The United States and China agreed Monday to drastically roll back tariffs on each other’s goods for an initial 90-day period, in a surprise breakthrough that has de-escalated a punishing trade war and buoyed global markets.
China did what many expected and pretty clearly capitulated ceased to resist the US’s unilateral attempt to start a damaging trade war and returned to the prior state of affairs while eating the damaging consequences that have already taken place. Probably the correct choice for their interest in fostering world trade but also majorly bailed out the US at a time where if they had wanted, they could have placed considerable pressure on the US economy. Any expectation we have of a Chinese conflict with the US needs to be considerably tempered after this. They still have no interest in serving as direct opposition to the US and when they do, it’s like with the Russians, only after they are forced by the west.
Edit: My wording led folks to believe I was admonishing the Chinese govt for their actions. That was not my intention and I do not claim to understand Chinese geopolitics better than the Chinese.
In addition to what others have mentioned, this analysis completely ignores the massive trade imbalance that is the underlying cause of the entire situation.
The US keeping higher tariffs doesn’t simply mean that they’re punishing China more than vice-versa, because the US putting tariffs on Chinese imports screws over the US economy dramatically more than it does the Chinese one. This is one of the main reasons why this trade war is so ridiculous (and hilarious), and is a theme going back to the first Trump administration.
It’s of course true that China backed off in a sense when they could have turned the screws, but considering this any kind of capitulation (or cessation of resistance or whatever) is a very crude and superficial look at the situation. More time for “as business as usual as possible” only benefits China. Given everything about China’s character as a geopolitical actor (long-term thinking and level-headedness compared to the west in particular) I don’t think this is surprising at all. China is not the sort of country to continuously react and escalate to a buffoon like this. They’ve demonstrated that they’re the adults in the room, shown the US to be weak, and can return to a relatively normal and non-escalatory position because they know that the more time goes on, the stronger their position is, and the more the imperialist monster will eat itself.
China is playing go while the US takes a shit on a checkers board in their own house and whines about the smell.
This is a very narrow minded way of interpreting geopolitics. Your option doesn’t contemplate that it will heighten the war efforts against China and may unite the US capitalist class that is currently fighting against themselves in keeping profits from China or going with the industrialization plan. Your argument also doesn’t contemplate that the Global South haven’t yet built strong diversification options from the USD.
Also, you are ignoring that the actual capitulation was the US and this was explained through plenty of news shared by @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml in c/worldnews. The US through Trump wanted to destabilize China economically and they found that it failed. Not only that but it exposed the different factions within the capitalist class that don’t want to lose profits from the chinese market. Also, all of the tariffs exposed that the US is an unreliable partner and that helped plunge the support for the US globally.
Adding to what IHave69XiBucks mentioned, this helps China to keep working their plans on BRI and BRICS and allows them the opportunity for other countries to diversify from the US economy. Diversification is a MUST for all of global south economies. Otherwise, we will never be free and socialism will not advance as long as their are a capitalist faction within their countries that favors US trade.
They still have no interest in serving as opposition to the US and when they do, it’s like with the Russians, only after they are forced by the west.
There is no need to be an open opposition. What matters most is that the opposition is within the imperial core and within their capitalist class.
Internal divisions are more harmful for the empire and their capitalist class rather than external opposition as you ideally suggested because they weaken the collective strength and create internal conflict that has been shown over and over again.
I said the Chinese had an opportunity to significantly pressure the US economy and did not take it. You are arguing that they shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to pressure the US economy. We aren’t having the same conversation. I don’t know what the right choice would be in this situation and don’t claim to understand the situation better than the Chinese govt if that wasn’t clear.
I said the Chinese had an opportunity to significantly pressure the US economy and did not take it. You are arguing that they shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to pressure the US economy. We aren’t having the same conversation.
As I said before, your option will speed up the war effort which means activating all of the puppets and US occupations in Asia(Philippines, Taiwan, ROK, Japan and others). It will also unite the US capitalist class. It will lead the US into turning plenty of countries in Asia to ucranization where there citizens are kidnapped to the frontline.
I wouldn’t call that an opportunity but a mistake that will lead to bloodshed of many.
Again, I’m not intending to make a value judgment or suggesting one course of action over another. If I intended to do that, I would have said something like “the Chinese should have punished the US”. But I never said that because I didn’t intend to make a value judgment or suggest a course of action over another, as though I’m better positioned to understand what’s going on than the people intimately involved.
But you did make a value judgement(arrogantly if I may add)… 🙄 Your intention was clear as purified water… As clear as the moonlight
When you said “China capitulated”, you implicitly told all of us what your standard is which is “China should have continued with their pressure and they lost if they didn’t continue” and the rest of interpretations are not good enough. You implicitly told us your strong preference for your main interpretation rather than actually measuring the rest of the interpretations available. Also, you don’t need to write “should” to make a value judgement.
