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The Oxford vaccine is showing promising results and is expected to be authorized for use by December 2020. The vaccine being developed in partnership with Astra Zeneca PLC for marketing and Serum Institute of India for mass manufacturing is shown to be proven 90% effective in preventing infections in clinical trials. The partners say there were no serous safety events and the vaccine has proven 62% to 90% effective with an average of 70%.  This vaccine is significant because it is being developed with this partnership not seeking profits from this venture, providing it at cost and keeping the price to about $4 a dose compared to competitors Moderna and Pfizer whose vaccine is expected to be at $24 a dose. The Oxford vaccine also uses existing technology for vaccines and manufacturing is being done in India with the world's top manufacturer of vaccines. By using existing technology unlike the Pfizer and Moderna technology Oxford has taken an approach that could prove to be unique by minimizing side effects for vaccines that are being developed with such speed. By not requiring refrigeration at very low temperatures the vaccine makes itself ready for immediate and widespread uses all over the world. By use in its home country India with its large population Oxford vaccine can gain even wider acceptance because of India's long experience in pharmaceutical technology and manufacturing. Of particular interest is the study of 23,000 participants showing that the 90% effective dosage is one that only requires half a dose for the first shot. This say scientists is because the vaccine first dose prepares the body for a more powerful second dose and creates the maximum effect. This means the vaccine can be used for more doses than 2 full doses. It can be stored in a fridge making it easy to use in many countries. The full study will have 60,000 participants spread across U.S. Britain, Brazil South Africa and India. ...

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This analysis in The Guardian says US president Biden is reversing 3 decades of policy since president Reagan that looked with skepticism at government intervention in the economy. The $1.9 trillion aid package Biden has pushed through Congress is a big game changer in the way government operates to help rebuild America after the pandemic. The 2009 response by the government under president Obama was done without conviction that the government response was the best way to help the economy. By 2016 voters turned to a Republican, Mr. Trump, to help working class voters with a USA first policy, after decades of presidents from both parties Republican and Democrat failed to protect American interests in manufacturing, jobs and incomes.  US president Biden is continuing Trump's policies to protect working class Americans. And bringing new conviction that government not only has a positive role, but has an essential and vital role to play in protecting workers and households struggling to make ends meet. President Reagan had introduced such a deep skepticism of government, that it took so long for people to remember FDR and the role of government before the second world war and afterwards under the Truman administration.  What changed? The health care crisis exposed the weak areas in the governance and policy mindset in America. China had advanced mainly through strong government role of the Communist Party  in steering the economy and business to gain competitive advantage. The health crisis from the pandemic further devastated America's lower middle and working class following the banking and financial sector mismanagement by 2009. The pharmaceutical and health care sector similar to other sectors had shipped manufacturing overseas. In 2021 there is a deep sense that theories don't work, one has to act based on the needs and the situation the country is facing. The way competitor nations such as China are building new infrastructure, gaining manufacturing advantage, dominating key sectors and industries, and creating jobs, requires America to respond. In this situation posing the threat America faces as well as the social dislocation of decades of misguided policies, the US government is the only one capable and having the resources and capacity to respond.  ...

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The new faces in the Biden administration on economic policy are Janet Yellen, as head of the central bank, the Federal Reserve, and Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton labor economist, as head of the Council of Economic Advisors. In this report WSJ looks at the economic policies of the new administration after Mr. Trump rejected globalization and international trade agreements that were not in America's interest or that hurt American workers.  Informal conversations with experts suggest WSJ says, that globalization is now suspect as a way that benefitted China and other countries including Germany, and hurt the U.S. France, Britain and other countries in Europe that were not strong exporters. This hurt their industries which were eroded by imports resulting in the three decades long destruction of communities across these countries that depended on manufacturing. It has also hurt countries like India that let their markets be dominated by Chinese imports, with a reversal of policy in 2020 with self reliant economy under "Atman Nirbhar" policy as the new goal. Mr. Trump's tactic in this trade war was to fight back to regain America's position in manufacturing with tariffs on imports. The trade deficit had to come down with China just as it had done with Japan decades earlier. This was starting to happen. One problem in bringing down the imports was the increase in the value of the dollar, as Janet Yellen has noted. The new policies will look at what the effective policy will be while keeping this goal in mind.  Both Yellen and Ms. Rouse have spent years studying labor markets and Ms. Rouse is quoted here as saying: " With open trade there are winners and losers. The losers are really losing, and we need to take care of them and take on more nuanced models of international trade as a result." Other experts from the earlier Democratic administrations such as Prof. Frankel at Harvard say that there needs to be increased focus on American workers left behind by trade, technology and unequal education, with more spending on preschool, infrastructure and health. All this suggests that there will be a continuation of U.S. policy in challenging Chinese use of globalization to advance its interests, chastening Americans on the use of the very word globalization which can mean different things to different people based on how they can gain advantage. The word may even be entirely dropped in favor of what the policies are and what they do for the American worker, American communities including small towns, and the American people, spelling each of these out every time supply chains and the global economy is mentioned. The new administration will get an opportunity to show that it too can come up with new ideas and action plan to strengthen American manufacturing and jobs. It will also have to show substantial results as people have lost patience with Democrats and Republicans on the lack of progress in rebuilding America's leadership role in the world economy, and in defending American workers and factories. Clinton, Obama and Bush all offered false promises on trade with China ignoring the damage this had done to American leadership in the world economy. Clinton with support for China's entry into the World Trade Organization, Bush with foreign wars and costly diversions and regulatory failures with banks that led to the 2009 deep recession hurting Americans, and Obama with the lack of will and interest in America's leadership role in the world as the dominant nation in manufacturing,   ...

