LyrArc Article Gist
The paradox during the opioid crisis of American companies conducting business and trade in and with China on a magnitude never seen before in history disassociated from their own neighborhoods in the US is nowhere more evident than in this crisis. A similar paradox between the government in China disassociated from American communities and local stores that import its products and keep workers employed in China in the case of China. And the paradox of the American government allowing any action whatsoever of this type that affects communities in the US and continuing business and trade as normal exists today. It has the impact of eroding public confidence in the relationship between two countries even as it damages the fragile situation of communities in the US hit by lack of investment in infrastructure, in manufacturing, health, and following the pandemic in incomes. It shows the danger of business and trade operating in a vacuum or compartmentalized not aware of everything that is happening in societies and communities that surround it. In any case it is the communities and the land that always exist even as businesses trade patterns change, or take different forms, and some disappear. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Biden says at the APEC Summit that the US is seeking stable and good relations with China, that this is good for the world. He pointed out that the US wanted to be clear -"We are derisking and diversifying our relationship with China, not decoupling." This refers to the excessive dependence that happened in the relationship with China in the supply chain, in manufacturing, and in trade during the last three decades.

LyrArc Article Gist
Australia increases its defense budgetfrom 1.8% to 2.2% of GDP, and shows willingness to go up to 3%, as it strengthens its naval capabilities. French submarine contract was cancelled as US shows willingness to provide nuclear submarine technologies to Australia. French diesel submarines were too slow and could not remain underwater for long periods. Nuclear submarines would let Australia monitor Indo-Pacific seas, with US help. This is now an issue as Taiwan is being threatened and Australia faces economic coercion in trade relations from China. US, UK and Australia form a new partnership with president Biden leading the way.

LyrArc Article Gist
Washington Post looks at history of rare earths since 1945, and how the US EU and Japan let China become the sole supplier of rare earth minerals. This error is being corrected in 2025 and the US, EU, Japan remain vulnerable for the next 2 years till these countries build up an alternative supply of rare earths. It is a situation where vital national interests in the US and EU, Japan were lost sight of for three decades.

LyrArc Article Gist
As part of the trade deal with the Trump administration China agreed to buy $54 billion of oil and liquified natural gas from the U.S. by the end of 2021. This is showing up in U.S. oil making up 7% of China's imports by mid September 2020 from 0.4% in January. By the endo of October forecasts show U.S. exporting 700,000 barrels a day to China. The U.S. is displacing Saudi and Middle East oil as Saudi exports now make up 15% of China's oil imports from 19%. This also shows that president Trump's trade deals are working to help balance trade with China and remove the disadvantageous position the U.S. was placed in by three previous administrations.

LyrArc Article Gist
Gina Raimondo, US Commerce Secretary, visits Beijing to help restore key aspects of the US China trade and business relationship. Her visit follows visits by Anthony Blinken and Janet Yellen that helped rebuild the relationship after the pandemic and the rhetoric and actions of the Trump administration had weakened ties. The balloon incident and the visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan further strained relationship with China. This is changing as China increases engagement following the pandemic and president Xi is expected to visit the US for an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC meeting in November at which president Biden will meet Xi.

LyrArc Article Gist
US exports of liquefied natural gas to China surged in 2021 to 17% of al exports. LNG in China's energy mix surged to 8% in 2020 and is even higher in 2021. Facing pressure to peak carbon emissions by 2030, and facing energy shortage in 2021, China is importing more LNG than ever. Prices of LNG have gone up 10 times in 2021 compared to year earlier. China is now the world's largest importer of LNG.