If your true intention was to measure all of the interpretations available and examine if yours was the closest to the correct answer, then a better wording will have suffice and it will have help a lot if you didn’t double down on this:
So you agree that China is more interested in maintaining business as usual than putting pressure on the US?
My word choice betrayed what I intended to get at and I didn’t realize how significantly I misunderstood the connotation of capitulated until more folks started voicing the same perspective as XiBuck. That is why I initially balked at what I saw as a significant extension beyond what I intended to say in his response.
Keep in mind this is just a 90 day rollback that resulted from a weekend meeting. Actual trade deals take longer to hammer out and this buys time to do that without inflicting months of unnecessary economic damage to either party.
Im sorry what? Why are people so dead set on expecting China to just directly confront America right this second. China is still rapidly building up its military and working to build global alliances. Did you expect them to do D-Day 2.0 in California next year?? Its just like when the Soviets played nice with the germans to buy time.
The CPC literally puts their plans out publicly. You can go read them. They have said and continue to say they plan to launch their campaign for international revolution by 2050.
Also this isnt them capitulating at all. China only ever put the tariffs on the US in response to US tariffs. They don’t have any interest in over Tariffing American goods and already went to alternative markets for goods they were getting there, like Brazilian soy years ago, which wont be undone by this.
So China effectively lost nothing and got their tariffs lowered to based on the statement im reading 30%. While themselves maintaining a 10% tariff on US goods.
Which allows them to keep biding their time and building up. And oh look at that just today they released a white paper on national security outlining just that intention. Which you can find out about at https://english.www.gov.cn/news/
I get that in the west things seem dire, and you feel like Chinese paratroopers need to rain down tomorrow or the world is fucked, but the longer they buy time the better position China will be in. Slow and steady wins the race for a reason.
Have you considered that the situation we just got a 90 day pause on was untenable for China too? That they had a massive backstock of goods and were facing deflationary pressure internally? In what way does slowing Chinese progress and modernization help the socialist cause? The Americans are doing a perfectly fine job running their country into the ground, and do not need Chinas help in doing so. Chinas focus is on improving their own position not weakening the western position.
So you agree that China is more interested in maintaining business as usual than putting pressure on the US? That is what I originally said. This is why you should respond to the argument someone makes, not what you assume they are saying by imagined extension.
China had the US in a significantly compromised position and instead of pressing this, just decided to go back to business as usual without securing significant concessions as they likely could have. As anyone aware should know, being friendly to the US probably wont lead to the US later returning the favor, so the benefits of getting along don’t really exist. This is really just the US saying ‘let’s just pretend the last month where we significantly weakened our bargaining position didn’t happen’ and China says ok.
So that sounds like a lack of actively trying to put pressure on the US with express intention to hurt them, which is not the same as capitulating. As disappointing as it may be for those who wish to see the US tank as fast as possible, it seems to me like business as usual for China, who consistently appears to have a line something like “if you are willing to be cooperative, we will be cooperative with you. If you are belligerent, we will not bow.”
Within the current mode of things, it seems this is a critical stance for them to have, in order to replace the US as a dominant economic force and work toward a multipolar world, without being perceived as, or materially operating as, “new flavor of empire.” The fact alone that the US was not able to make China bow is already significant in and of itself. That China is not in turn trying to make the US bow is arguably significant in its own way, continuing to affirm their commitment to a cooperative mode of operating on the world stage.
We know the US / western empire will not go down willingly and I think it’s safe to say with 100% confidence that China is well aware of this too. It would be kind of chauvinistic I think to believe China is somehow ignorant and confused on this matter. But there is the question of how much can be shifted in the balance of power through economics without firing a shot, and the US recklessly decoupling from China and going full warhawk is arguably more dangerous to the burgeoning multipolarity than a deescalation that is not an immediate leg sweep of the US.
In short, I don’t think the takeaway here should be “capitulation”. It should be: The US tried to play mask off mob boss with the world. China said no and organized with other countries to be less tied up in this volatility. Now China is stronger, the US hurt itself in confusion, and China is still the level-headed cooperative-minded entity that it was before, taking a leading role in building a multipolar world.
P.S. Open to disagreement if I’m missing critical information in how this went down, but that is how it strikes me based on what I’ve observed.
Capitulated probably has the wrong connotation, but I was responding to a comment I interpreted as asking what concessions the Chinese got from the US. Namely, nothing directly. All the surrounding stuff is fair enough and likely where the Chinese negotiators heads were at too but they did not even mildly press the US here. That’s all I’m trying to say.
There was already a 25% tariff on a lot of goods from China before the trade war started. Now they’ve agreed to a flat 30% tariff, so basically Trump managed to raise tariffs on China by 5%.