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Decades of investment in car manufacturing and EV's is paying off for China. It now exports 5.7 million cars of which 1.7 million are EV's. EV exports are twice that of Germany. Car production capacity in China surged as the Chinese market expanded to be larger than Europe and the US combined. The production capacity is twice the size of the domestic market- 40 million gasoline cars from 100 factories.  As domestic sales have slowed down there is a push for exporting this excess capacity. The US and the EU are imposing tariffs on Chinese cars to protect their domestic manufacturing. The push to become a leader dates back to premier Wen Jiabao 20003-2013. Wen chose Audi engineer Wan Gang as minister of science and technology, and gave him the task of making China the leader in electric vehicles. Manufacturers were given subsidies, tax breaks, cheap land and electricity. By one estimate the EV manufacturers and battery makers in China received $230 billion in subsidies since 2009.  This is one reason the EU and the US are imposing tariffs to protect their domestic manufacturers. As the shift to EV's continues in China- half of the cars in 2024 EV's- the gasoline models are shipped overseas. China has now replaced the western brands in Russia with it's gasoline models.  China makes great savings in batteries as it controls the supply chain in batteries. It makes EV's at 30% lower cost with these efficiencies. ...

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Seen as a rural urban divide, less educated and well educated and tech workers the situation in France looks similar to that in the US in the elections of 2016 and 2020. With business in the US and European Union shifting manufacturing to China and the governments neglecting rural areas, decline in standard of living for people on pensions that have not kept up with the cost of living, the situation in France as in the US is decades in the making. Bernie Sanders and Melenchon were appealing in different ways to younger people yearning for change and a system that would correct these changes.   Melenchon coming this close to less than one percentage point of Le Pen in the first round of French elections shows that a straight Macron Le Pen version of what has happened is an oversimplification, just as seeing the changes in America under president Biden vs Trump would be a simplification, as voters for Sanders who voted for Biden are changing the Biden agenda and setting America on a new path. A path to reshoring jobs that were sent to China, rebuilding American manufacturing, increasing workers wages and restoring workers leverage for higher wages, investing $2 trillion in child care, housing, supporting worker incomes and families, supporting older Americans on pensions. In the same way beneath the idea that nothing has happened after the yellow vest protests for cost of living, that has not only not gone away- but increased in the concern for cost of living in this election with the surging inflation - new developments are happening.  Even as Germany under Merkel appeared not be changing in 2020- 1 year after Merkel the situation will have changed completely to address social concerns that were ignored earlier and to invest in infrastructure in a big way. Behind this is a fundamental change that is taking place. Facing a challenge from totalitarian states the fabric of society in the free world, the US, Germany, France, other EU states, India, and nations in the free world will have to respond with changes that restore the fabric of society to what it was before this kind of fracturing, bringing all parts of society together to bring all the energies in place for rebuilding, investing in infrastructure, restoring local manufacturing and renewal. It requires a unified effort to be put in place to respond in the right way.     ...