LyrArc Article Gist
The sense of conflict in China and US relations may not have developed in the shaping of Xi Jinping's thinking till the emergence of Mr. Trump. Jinping comes into the China shaped by Deng and Zemin after the collapse of the purely Communist experiment with modernization without access to western technologies and capital, and the experiment with American help. It is only after the realization that the Communist party had lost its sense of purpose in these years leading to the Bo Xilai episode, and the rhetoric of Mr. Trump against China, that the idea of first friction and then conflict emerged. The initial idea for Jinping before Trump was that this has worked for China- the experiment with the cooperation of the US in modernizing China. Trump's rhetoric and the Republican party's rhetoric about China stealing American jobs and technology after 2015 may have been targeted to win the election but it had an unintended effect after the tariffs of shaping Jinping's thinking about the future for China. Between the Bo Xi Lai episode in 2012 when it appeared he would be attempting to manipulate the Communist party's direction in unknown and unpredictable ways, Bo's trial in 2013 and the anticorruption campaign and the 2015 election campaign of Mr. Trump in the US, there must have been much soul searching in the party that shaped Jinping's thinking about the future for China after all the tumult of the 20th century starting with the Boxer rebellion in 1901. Stability is highly prized in China particularly for modernization. This perspective is important to grasp for world peace to be preserved with different coexisting perspectives about the world based on national as well as shared interests in issues such as climate change. US after its own disastrous experiment with capitalism that led to widening inequality of the kind not seen since Lincoln in the 1850's, the 2009 crisis, and the shift of jobs to China under a purely capitalist idea of how economies should function, had its own national interests in jobs, local manufacturing and Made in the USA. Once this process was underway after 2016 and grasped by president Biden after 2020, and supply chain reconstruction made the goal after covid, the US and China were on divergent economic and political paths.   That rethinking by Xi Jinping is not over as it may still be going on. The war in Ukraine may even convince Jinping and China's No. 2 leader Li Keqiang who studied the US constitution and American urbanization under mentors when he was in college, that Russia's prolongation of the war in Ukraine does not serve the interests of China. That risking relations with the European Union as Russia prolongs the war and finds itself in the complex problems of  a war it started, is not in China's interests in setting its own course for the future. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Keith Bradsher of the NYT points out that the tariffs war between China and the U.S. is not just about trade and competitive advantage. He says this marks a fundamental shift in the way China operates as the world's manufacturing floor. Gradually change is taking place as production moves out of China to places such as Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and other countries in Asia. The entire supply chain for manufacturing is affected in the tariffs war and the U.S. insistence on China changing its policies subsidizing manufacturing plants to maintain an export advantage in violation of WTO principles for fair trade.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Biden administration makes its decision- it will continue the tariffs president Trump placed on about half of Chinese imports into the US. It also seeks new talks with China on trade. US is also pursuing other policies on trade that were not pursued by the Trump administration. Longer term it is about alliance building in trade with the European Union, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. These alliances would jointly approach China on trade, economic and security matters.  Another approach is for the US to build at home. Congress is asked to approve $52 billion in subsidies that the Biden administration wants to give to companies so that they build the semiconductor plants of the future right here in the USA. The Biden administration is also aware that China is doubling down on technology purchases within China from Chinese firms to support its own high tech industries. In response it is laying down a policy of its own for the future step by step. The Chinese market now takes less priority than maintaining technological leadership of the US in all advanced technologies. The Biden administration is steering American industry and technology advancement in this direction. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Brazil's ever increasing production of soyabeans and investments in Brazil by China and US's Cargill ADM result in a oversupply of soyabeans in world's markets leading to lower prices for American farmers. 70% of soyabeans imports by China were from Brazil in 2024 and Cofco state owned agricultural company in China is building a large port terminal on Brazil's coast to handle soyabeans and other exports. Trade tensions with the US mean there are no written agreements farmers can count on for soyabean exports to China. China purchased 13 million metric tons from Argentina last month and committed to buying 25 million metric tons in 2026-2028. Argentina lifted its 26% export tax for the first $7 billion in agricultural exports to bolster it's peso recently. US is turning to other markets in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Europe to make up for volume lost to Brazil. For September and October there is a 45% increase in US exports in 2025 resulting from these non-Chinese buyers. No mention is made of India, yet India could in future be a significant buyer of soyabeans because of thenutritional value of soyabeans in an anti-cancer diet and the high protein content which would make Indian diets healthier. In agriculture farmers are not the ones who develop new tastes and new trends in new markets, yet this effort should be part of farmer's outreach to other nations and other cultural food habits with shifts to healthy nutrition. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The US, China, Japan, India and South Korea will release oil from their strategic petroleum oil reserves to dampen the steep rise in oil prices. The Biden administration will release 50 million barrels of oil from US reserves onto world markets. This is about half of the 100 million barrels of oil of daily world consumption. The effect on oil prices is muted because the move was expected.