Taking a quick look at it it seems like “China removes basically everything and the US keeps a lot still”.
Any better sources on this? Anything directly from China??
China did what many expected and pretty clearly
capitulatedceased to resist the US’s unilateral attempt to start a damaging trade war and returned to the prior state of affairs while eating the damaging consequences that have already taken place. Probably the correct choice for their interest in fostering world trade but also majorly bailed out the US at a time where if they had wanted, they could have placed considerable pressure on the US economy. Any expectation we have of a Chinese conflict with the US needs to be considerably tempered after this. They still have no interest in serving as direct opposition to the US and when they do, it’s like with the Russians, only after they are forced by the west.Edit: My wording led folks to believe I was admonishing the Chinese govt for their actions. That was not my intention and I do not claim to understand Chinese geopolitics better than the Chinese.
In addition to what others have mentioned, this analysis completely ignores the massive trade imbalance that is the underlying cause of the entire situation.
The US keeping higher tariffs doesn’t simply mean that they’re punishing China more than vice-versa, because the US putting tariffs on Chinese imports screws over the US economy dramatically more than it does the Chinese one. This is one of the main reasons why this trade war is so ridiculous (and hilarious), and is a theme going back to the first Trump administration.
It’s of course true that China backed off in a sense when they could have turned the screws, but considering this any kind of capitulation (or cessation of resistance or whatever) is a very crude and superficial look at the situation. More time for “as business as usual as possible” only benefits China. Given everything about China’s character as a geopolitical actor (long-term thinking and level-headedness compared to the west in particular) I don’t think this is surprising at all. China is not the sort of country to continuously react and escalate to a buffoon like this. They’ve demonstrated that they’re the adults in the room, shown the US to be weak, and can return to a relatively normal and non-escalatory position because they know that the more time goes on, the stronger their position is, and the more the imperialist monster will eat itself.
China is playing go while the US takes a shit on a checkers board in their own house and whines about the smell.
This is a very narrow minded way of interpreting geopolitics. Your option doesn’t contemplate that it will heighten the war efforts against China and may unite the US capitalist class that is currently fighting against themselves in keeping profits from China or going with the industrialization plan. Your argument also doesn’t contemplate that the Global South haven’t yet built strong diversification options from the USD.
Also, you are ignoring that the actual capitulation was the US and this was explained through plenty of news shared by @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml in c/worldnews. The US through Trump wanted to destabilize China economically and they found that it failed. Not only that but it exposed the different factions within the capitalist class that don’t want to lose profits from the chinese market. Also, all of the tariffs exposed that the US is an unreliable partner and that helped plunge the support for the US globally.
Adding to what IHave69XiBucks mentioned, this helps China to keep working their plans on BRI and BRICS and allows them the opportunity for other countries to diversify from the US economy. Diversification is a MUST for all of global south economies. Otherwise, we will never be free and socialism will not advance as long as their are a capitalist faction within their countries that favors US trade.
There is no need to be an open opposition. What matters most is that the opposition is within the imperial core and within their capitalist class.
Internal divisions are more harmful for the empire and their capitalist class rather than external opposition as you ideally suggested because they weaken the collective strength and create internal conflict that has been shown over and over again.
I said the Chinese had an opportunity to significantly pressure the US economy and did not take it. You are arguing that they shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to pressure the US economy. We aren’t having the same conversation. I don’t know what the right choice would be in this situation and don’t claim to understand the situation better than the Chinese govt if that wasn’t clear.
As I said before, your option will speed up the war effort which means activating all of the puppets and US occupations in Asia(Philippines, Taiwan, ROK, Japan and others). It will also unite the US capitalist class. It will lead the US into turning plenty of countries in Asia to ucranization where there citizens are kidnapped to the frontline.
I wouldn’t call that an opportunity but a mistake that will lead to bloodshed of many.
Again, I’m not intending to make a value judgment or suggesting one course of action over another. If I intended to do that, I would have said something like “the Chinese should have punished the US”. But I never said that because I didn’t intend to make a value judgment or suggest a course of action over another, as though I’m better positioned to understand what’s going on than the people intimately involved.
But you did make a value judgement(arrogantly if I may add)… 🙄 Your intention was clear as purified water… As clear as the moonlight
When you said “China capitulated”, you implicitly told all of us what your standard is which is “China should have continued with their pressure and they lost if they didn’t continue” and the rest of interpretations are not good enough. You implicitly told us your strong preference for your main interpretation rather than actually measuring the rest of the interpretations available. Also, you don’t need to write “should” to make a value judgement.