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About 7 million people or 10.3% of people living in France in 2021 were immigrants, says national statistics agency INSEE. Compare that with 6.5% in 1968. About one third have acquired French citizenship. What this has done to French society is to shift sentiment away from protecting workers and families struggling with a cost of living crisis by splitting the vote of traditional parties supporting working class families. Shifting some of it to the far right anti-immigration parties that have emerged since 2010. This has added to the fracturing of society that happened from neglect of manufacturing communities across France as more manufacturing was concentrated overseas in  China. Neglect of rural areas and smaller towns, the emergence of tech hubs disconnected from the larger community across France has added to this. This is true of other European countries and a similar situation happened in the US. Denmark's prime minister is very candid about this, saying immigration of this type hurts the working class families in Denmark. Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats is the first to have clearly stated this problem and is providing a new way of protecting Danish workers and families from these social and technological changes in society from which they have no protection. President Biden in the US has also grasped clearly the dimensions and magnitude of the problems facing workers and families in the US. The problem is not limited to worker loss of income security, it affects the whole society and the public as a whole in other ways. Opportunistic politicians using anti-immigration appeals without a true commitment to democratic principles and ideas have tendencies that threaten democracy itself. This is the real danger of concentrating manufacturing in one country such as happened with China. And of neglecting rural areas and small towns. For this reason Frederiksen in Denmark, Biden in the US, and other leaders in Europe are looking for ways to send aid and industry promoting assistance to poor countries but restricting illegal immigration. This requires handling cultural issues which have further hit society with care- "with malice towards none, with charity for all," so that the focus can be kept on the real issues affecting workers and families of the cost of living crisis and a better life, better education, health care and public services for all, to improve the quality of living. It requires a new state of mindfulness from leaders in North America and Europe, as well as from allied countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  ...

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The U.S. Institute of Supply Management ISM Index shows May 2014 at 55.4 compared to 54.9 in April, an improvement for the fourth consecutive month in manufacturing activity.

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Under an obscure rule called "deminimis" any packages less than $800 coming from China or other Asian countries are not counted in official trade statistics, This could easily understate imports from China by about $50 billion as 800 million such packages enter the US annually mostly from China. When this and other corrections are made and with the surge in imports during the pandemic the US trade deficit may not bave budged much even after Mr. Trump made this Priority No.1, says this report in the WSJ. At stake are manufacturing jobs in America, factories and workplaces all across America that made it what it was and whose fracturing has led to the fracturing of America.

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This WSJ analysis shows that in the counties that flipped to Biden in the U.S. election about 40% of the people had white collar jobs and were better educated and in metropolitan regions. Of the counties that flipped to Trump about 20% had white collar jobs with only 1.4% jobs growth whereas the improvement in the counties that flipped to Biden had much higher jobs growth of 5.3%. Where Biden prevailed 70% of America's GDP is generated, where Trump prevailed 30% is generated. One is white collar in metropolitan regions, in cities and suburbs, better educated. The other is blue collar, less educated. One blue collar is hit hard by the pandemic, the other is white collar but also includes some of the people hardest hit in the pandemic of minorities in the cities and suburbs. In truth none can benefit without bringing all along. And loyalties shift as most of the professional class was once with Republicans who were the party of business. The sending out of American manufacturing to China has not only affected the economy, it has also changed the parties as the Republicans took up the cause of American manufacturing workers changing the two parties. For most of the twentieth century this was not the case as FDR, Truman and Kennedy-Johnson, were Democratic presidents supported by blue collar workers.   ...

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In his State of the Union speech president Trump was off on some points such as how many jobs were created, how good the economy is, and on on safety of cities El Paso and San Diego after border walls and fencing, according to the WSJ. El Paso was the second safest city of twenty similar sized cities in the U.S. before the border wall with Mexico, and continued to be that way after the wall was built over that section. San Diego has seen 91% drop in border apprehensions over a decade after fencing the border but this has not meant a discernible impact on people crossing illegally.  Mr. Trump was right that customs duties increased by $13 billion in the third quarter of 2018 after placing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Wages are growing faster for manufacturing and construction workers than service occupations, as Trump claimed. On the growth of the economy the economy GDP grew by 3.5% in 2018 before slowing down by the end of the year. India and China's growth in GDP is much faster. Growth in jobs was at the pace in the first 2 years of the Trump administration in some 2 year periods of the Obama administration, and much faster in manufacturing in the 1990's, says the WSJ.   ...