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. Defense Secretary Esper says the U.S. is determined to keep the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as open seas for freedom of navigation for all nations, rejecting all of China's claims to the South China sea. Esper says China has pushed regional allies out of as much as $2.6 trillion in offshore oil and gas revenues. 

LyrArc Article Gist
China imports from the US only $143 billion and much of this is soyabeans (US farmers), petroleum oil products (buyers in Europe and Asia), aircraft (Boeing). Farmers were compensated from the tariff revenues in the first term, oil products would be shipped to Asia and LNG to Europe to make up for loss of supplies from Russia. India will take up the Boeing production as it's economy expands to levels China, Japan had earlier. The action is a last resort as 490,000 lives were lost in 12 years from the fentanyl shipped raw materials from China and drug trafficking gangs in Mexico processing it in labs to ship across the long US border or Canadian border into the US. China and Mexico have not stopped the flow of fentanyl into the US. How much is 490,000 American lives worth? That is 5 times the lives lost in the Vietnam War and the Korean War combined of 100,000 lives lost in both wars. China exported $436 billion to the US in 2023 increasing by about 6% from prior year. Integrated Circuits alone were more than all US exports combined to China at $154 billion. Electric batteries another $80 billion. Computers and office machine parts were $54 billion. Where will China ship all these products. It is brave but it is easier to stop fentanyl flows out of China, and cut all the trade barriers, reverse state policy to dominate key industrial sectors in State Planning. The problem in the stock market response is that this is a trade war which it is NOT. It is about National Security if this is allowed to continue as Clinton, Bush, Obama have allowed to happen US is in real danger of becoming a second rate power in the world, at which point the world will become a dangerous place with India, China, Russia, Germany and other states having no constraints to create future wars without US to set some basic principles of world peace. UN itself would not exist without Cordell Hull and FDR. The world we know will be GONE. US Navy will not be able to build the ships it needs in USA if this deindustrialization is allowed to continue.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US and China agree on the first step to a broader trade deal. US offers to take in Chinese students at American Universities, something DJT says he was good with.  “Chinese students using our college and universities,” adding that such attendance has “always been good with me.”  China for its part will not slow move export of magnets and rare earth minerals on which it has established a near monopoly of the supplies. These rare earth minerals are needed for technology products made in the US. US tariffs of 55% will still say in place as "deterrance" that the other side keeps its promises and to cut the trade deficit with China not simply talk about it has has happened for a decade of Bush, Obama, Biden. Treasury Secretary Bessent and Jamieson Greer US Trade Representative were at London talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick to find ways to get an impasse resolved. Both sides lack confidence in what the other is doing so that theis the first step to clarify the direction of talks for achieving a broader deal.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. ranked first in an annual survey of executives rating places with favorable prospects for foreign direct investment. The survey by consulting firm A.T. Kearney has questions for executives of 302 large companies, all with sales above $500 million, about how likely they are to invest in countries over 2013-2015. It was done in October and November of 2012. On a scale of 0 to 3, the U.S. scored 2.09, China 2.02, Brazil 1.97, Canada 1.86, India 1.85, followed closely by Australia and Germany at 1.83 and the UK at 1.81. Mexico and Singapore are at No. 9 and 10 with 1.77. The survey shows the U.S., and Mexico gaining, China and India slipping, and English speaking countries UK, Australia and Singapore, as part of the 6 that are English speaking of the top 10 countries. Brazil's hosting of the Olympics and World Cup helped it maintain its position. The emerging market countries performance has slipped further since the survey, including Brazil, and the U.S. has made further gains in investor sentiment. The unrest among young people in Turkey, India, China, and Brazil as seen in street protests and credit financed booms may have further affected investor sentiment. The increase in natural gas production, revival of the midwestern economies, and a recovering housing market have boosted the U.S. economic prospects compared to emerging markets and the eurozone....

LyrArc Article Gist
"Made in China 2025" is a plan by China to build competitive companies in new technology industries such as advanced microchips, driverless cars, robotics. This is one area in which there is a huge difference in trade matters more than the tariffs issue, because the U.S. sees this as an effort to dominate these industries with state subsidized loans at low interest rates. The Trump administration has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on imports from China in these industries to protect U.S. companies. The U.S. insists there should be a level playing field for U.S. companies.

