China, and the competitive edge of having no moral culpability

You can also add rileydog to Wakanda breh. Lol

 

If you want to move the industries back to the United States,just send students and workers to CHina and other countries to learn how they do it,let foreign companies open factories in the US.You learn,you copy,you steal,like we did in the past 40 years,like Japan did before China,it worked.It's really that simple.

 

A slave labor that has been educated in advanced manufacturing practices like precision manufacturing and tooling which requires a large base of educated vocational workers to execute.

You are living in the 90s. America simply does not have the physical infrastructure to do what China does. It has little to do with "slave labor" at this point. At this point its China just having far more advanced infrastructure and skilled workers for manufacturing.

 

Elon Musk says ‘China rocks’ while the U.S. is full of ‘complacency and entitlement’

@tinman @strosb4bros @basso @AroundTheWorld @dachuda86 @Commodore @CrixusTheUndefeatedGaul @generalthade_03 @MojoMan

 

Your points focus on the shortcomings of the TPP, but you're missing the bigger picture. The TPP was never meant to be perfect; it was the first concrete effort to set higher trade standards and address some of the WTO's ineffectiveness. The pact was designed to re-establish the U.S. as the one writing regional/global trade rules, not to force China into the agreement. In fact, if China did not agree, it would remain further isolated; if it did, it would have to conform to higher standards. The TPP was a critical step toward realigning global trade almost a decade ago, and rejecting it left us with fewer options to counterbalance China's influence.

You might not realize this. After Trump nixed the deal in his first week in office 8 years ago, there were efforts to salvage or rebuild it, but nothing came of those attempts. The pattern has often been this: a deal deemed HORRIBLE, a rash decision to AXE it, a realization of OOPS, an attempt to create a better deal, ultimately a failure to form a better alternative. You intentionally break something, you better fix it. But in this and many cases, it's breaking things and because there was no fix, it leads to worse outcomes.

 

Imagine if America decided to rebuild infrastructure and do some actual command economy stuff to help Americans instead of just saying China is cheating because they subsidize their manufacturing infrastructure and by "subsidizing" they don't mean stock buy backs.

I do find it funny what the WTO and the US considers cheating.

A sovereign nation subsidizing their own industries to make it cheaper in foreign markets is cheating because I guess the subsidies weren't used for stock buy backs like us Americans do subsidies.

When a government does subsidies apparently they have to make sure all of it goes to the capital owners in the form of stock buy backs and not undercutting prices globally.

Maybe the WTO rules are meant to maintain the status quo hierarchy of who owns the capital.

 

It's not just the US. India, Austria, and pretty much the rest of the world outside China have all complained about China subsidizing and dumping goods into their markets. They respond with tariffs, and China runs to the WTO with a complaint.

No one really cares if you use subsidies for domestic policy. They can be a useful tool to support industries and stimulate growth. Every country manages its economy how it sees fit. The problem is when subsidies are tied directly to exports, lowering the price of goods in foreign markets and tilting the playing field. That’s when it starts looking like cheating.

 

Domestic command economy is what allows China to subsidize and undercut.

America subsidizes also but it usually is for capital owners and not to lower prices globally.

If the United States heavily invested in manufacturing infrastructure domestically, it would naturally reduce the cost of their exports and therefore it would be "cheating".


The WTO organization is upset China does things that aren't always at the interest of capital owners and the EU and the USA don't like it because their goal is to protect capital interests.

China is more authoritarian. They have less civil rights like speech, due process etc even though those things are also being eroded in America also. They have less property and land rights in China for individuals and business owners. But China having a more collective and less individualistic culture means that not every ****ing they do is to "maximize return on investment". China capital interests are not always meant to maximize value of capital owners and the US and EU are afraid of that type of thinking spreading because that harms their status quo hierarchies.

China will always have an advantage in planning 20-50 years ahead because of this while the EU and America can not think beyond quarterly returns at a time.

 

in that context, this is also subsidy, no?

show me a country that doesn't subsidize its exports / manipulate its currency, i'll show you a 3rd world country.

 

CircleTheDrain, it conveniently did not include Arkansas.

Arkansas Gov. Sanders signs a law that makes it easier to employ children

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law this week rolling back requirements that the state verify
the ages of workers under 16 and provide them with work certificates permitting them to work.​

 

Confirmed.
Nike shoe factory coming soon.

 

thinking ahead has allowed the US play a pivotal role in the discovery/invention of

• Integrated circuit chips (by Intel)
• internet
• EV, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/061915/story-behind-teslas-success.asp
• AI, or as Trump's current Sec of Education , Linda McMahon, would call it A1,
  , https://www.fastcompany.com/9131575...d-a-1-steak-sauce-an-unbelievable-opportunity

on the flip side, having a command economy allows China to build bullet trains.

40 years ago, Germany and Japan were the only 2 nations that have bullet trains operating; both the US and China wanted to build bullet trains

now, China has 19 pairs of bullet trains operating daily; the US is still talking about it.​

 

No, if the U.S. heavily invested in manufacturing infrastructure, no one would complain that it's cheating. That would be primarily a domestic policy move. Cheating is when you deliberately overproduce using subsidies to flood the global market. This is often done in strategic sectors to dominate them globally.

I’m not here to defend the WTO (I think it’s outdated, too slow, and in need of reform), but your claim that they’re upset because subsidies don’t benefit capital owners isn’t how they work. The WTO doesn’t care who benefits - workers or capital owners. It’s a global trade body focused on ensuring fairness in trade.



"China was targeted by a record number of trade investigations by WTO members last year, as the country’s booming exports swamped international markets and triggered an outcry from its trading partners. Beijing was the subject of 198 trade investigations alleging dumping or illegal subsidies by partners in 2024, double the tally the previous year and accounting for nearly half of all measures reported to the global trade body, according to research by Peking University economics professor Lu Feng. Chinese policymakers have relied on a surge in exports to sustain growth in the world’s second-biggest economy and offset weak domestic demand amid a years-long property sector slowdown. The country’s global trade surplus reached a record of near $1tn in 2024. “If China’s economy can become more balanced for her own interests, it may also improve relations with other countries,” said Lu.

More than half of the trade cases against China last year were initiated by developing countries, indicating that western countries’ objections to Chinese overproduction were widely shared. The data showed 117 cases were initiated by emerging economies, including 37 from India, 19 by Brazil and nine from Turkey."

 

If only their subsidies were used for stock buy backs no one would complain.

 

You're stretching the definition of subsidy a bit. QE lowers the cost of capital broadly. It’s not aimed at making U.S. exports cheaper in foreign markets. It might have side effects that help exporters, but it's not the same as direct, targeted subsidies that fund overproduction in strategic sectors with the intent to dominate global supply.

The key difference is intent and structure. When a country subsidizes steel or EVs specifically to oversaturate global markets and undercut competitors, that's a deliberate distortion of trade, not incidental stimulus. That’s why it triggers trade disputes - not because it helps companies at home, but because it disrupts competition abroad.

And yeah, a lot of countries subsidize. But when it crosses into dumping and market capture through state-backed excess, it stops being normal policy and starts breaking the system. That's the line we're talking about.

 

Stock buybacks are a domestic corporate behavior (arguably a bad one), but they don't directly impact global trade. That's a separate issue. I'm talking about global trade, not internal corporate decisions or how the government should regulate them.