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Mitt Romney states the case for supporting free trade both in principles and practice. Acceptance of the staus quo allows China to game the world trading system, says Romney. In the end accepting the status quo may do more damage to the world's trading system than any efforts to correct the misalignment in currencies and failure to rebalance the world economy. He questions the passive approach of some members of Congress and the Obama administration on the grounds that starting a trade war makes them nervous. China with $273 billion more in exports than imports to the U.S. has reason to see this issue objectively, even with all the noise it is making about trade retaliation, suggests Romney. Other experts have pointed to the problems the misalignment creates for China's economy. A New York Times editorial on October 15, 2011, cites figures from the Peterson Institute of Economics showing this costs China $240 billion a year through trade surpluses in dollars that are declining in value. For years China's fears are that this would lead to higher unemployment. This New York Times editorial points out that jobs have increased by about 1% a year since 2004, even with 10%+growth, because many of the manufacturing jobs use advanced manufacturing technologies. A firm response today also makes it possible to avoid the kind of sudden response that could take place later on if public opinion overwhelmingly shifts away from trade with China under status quo conditions. ...

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One perspective of what Silicon Valley is focused on is shown by Reid Hoffman. It does not mention climate change, not one word on climate change, no words on cost of living action, little is said about factories and jobs for reviving American manufacturing, helping workers and families and redesigning the world's supply chains. It is critical of addressing monopolies and regulatory action by the FTC even where it is needed. It calls for huge investments in AI that would leave little for investments in science, education, healthcare and infrastructure, and says "trust us to do the right thing." It calls for pro-innovation direction when pro-innovation has been the thrust of policy for three decades with the results that we have seen leading to widening gas between the upper and lower classes and shrinking of the middle, a pharma industry out of control in pricing, and negligible investments in education by so called "tech" companies who like Apple have outsourced manufacturing to China. A return to tech and Silicon Valley is not needed as embedding it in the nation's policy making priorities is the Nation's problem. ...

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Samuelson says the bill in the U.S. Senate is symbolic because it allows companies to cite the undervalued renminbi as an illegal subsidy and have the Commerce Department impose duties on Chinese products. This would have to be done on a case by case basis, making it largely ineffective in dealing with the large trade deficit with China. He also cites the differences among economists that show a range between 1 million and 2.8 million jobs lost. The 2.8 million jobs estimate is from the Economic Policy Institute for the period 2001-2010. The 1 million is an estimate for 1990-2007, which estimates a loss of quarter of all manufacturing jobs. By WTO rules subsidies that are not targeted at specific industries or firms are allowed, according to lawyers. Which means China could appeal to the WTO, and impose retaliatory duties. In the meantime the trade deficit with China, with imports of $364 billion in 2010, and $86 billion in exports, would remain largely unaffected. This is the reason some Senators, including Republican Orrin Hatch (Utah), see this move as political posturing by President Obama and the Democrats, because the administration has no new proposals to address the trade deficit and the gradual erosion of America's manufacturing base. Samuelson cites Arvind Subramanium of the Peterson Institute, and his book "Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance." Subramanium says what is at stake is not a temporary imbalance in world trade a happened with Japan in the 1980's, but a gradual shift to a system of trade in which China has preferential access to raw materials (oil, grain, minerals), subsidizes exports in new industries as it moves upscale from shoes and textiles to automobiles, aircraft and alternative energy, and changes the very nature of the global trading system as it becomes the dominant trading nation in the world. By Subramanium's estimate China's share of global trade increased from 1.6% to 9.8% in the 2 decades from 1990 to 2010. In two more decades he estimates China could increase this to 15% of global trade, significantly larger than the U.S. In a response to Congressmen, businessmen and policymakers wary of starting a trade war, Samuelson says there already is a trade war as a "fixed" system of trade undermines America's manufacturing and industrial base. The only difference being that today only one side is fighting that war, and America is slow to grasp the implications or its policymakers are clueless how to respond....

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The US imported $1 billion in enriched uranium from Russia in 2022, about one third of the enriched uranium used in the US. Most of the rest is imported from Europe. Senator Joe Manchin has a bill that would provide subsidies to develop America's nuclear enrichment industry. It was privatized in the nineteen nineties. Under a 1993 agreement seen as a de-escalatory gesture the US turned to depend on Russia for its enriched uranium. Russia had developed technologies for cheaper production. The de-escalatory gesture called Megatons to Megawatts turned over the industry to Russia in a way that the US transferred its manufacturing capacity in chip production to China. Plants in Wyoming and Ohio remain empty as a result, and the Biden administration is being urged to move forward with investments in US enriched uranium production for its non-fossil fuel energy production.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, has balanced the rhetoric of president Trump on trade in the NAFTA debate by saying the U.S. is looking for win-win solutions in trade relations with Mexico. At the WSJ CFO network Ross says the trade regime from the post war years is now an anachronism and does not work well especially for the U.S. Many experts agree that the trade framework from that period is problematic. It does not take into account, for instance say experts, the situation where a command economy such as China could help manufacturing industries with state policies, including currency policies. The rapid growth in China was different from the rapid growth in an earlier period of Japan, in terms of its impact say experts. The U.S was the dominant economy during the sixties, and the growth in Japan was not at the accelerated pace and of the magnitude that happened in China. As a result the impact on  some communities in the U.S. was much more intense in the last two decades, as documented by prominent trade studies, leading to the sense that trade did not work for these communities. ...

