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Comment by AlexCoventry | Hacker News Reader

Has this kind of strategy ever worked, in trade negotiations? It seems about as likely to be effective as a bombing campaign: It'll reduce the other side's effectiveness, but from a negotiation perspective it'll only cause them to dig in harder.

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China doesn't want a deal. They only want to continue to exploit the US. So the US is gradually decoupling from them.

"Exploit the US" by providing cheap labor to US firms? It's scary to see jingoistic rhetoric spreading on HN. China is the new enemy du jour, and lots of people here seem to be itching for a conflict.

The tables are fundamentally imbalanced now, I see nothing wrong with the US attempting to finally start addressing the issue. The fact that US companies have been exploiting that imbalance to pursue cheap labor is irrelevant to the conversation.

There is actually a psychological difference. There maybe some digging in but generally nations can put a literal price on trade which they can not easily do with loss of life. Likewise national honor is less at stake. I suppose we're lucky that economic enticement/force usually gets better results than violence.

Whether it works in this particular case, indeed whether the goal of tariffs/sanctions is even remotely what is announced are both unclear of course. If it were humanitarian, it would be nice to mention Hong Kong in the process.

Why do you assume this is a negotiating tactic? There is broad bipartisan support for sanctions on companies which are involved in the on going oppression of Uighur's. Just as China uses it's economic might as leverage the US is more than capable of equal if not greater leverage of it's capital markets.

Just taking Trump at his word. Wouldn't be the first time that turned out to be a mistake.

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