LyrArc Article Gist
In this WSJ report a top American Defense Department official before resigning says- "I have no problem with feeding China or trading with China. I have a problem with arming China." Advanced or sensitive manufacturing technology is still being approved for export to China says this report in WSJ, even as the US perceives this to be a national security threat. Experts say the Commerce Department report approval process needs overhaul and the US needs close coordination with the European Union on this process. Of the total US $124 billion in exports to China in 2020 only half of one percent needed a license Commerce Department data reviewed by WSJ shows. Of that small fraction of one half percent Commerce Department approved 2562  applications or 94%. This even includes array of semiconductors, aerospace components, artificial intelligence technologies that could be added to China's military. This means that even towards the end of the Trump administration with its talk about national security threats, through the four years 2016-2020, nothing much happened in this important field.  The difficulty that the Trump administration faced and America faces is putting company and business interests first or American security interests and retaining competitive technological advantage interests first. American administrations and business have consistently failed to follow what plain ordinary Americans understand by America first. Even when it is clearly evident that America is handing over sensitive advanced technologies with very little in return, and creating out of nowhere competition that poses serious risks for the national interest, business and administrations operate indifferent to the national interest. Even right into the period when this is making the world a riskier and more dangerous place.   This is the state of affairs today, and the situation is not about Congressmen visiting Taiwan or ships going through the seas in that region, or international law. All that is American policy  and is well known and well understood. What is missing is the right action and the right determination behind other action that is sending a different message at the same time -that the US is oblivious to its own interests. That administrations, even those such as the recent Republican one under Mr. Trump, see a higher priority in following American business wherever it goes in pursuit of individual company interests alone, even if it does not accord with the national interest. Lobbying groups distort what policy should be in the public interest and in the interest of both countries, leading to a breakdown in the whole process itself whenever governments surrender their role of protecting the public interest.  Outshoring manufacturing was bad economically at the level of communities across the US, leading to divisions that weakened the country in the last decade, it was also bad for the economy of the country with loss of the best manufacturing jobs, beyond what economists in their ignorance of the big picture sought to show was the consumer- often the same person who lost a job or stopped seeking work- paying less. It was bad also for China as it created the hyper growth that rapidly contaminated land, air and water and created an inherently unstable relationship in trade with destruction of jobs at a pace that America had not faced with Japan and with which it could not cope. Could a pace that worked for both nations have worked? At the root is the notion that business knows best even if it is in plain sight to every plain American that the country's most advanced technologies are being shipped out. Governments do not fulfill their responsibilities and fail when they fail to tell business what rules are in the public interest, as it was never in the first role of business to protect the public interest. That the European Union has simply followed the US in this has created a problem for both the US and the European Union of deviating from what plain Americans or Europeans see as abundantly clear.  Even in plain dollars and cents business and economists fail to grasp the true cost for the whole country or whole people compared to the benefit for an individual or an individual company. The cost of wars even small wars can be be trillions of dollars which are borne by the whole country or people, and most of it by the middle and less economically well off classes in a country. Creating a belligerent competitor in world affairs and the risk of conflict and war is to lose trillions of dollars when the benefit to an individual, groups, or individual companies is no more but a tiny fraction of that trillion dollar cost, not including what all the plain people pay in human lives. It is not that anyone benefits as the people in the belligerent competitor country follow the same pattern of loss that would happen in the US. One should ask is it not a loss for China also? The example of Imperialist Japan is not so far off in time for Americans or Asians including the Chinese and Japanese people who suffered so greatly to forget. Business remains oblivious to the public interest not just for America but for the world, individual companies do not see it as their role beyond that of pursuing individual company interest. Is it not then for the government to set the rules. Is it alright for government to not fulfill its responsibilities? Even when this pushes the world faster to into conflicts as technologies take the place of exercise of wisdom in conflict, and even when there are unmet challenges such as climate change that affect the whole planet.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The US and Japan are coordinating efforts to limit transfer of sensitive technology to China and increase trade and cooperation within the G-7 in high technology sectors. Efforts are being coordinated with South Korea. Janet Yellen says the IMF has overblown the effects on the world economy from the US decoupling from China. IMF reports have also in addition presented India incorrectly as a non aligned country, when it is a close partner of the US. In 2023 US is the largest trade partner of India.The US position is to limit flows of technology in sectors considered vital, and continue world trade in other areas with China. US is committed to friendshoring to India, Vietnam and other countries. Germany's three parties CDU, Greens and SPD are reversing close trade and technology links with China. This is also the policy of the Modi administration which seeks close trade and technology ties to US and EU. The shift is in response to what is really an overconcentration of the supply chain in China that happened as business in the US and EU and the Merkel and the Bush-Obama-Trump administrations failed to see the risks of overconcentration. And carried out misguided policies in trade and investment that are now being reversed by US president Biden, Kishida in Japan, and Modi in India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's top trade negotiator is Liu he, Chinese Vice Premier. He is negotiating with Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative who heads the U.S. side in talks. Liu He says China is planning to reduce auto tariffs on U.S. imports to 15%. U.S. exported 266,000 cars to China in 2017. A number of other issues are coming up between the two countries including cyber hacking as federal prosecutors are expected to unseal charges against hackers linked to the Chinese government, according to this report in WSJ. Canada's arrest of Huawei executive was met with China's arrest of a Chinese diplomat.