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China, Japan and South Korea routinely provide assistance to their companies and through this to the workforce.  Economists who lacked understanding of business stuck to an ideological idea that the capitalist system of Adam Smith was built on fair competition. What they did not understand was what was meant by fair and what capitalism prevailed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1750's and Adam Smith's days. Much of the British business was based on its own version of fairness and trade which meant whatever worked for British domination of trade, the oceans, and markets. These economists missed this completely. Now the US shows it is able to do what Britain of Smith's days and Japan, China in the post 1950's and 1990's have done to dominate world trade and world shipping and logistics, and has the funds to provide assistance to American companies for world markets. $550 Billion from standard 10-15% tariffs charge for all nations to access US market as a fund to finance US Manufacturing.  ...

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There is a sense of cognitive dissonance in the states of former East Germany, known as the GDR or German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Union period from 1950's to 1990. The 5 states that formed the GDR continued to build close ties with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the perception that this would build good long term relations. The crisis in Ukraine with border states of the Soviet Union opting in favor of close ties with the European Union and not Russia have disrupted the economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia. As long as Russia needed the economic ties to build its economy and standard of living the political issues posed by NATO expansion and EU expansion were set aside by Putin and political parties within Russia. The very ties that were supposed to usher in an era of peace in Europe helped strengthen the Russian and Chinese economies. Leading to a point where these two economies were strong enough by 2021 in the midst of the waning pandemic to  assert themselves on political issues where serious differences existed such as expansion of NATO and Taiwan. When the economic relations such as making China a manufacturing powerhouse  was the path taken by American and European business in 1990's, business interests were focused on the declining quality and high wages demanded by unions and workers in the US and Germany. This could be personally witnessed at Apple's factory in Colorado Springs where quality was failing badly in the 1990's. Apple when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 adopted a China manufacturing strategy when its manufacturing operations in the US failed to deliver the quality and cost structure needed for it to expand. The high margins with low costs of manufacturing in China was the strategy adopted by Steve Jobs to compete with Microsoft and turbocharge its expansion. Soon other companies followed. A similar process happened in economic ties with Russia on a smaller scale. Two decades of such expansion whittled down American manufacturing, hurt American workers, hurt European manufacturing and European workers.  This process could not continue- yellow vest protests in France, the protest vote in US midwestern states in recent elections, the protest votes in German elections and fragmentation of parties, made this clear. The US imposed trade tariffs on Chinese products and moved to restrict flow of technologies to China under the Trump administration, accelerated by the Biden administration. President Xi was once of the view that China's ties with the US were important "thousand fold" in the period as late as 2010. Yet this lopsided trade relationship was not beneficial to American workers or American interests as a technologically advanced leader. It is true that American workers and engineers at Apple had failed to ensure American quality competitiveness in the 1980's into 1990's, yet no advanced country or its business can come up with a false narrative that cedes its manufacturing leadership and jobs for the working class of its country. That false narrative is being challenged today by Mr. Biden, Mr. Scholz, and all American and German political parties, and by Mr. Modi with Atman Nirbhar Bharat for local manufacturing. The integration one sees of the port of Hamburg as Chinese export hub with China's economy is one aspect of what has happened. A new leadership is taking its place in Europe and in America that sees clearly the false narrative. The visit of the new Danish prime minister to India is the beginning of the effort to set up a new logistics relationship with South and South East Asia, as Denmark's Maersk is a world leader in shipping logistics for exports and manufacturing. The planned Noida logistics center outside of New Delhi under Gati Shakti integrated development is part of the change happening today as a new supply chain is being built. The unwinding of the one sided trade relationship with China, and its related relationship on energy with Russia, led to the changing perception in Russia and China of the value of the relationship. Political relations superseded economic and cultural relations during Putin's second phase and Xi's second phase with assertive attitudes on NATO, and on Hong Kong, Taiwan under Xi and Putin 2.0. As could be expected Germany and the US were caught flat footed as leaders who were cast in the mold of Putin as a Soviet representative in Dresden, and Xi with his father leading the Communist struggle in the 1930's and 1940's against Chiangkaishek, acted in ways that reflected the Soviet period. Chiang left for Taiwan in 1948 when Mao-tse-tung setup the People's Republic of China. Taiwan and Hong Kong remained important in the perceptions of Xi 2.0, in the effort to build "China Dream" and erase last vestiges of what in Soviet times were seen as western colonialism. US and EU particularly Business and the new IT telecom Business failed to grasp these matters, and historical events such as the opium wars of the 1850's. Business and cultural interests lacked both the inclination to learn and the knowledge of these events in Chinese history and its relations with colonial powers Britain and Japan, and also Russia. In 1900 the Boxer rebellion against ceding Chinese ports to colonial powers Britain, Japan, Russia, ended with permanent colonial settlements in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tsingtao, other Chinese ports. Chinese rejuvenation in the mind of leaders such as Xi from the second generation of Communist leadership, means putting this behind, leading to the action taken in Hong Kong. In some ways as some observers have commented it is as much a problem of the sluggishness of American and European thinking, particularly business interests including in Taiwan, post British Hong Kong, and ignorance of recent Chinese history which was mistakenly thought not to exist or forgotten. This is as much of a problem as the action taken by Putin and moves by Xi Jinping. The great democracies such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, were ignored as American and European business interests integrated the American and German economies with China's. In terms of population the population of these regions and related parts of South East Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam which have a shared cultural history is about 1.5 times the population of China. Travelling through the parts of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh, an Madhya Pradesh one finds how much American and European business interests have failed both their own interests, their own workers and failed the great democracies of the world, by not only not investing in the democracies of Asia, and also of Africa and Latin America and bought into a narrative of China which no longer holds true and may never have been true all along. This is starkly evident in a once in a century pandemic in these great democracies of the world. These democracies have been left to fend for themselves during the pandemic and their leaders facing false narratives in the media such as the BBC and American media outlets even on issues such as vaccination of the largest part of the world's people.           ...

