has a very noticeable impact on local businesses who had become accustomed to and were investing pretty significantly in attracting Chinese interest in their products (California wine industry). While the industry existed for a long time before the Chinese market became a factor, starting in the recession their was definitely a push to attract Chinese individuals to california wine, to the point where many major tasting rooms were recruiting people who speak mandarin, and some folks I know regularly had relatively wealthy recent Chinese college graduates working harvest jobs. I have not been aware of a Chinese intern in our circle for years, and also haven't seen a listing looking for Mandarin in months if not longer.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-wine...

I imagine the situation is similar for many other non-essential exports to China.

First of all, once factories leave China, they don’t go back. China’s wage is already at a level similar to Mexico, and is more expensive than Southeast Asia.

Second, both Democrats and Republicans leaderships are anti-China. Chuck Schumer, senate minority leader and a democrat, told trump to “hang tough” on the Chinese tariffs. Bernie Sanders slammed joe Biden when Biden made a remark about how China isn’t a threat.

Yes, exactly. Vietnam stands to reap the benefits. Factories are opening in Vietnam en masse. Once they're up and running, the lifting of tariffs against China won't matter. Chinese workers are higher paid than they used to be. Now China will have to make their way as an advanced, developed economy (with lower growth), just like everyone else.

The Chinese are also shifting a lot of their polluting heavy industry to Cambodia.

You know where those factories aren't opening?

The United States.

Which seemed to be the whole point of this exercise.

I don't agree with that. Some, though definitely not all, manufacturing is moving back to the US. But even getting manufacturing to shift out of China to other countries is smart policy, because it reduces the US's concentrated economic dependence on its main strategic rival.

I haven't heard of US factories being one of the main arguing points. Wiki has these listed [0]:

1.1 Structure of China's political economy system

1.2 Accusation of theft of intellectual property, technology and trade secrets

1.3 Forced technology transfer from US companies to Chinese entities

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...

> 1.1 Structure of China's political economy system

So you're cheerleading, of all places, Vietnam?

> 1.2 Accusation of theft of intellectual property, technology and trade secrets

Will still take place.

> 1.3 Forced technology transfer from US companies to Chinese entities

This only happens if you want to invest in China. It's a trade-off that's up to each individual firm doing it to make.

Also, I have a hard time believing that Trump's base give two shits about any of these things, beyond a bit of nationalistic ra-ra-ra. None of this has any impact on the life of someone pissed off that their best life prospects consist of collecting dole in the rust belt.

I'd rather Vietnam gain access to military-adjacent tech than China, or grow their economy with factories from US companies, etc - because while Vietnam's main threat is China, China's is the US.

A bunch of mid-strength countries is better for the US than a superpower competitor.

Nit: His name is Xi Jinping, where Xi is his family name and is pronounced sorta like ”she.”

Thanks, fixed. Learned a new thing today.

The way things are going it's not all certain that Xi won't be waiting until January of 2025.

I'd be willing to wager that this will be the case.

So Trump did a good job, but let's hope someone undoes his trade policy because "fuck Trump"? Not sure what your point is.

Depends on who the next president is. If Trump is reelected or the Democrats nominate a more populist candidates (i.e. Bernie Sanders), it might not matter who's in the Oval Office. After 8-12 years of tariffs, it might be too difficult to come back from for China and the US.

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