LyrArc Article Gist
President Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed with near unanimous support by the U.S. Congress. The original U.S. law on Hong Kong passed in 1992 requiring yearly reports on the autonomy of Hong Kong for it to get the "special status" granted to it. This requirement for yearly reports expired in 2007. This requirement is now reinstated. The law signed by Mr. Trump requires the State Department to certify Hong Kong' autonomy annually. The WSJ describes it as a "grim trigger" strategy" which would cause damage to Hong Kong capital markets and is of a magnitude that makes it less likely to be used. Mr. Trump pointedly remarked that he had signed it "out of respect for Mr. Xi, China and Hong Kong," and Mr. Trump has shown respect so far for the protesters but also shown respect for Mr. Xi and China in the middle of the unending nature of the protests. The new Act does not give Mr. Trump any additional powers than he already has. It only changes one aspect of relations- it makes Hong Kong relative autonomy a part of permanent high level issues in China - U.S. relations, including trade and Hong Kong's status as financial center. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
If China reduced its automobile tariffs to 2.5% from current 25% it would help German carmakers such as BMW that export from U.S. plants to China. BMW as a premium brand is better able to absorb the transport costs and does not manufacture cars in China. U.S. makers Ford and GM would benefit less as they already have plants making cars in China. By not making cars in China BMW does not have to transfer technology to a Chinese partner.

LyrArc Article Gist
During 2018 negotiations China's vice premier Liu He asked finance business leaders "We need your help." This included  Black Rock, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and others. In exchange China which has protected its financial markets from American finance companies now offered to give some opportunities, though as other companies in other industries have found out this could be limited by other priorities.  The Trump and now the Biden administration are pursuing the decoupling of the Chinese and American economies after learning through two decades that it is damaging to the U.S. economic position in the world. The new law passed by unanimous vote in Congress to be signed into law by president Trump requires Chinese companies to have financial audits inspected by U.S. regulatory agency for them to remain listed on U.S. exchanges. However as the WSJ points out in a separate article this does not restrict Chinese companies access to global capital in unfair competition with the U.S. because the law goes into effect over 3 years giving Chinese companies. American investors can also invest in the Chinese companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange unless their entire thinking process changes seeing what is best for America as best for them. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Six companies including Beiing Nanjiang Aerospace are among six nearspace aerospace companies connected with China's military that face restrictions on import of technology from the US. This is part of the American response to the Chinese spy balloons hovering over US airspace.

LyrArc Article Gist
With Chinese overproduction of  electric vehicles and solar energy panels China needs the EU and US market for its economy. Now that it is more dependent on manufacturing for jobs and the economy, as its construction industry is in decline. The Biden administration by not adding new tariffs yet investing in production at home provides China and the US with a win-win relationship, that China seeks to maintain. This overrides regional tensions for the vital interests of the US and China to compete on a level playing field.