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Neil Irwin in the NYT why the U.S. China Phase 1 Trade Agreement is more than a hill of soyabeans as he puts it, more than about all the soyabeans that the U.S. farmers can sell to China. China's economy was seeing the effect of U.S. tariffs. Additional tariffs to cover all imports from China to the U.S. would have worsened this. China avoided this by agreeing to Phase 1. The U.S. had looked for some enforcement mechanism based on China putting this down in a written agreement particularly for avoiding subsidies to state enterprises and improper access to U.S. advanced technologies. China's reluctance to do this led to Mr. Trump saying that China had reversed its position and Trump expanding the tariffs stage by stage. These issues are now set aside for Phase 2 still to be negotiated. Both sides taking what they could get. China relief from the threat of tariffs on all exports. The U.S. under Mr. Lighthizer's negotiating leadership retaining the enforcement idea through the tariffs that are still in place of 25% on half of China's exports to the U.S. The bonus for Mr. Trump is the goodwill China generates by agreeing to buy all the U.S. farmers can produce, farmers having not only stood behind Mr. Trump but also forming a key part of his support base. China will continue to compete in technological areas with the U.S., and the state enterprise model which worked for China as Mr. Xi tells visitors will continue. Phase 2 is just that Phase 2, when and if it can be negotiated between Trump with his negotiator Lighthizer and Xi with his negotiator Liu He. On key points neither side is budging. A key goal for Mr. Trump is to put the trade surplus China enjoys of $300 plus billion a year with the U.S. on a serious downward path, and bring so many of the jobs and manufacturing back home. On this trade data for 2019 and the plan for 2020 of both countries is clear. It should be down each year by 10-20% for the next few years, a major achievement of Mr. Lighthizer, who did the same with  Japan under president Reagan. ...

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U.S. tariffs on a long list of 1300 products includes products such as industrial robots that China sees as a potential area of future growth and technological advantage. In this way the Trump administration tariff is shaping up to be part of a longer term U.S. plan to meet the challenge from Chinese competition in key advanced technology products. These are products China explicitly targeted in its "Made in China 2025" plan. The list compiled by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the former Trade negotiator under the Reagan Administration, targets products such as electric car batteries. China supports its own electric car battery makers by blocking U.S. suppliers from its domestic markets. The new tariffs would do the same for China in the U.S. market. In industrial robots China has 87,000 in 2016, and plans to meet a shortage of labor in its manufacturing plants by using better and more efficient robots. Aircraft and airplane parts are also targets as China has plans to expand its aerospace industry. The list also includes 200 machines, with machinery exports from China making up a significant part of exports to the U.S. So comprehensive is this list of 1100 products that it includes ships, trains, any product in which China's subsidies for its industries, its industrial policies make it easier for it to gain dominance in a product category as has happened in solar panels. ...