If your true intention was to measure all of the interpretations available and examine if yours was the closest to the correct answer, then a better wording will have suffice and it will have help a lot if you didn’t double down on this:
My word choice betrayed what I intended to get at and I didn’t realize how significantly I misunderstood the connotation of capitulated until more folks started voicing the same perspective as XiBuck. That is why I initially balked at what I saw as a significant extension beyond what I intended to say in his response.
Keep in mind this is just a 90 day rollback that resulted from a weekend meeting. Actual trade deals take longer to hammer out and this buys time to do that without inflicting months of unnecessary economic damage to either party.
Im sorry what? Why are people so dead set on expecting China to just directly confront America right this second. China is still rapidly building up its military and working to build global alliances. Did you expect them to do D-Day 2.0 in California next year?? Its just like when the Soviets played nice with the germans to buy time.
The CPC literally puts their plans out publicly. You can go read them. They have said and continue to say they plan to launch their campaign for international revolution by 2050.
Also this isnt them capitulating at all. China only ever put the tariffs on the US in response to US tariffs. They don’t have any interest in over Tariffing American goods and already went to alternative markets for goods they were getting there, like Brazilian soy years ago, which wont be undone by this.
So China effectively lost nothing and got their tariffs lowered to based on the statement im reading 30%. While themselves maintaining a 10% tariff on US goods.
Which allows them to keep biding their time and building up. And oh look at that just today they released a white paper on national security outlining just that intention. Which you can find out about at https://english.www.gov.cn/news/
I get that in the west things seem dire, and you feel like Chinese paratroopers need to rain down tomorrow or the world is fucked, but the longer they buy time the better position China will be in. Slow and steady wins the race for a reason.
Alright, how about you refrain from inventing a bunch of random stuff I never said to bolster your point?
China positively could have put the screws to the US but did not. They are being incredibly amicable with the US as they always are.
Have you considered that the situation we just got a 90 day pause on was untenable for China too? That they had a massive backstock of goods and were facing deflationary pressure internally? In what way does slowing Chinese progress and modernization help the socialist cause? The Americans are doing a perfectly fine job running their country into the ground, and do not need Chinas help in doing so. Chinas focus is on improving their own position not weakening the western position.
So you agree that China is more interested in maintaining business as usual than putting pressure on the US? That is what I originally said. This is why you should respond to the argument someone makes, not what you assume they are saying by imagined extension.
How exactly is this capitulating? I’m so confused.
China had the US in a significantly compromised position and instead of pressing this, just decided to go back to business as usual without securing significant concessions as they likely could have. As anyone aware should know, being friendly to the US probably wont lead to the US later returning the favor, so the benefits of getting along don’t really exist. This is really just the US saying ‘let’s just pretend the last month where we significantly weakened our bargaining position didn’t happen’ and China says ok.
So that sounds like a lack of actively trying to put pressure on the US with express intention to hurt them, which is not the same as capitulating. As disappointing as it may be for those who wish to see the US tank as fast as possible, it seems to me like business as usual for China, who consistently appears to have a line something like “if you are willing to be cooperative, we will be cooperative with you. If you are belligerent, we will not bow.”
Within the current mode of things, it seems this is a critical stance for them to have, in order to replace the US as a dominant economic force and work toward a multipolar world, without being perceived as, or materially operating as, “new flavor of empire.” The fact alone that the US was not able to make China bow is already significant in and of itself. That China is not in turn trying to make the US bow is arguably significant in its own way, continuing to affirm their commitment to a cooperative mode of operating on the world stage.
We know the US / western empire will not go down willingly and I think it’s safe to say with 100% confidence that China is well aware of this too. It would be kind of chauvinistic I think to believe China is somehow ignorant and confused on this matter. But there is the question of how much can be shifted in the balance of power through economics without firing a shot, and the US recklessly decoupling from China and going full warhawk is arguably more dangerous to the burgeoning multipolarity than a deescalation that is not an immediate leg sweep of the US.
In short, I don’t think the takeaway here should be “capitulation”. It should be: The US tried to play mask off mob boss with the world. China said no and organized with other countries to be less tied up in this volatility. Now China is stronger, the US hurt itself in confusion, and China is still the level-headed cooperative-minded entity that it was before, taking a leading role in building a multipolar world.
P.S. Open to disagreement if I’m missing critical information in how this went down, but that is how it strikes me based on what I’ve observed.
Capitulated probably has the wrong connotation, but I was responding to a comment I interpreted as asking what concessions the Chinese got from the US. Namely, nothing directly. All the surrounding stuff is fair enough and likely where the Chinese negotiators heads were at too but they did not even mildly press the US here. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Fair enough. I think I see what you’re going for, yeah.
There was already a 25% tariff on a lot of goods from China before the trade war started. Now they’ve agreed to a flat 30% tariff, so basically Trump managed to raise tariffs on China by 5%.
https://www.commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2024/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-takes-action-protect-american-workers-and