this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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It's quite fun because while this will hurt China the Chinese state can still actually do things, and the Chinese economy can still make things. Neither of which is true for the US outside the key industries of Tech grifting, corn so unprofitable a 1960s soviet agriculturalist would reject it, and genocide supplies.
Honestly it might even end up being good for them in the medium term to be divorced from the US.
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I wonder when the light bulb is finally going to turn on over Trump's head containing what is effectively Trump's jellybean sized brain. And Trump's going to finally realize that "Oh, shit. I can't beat China in trade war or a currency war. Bad. Very, very bad."
After speaking with many very smart people (the best!), I’m starting to think maybe - just MAYBE - you can’t actually win a trade war with China. They have too many factories, too much stuff. Not fair! I was set up! Who knew economics could be this complicated??? 
bunkers to go live in in other countries - their plan is to leave behind a hollow husk of the US and take all their gains to their personal libertarian paradise. They still "win" even though the US and the rest of the people there completely lose.wonder when the light bulb is finally going to turn on
What light bulbs? Nobody in the USA can afford light bulbs anymore.
At least one country that’s willing to actually put up a fight against Amerikkka. 
I'm starting to think that decoupling from China is precursor to war. Decoupling after declaring war would cripple the US military machine so maybe this is a gamble to get their house in order before some bigger offensive.
It's certainly a necessary precedent to war, but thats because the US needs to establish supply chains independent of China in order to wage war without destroying their economy. Instead they're just destroying their economy, making them even less capable of waging that war in the first place.
Well they are very stupid, that's true. If they wanted to decouple from China then the smart thing would be to not crash their economy and piss off every single imperial trading partner.
with a side benefit of having lots of unemployed people in the states to press into military service
That's the official reasoning even. They say it's to make the "defense" industry more independent. And whether planned or not, it increases the likelihood of global war:
A similar thing happened in the lead up to the great depression and World War II: faced with a recession, the ruling class turned to protectionism with the Tariff Act of 1930. With the very high tarrifs, the recession worsened into the Great Depression until World War II saved the economy by enabling mass employment.
War is great for the capitalist class, if they want to win some time against an economic crisis, because it's a way to have mass government spending without cutting into anyones profits. If value gets created by a not for-profit entity in any sector, profits go down, because businesses who need to make a profit can't compete. Capitalists love war, because it only destroys value instead.
It's the golden triple chance for profit: first accumulation by dispossession (taxes and austerity to finance the war effort flowing directly to weapons manufacturers), then imperialism (opening new markets, stealing resources), then restarting the production cycle (lucrative contracts for rebuilding efforts after everything is destroyed).
Leftists reaction to the tarrifs must be to shift organizing to focus more strongly on anti war efforts.
I'm gonna start learning Mandarin.
I'm still learning Spanish (well over 1000 hours at this point...) but if I ever learned a third it would be Mandarin. But damn now that I know what an undertaking learning a language is and that Mandarin will probably take at least twice as long.... probably won't do it unless I want to move to China or they invade or something
I'm hoping they invade or something...
Ni hao! Zhao huo le!
China slaps
So true
I remember learning about comparative advantage and opportunity cost, thinking it was the dumbest shit in the world. Now we get to see why 😈
How is opportunity cost dumb? Even playing strategy games as a kid, I understood it. "Oh if I spend this money on a tank I can't use it for a helipad or a defense tower, so I need to figure out which of those options is the best use for it."
In the context of macroeconomics, it refers to the idea that even if a country could make everything they need internally, it is ultimately cheaper for everyone if regions just specialized in producing stuff that they do better/cheaper than anyone else, and trade for the rest.
In a very simplistic sense, if Country A and Country B are each able to produce all the food and all the clothing that they need internally, but Country A is way better at making food and than clothing, and vice versa for Country B, it would make sense for Country A to just focus on producing a ton of food and import their clothing needs. Then everyone gets more stuff overall.
However, this implies that there are no geopolitical frictions between Country A and Country B. It works if countries can maintain friendly trade relations, but can make supply lines real fragile.
Also as homhom9000 says, sometimes "specializing" gets really stupidly specific.
It also doesn't account for the common situation where a country could do something more cheaply internally if they had a decade or two to spool shit up.
See China where it's gone from a comparative advantage in coal and not much else, to cheap manufacturing, to high tech manufacturing, to universal comparative advantage.
It's all about actually having the capital. China understood the assignment and put itself in a position to attract capital and gain that comparative advantage, now it's all paying out supremely.
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they do better/cheaper than anyone else, and trade for the rest.
This is absolute advantage. Comparative advantage is when a country can make something relatively cheaper then the other goods. So if a country A can make a coat for 10 tögrög and a bicycle for 20 tögrög, while a country B can make both for 30 tögrög, it means that the country B has comparative advantage in making bicycles and it would be more profitable for both if country B makes bicycles and trades for coats with country A.
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Opportunity cost to justify comparative advantage is dumb, not Opportunity cost in general.
Edit: "Moving my banana slicing factory to Thailand and picking the bananas in Brazil to sell to Canada has a better comparative advantage than slicing the bananas while they're in Brazil" like that
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but it's 
no more half measures walter
US about to face the harsh reality of the new world order. We need them a hell of a lot more than they need us. This feels like a week where decades happen.
Even if Trump did undo all these stupid tariffs, the damage is already done.
Countries need stable trade partners, and the US is no longer trustworthy. Therefore, countries will developing stable trade relationships that exclude the US.
Lol. Lmao, even.
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