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This NYT editorial provides statistics for the problems of young people facing high student debt, high unemployment, and working in jobs that do not require their educational qualifications. Federal Reserve data show 44% of young college graduates in 2012 working at jobs that did not require a college degree. Underemployment stands at 16.8% in the U.S.- this includes young people too discouraged to look for work and those stuck in part time jobs. Put another way the hope that existed in the 1970's for a better future is simply lacking. The boom, bust, and corrective policy preceding and following the 2000 and 2008 crises have acted as a huge distraction for needed policy steps and imposed additional penalties on young people, just as other trends in the globalized manufacturing and IT industry were shifting jobs overseas.

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The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact led by Japan and the U.S. moves to the next stage with legislation introduced by Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden in the U.S. Congress for granting trade promotion authority to the U.S. president. This would facilitate the negotiation of an agreement leading to concessions by different countries. Talks between Japan and the U.S. intensified with the U.S. president Obama saying in his 2015 State of the Union message that China wanted to write the rules for trade in Asia, and asking why the U.S. should not work to write its own rules. Defense Secretary, Aston Carter, called it more important than another aircraft carrier. Support from Europe, India and other countries for the China sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as a rival to the U.S. dominated World Bank and IMF, also give urgency to the TPP. The TPP countries, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Peru and Chile, make up over $400 billion of about $4 trillion in U.S. trade, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The TPP is now seen not just a free trade pact, but also as away to counter China's influence in Asia. Experts see the Obama administration as having bungled its handling of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which the U.S. did not join, and its allies in Europe, other Asian countries including India, decided to join as founding members. Democrats in Congress led by Senator Schumer, Warren, oppose the legislation granting fast track for free trade pacts citing the loss of jobs and lowering of wages for workers in manufacturing in the U.S., with only about a dozen Democrats favoring the legislation, leading to a split in the party. Projections by Peter Petri, Michael Plummer, Fan Zhai, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, show a net negative impact on depressed wage sectors such as U.S. manufacturing with additional $45 billion in U.S. imports and $35 billion in exports for heavy manufacturing from the TPP free trade pact, and additional $33 billion of U.S. imports and $10 billion exports in light manufacturing by 2025. Higher wage sectors such as U.S. Services including IT get a boost with additional $42 billion in exports and $ 8 billion imports. Agriculture shows insignificant gains with additional exports of $2 billion and imports of 0.5 billion. The auto and transport sector disproportionately favors Japan with $33 billion in additional U.S. imports and $8 billion in exports. ...

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The contrast between modernizing, developing East and South Asia ( from Mumbai to Shanghai) with war torn desolate West Asia (from Tehran and Baghdad to Kabul and Islamabad) is so striking today that it is something to reflect upon for wisdom and understanding. UAE support for Sudan's RSF Rapid Strike Force and Saudi support for the military - fracturing of Sudan, errors piled on errors led to the civil war in Sudan. A civil war in a country neighboring Saudi Arabia just across the Red Sea. Saudis and UAE were on opposite sides briefly after UAE pulled out of Sudan, UAE acting in this way to object against Saudis requesting US sanctions on UAE.  Once close partners have moved apart as they spread their influence in different conflicts in the Middle East.  This has not created a region that can grow economically without the disruptions of conflict in the way other parts of Asia have emerged to modernize the countries as in Taiwan, Korea, China and India. In neighboring Pakistan another conflict has emerged as partners split, with looming conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yemeni Houthis are in conflict with the US and affect the Persian Gulf shipping lanes.  Iran with it's pursuit of weapons programs and nuclear weapons is using capital that is badly needed to improve the economic situation on arms buildup for the regime and for allies in Lebanon and Yemen, leading to protests and crisis. In this way the Middle East has failed to use oil wealth to modernize the entire region. Much of it was wasted in Iraq and now in Iran by policies that led to war and regional conflicts not modernization and technological transformation that has happened in Asia. The US has inadvertently becoming a partner to this as when the Obama administration helped fund Iran's economic rebuilding which was instead used to fund the military, and before that the Reagan administration support for Iraqi socialist ideology regime. The challenge for China was how to modernize after the Japanese invasion and civil war. In Korea it was how to modernize after the civil war. In India it is how to modernize with a smaller neighboring country Pakistan promoting terrorism and wars now with China's support. In Asia all these challenges were and are being met to steadily and persistently modernize to European standards with a singleminded focus and determination to meet the aspirations of the people with the US business working alongside Taiwanese, Korean, Chinese, and Indian governments and private industry. In West Asia various ideological (Iraq), military (Pakistan), religious Shiite (Iran), religious + modernizing (Saudi +UAE) with erratic leaders and little representation of the people, has destroyed the tranquillity of the region and destroyed democratic forms of government, destroyed bottom up education and health of the population except for priviliged groups in countries in the region of West Asia. Involvement of US and Europe or Russia in West Asia has led to distintegration of Soviet Union (Boris Yeltsin) and deindustrialization of US and Europe (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama administrations) with business shipping out manufacturing to China while wars engaged the attention of American and European elites in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan. The entire west Asian scene for 1950-2030 has been a disaster, one massive disaster for all involved. The contrast with East Asia and South Asia reminds one of the words from Robert Frost of New England in Mowing- that reflects on the enduring value of honest labour. "My long scythe whispered to the ground. What was it it whispered? It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: anything less would have seemed too weak to the earnest love that laid the swale in rows. The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the NYT says Bill Clinton moved the Democratic Party to the centre in 1992. In 2016 about 25 years later, after the removal of the Glass Steagall Act led to the 2008 global financial crisis and a deep recession, after the trade relations with China led to loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs over two decades and the hollowing out of industry in the midwest, things have changed. The revolution led by Bernie Sanders, a shrinking middle class, smaller access to college education for the middle and working class, and wide disparities in income, are putting the Democratic Party closer to its roots and the days of FDR. The Democratic Party platform calls for a 21st century Glass Steagall Act to separate normal banking from investment banking, opposes the TPP to prevent any further export of jobs overseas, and goes for a $15 minimum wage. This was also evident at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention when Sanders told the gathering in Philadelphia that even though he was not the candidate, these are the planks of the platform that Hillary Clinton will be pushing for in her presidency. What the editorial does not point out is that the Republican economic platform also calls for reinstatement of Glass Steagall Act, opposes TPP and opposes any loss of American jobs to overseas locations. It differs on the minimum wage leaving it to the states, and it is likely to skew tax cuts towards the wealthy, but also possibly removing the lower income brackets from taxes as Britain has done under the Conservative Party. Both parties today are looking for support from the middle and working class and have directed their appeal to these two groups which are in upheaval. The election of Trudeau in Canada recently also followed this trend, after the hollowing out of Canadian industry in Ontario and Quebec in a similiar pattern as in the midwestern U.S.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Labor in the U.S. stood firm in its opposition to bills in Congress granting fast track trade authority and promoting the TPP trade agreement. The bill failed to clear the House of Representatives as labor unions lobbied hard against the legislation. For the first time public sector unions of teachers, firefighters, and other service workers actively worked with industrial labor unions. This is a result of a realization in labor unions that the decline of communities with the closing of plants reduces the demand for public sector workers, and reduces the revenues of cities leading to cuts in services for firefighters, teachers. The low wages in manufacturing with globalization, also reduces the support of factory workers for higher wages for teachers, firefighters and other public sector workers. Also adding to support for workers is the realization that the investment in infrastructure is now a higher priority, as experts say most of the gains in trade are already behind us. A general feeling that the decline in U.S. manufacturing is not good for the country, the difficulty of competing with countries which do not enforce rules for fair practice and treatment of workers, and a general sense that the lowering of wages in manufacturing is both hurting the middle class and increasing inequality, also have created support in the media....

LyrArc Article Gist
US foreign direct investment to China goes down 40% in 2020 to 2022 compared to the period 2015 to 2020, for India this was up by 20%, according to IMF. India was the only G-20 country that received this level of foreign direct investment. Prashant Jha of the Hindustan Times correctly points out that the IMF paper and the model on which this paper is based are flawed. The paper sees countries based on alignment and India as a so called non aligned country not part of friendshoring, even though Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has openly called for friendshoring in India alongside finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. IMF experts have not caught up to Mr. Biden's remarks about the US- India relationship that it would be "the closest on earth." Closer even than America's relationship with Britain or Europe. On oil imports Biden and Jake Sullivan believe that after the pandemic India should import oil at the lowest possible cost to meet the long time denied aspirations of 1.2 billion people, and build the infrastructure that will make it a critical part of America's new supply chain. Every time there are military drills and blockade of Taiwan by China the people of America are moving a step further away from American companies that have overconcentration of manufacturing in China and closer to calling for a new supply chain that reduces concentration in China and builds new manufacturing in India.  ...