https://archive.is/FKuhi (reuters)
https://archive.is/MIdNc (afp)
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met for about eight hours with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Geneva in their first face-to-face meeting since the world's two largest economies heaped tariffs well above 100% on each other's goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that an 80% tariff on Chinese goods "seems right", suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145% levies he has imposed on Chinese imports.
Neither side made any statements about the substance of the discussions nor signaled any progress towards reducing crushing tariffs as meetings at the residence of Switzerland's ambassador to the U.N. concluded at about 8 p.m. local time. (1800 GMT)
The discussions are expected to restart on Sunday in the Swiss city, according to an individual familiar with the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The 80% number is just something that Trump posted on his social media early on Friday morning, before any meeting ever happened.
UPDATE Trump posted on truthsocial, 1 hour ago. He describes the meeting with the phrases "total reset" and "great progress". I won't believe this until I hear the perspective from China's government.
(went too long, here’s the rest of the comment)
What should China have done instead?
To understand how to get out of this mess, we need to understand what made the post-war Marshall Plan so successful in the first place.
As WWII was coming to an end, and with the war economy under FDR solving the unemployment issue caused by the Great Depression, and instead greatly increased the wages and living standards of the working class in America, the country now faces a new world that is rapidly demilitarizing. To keep American industries running and to prevent a massive layoffs that would have plunged the US into a recession once more, the Marshall Plan was enacted.
Now, did the US lowers the wages of its own people to maintain its export competitiveness? No, the US literally gave Germany a whole lot of dollars, which enabled the Germans to purchase American goods made by American factories and workers, and in turn raised the income of the American working class. This was what led to the postwar boom of the US economy in the 1950s. Eventually, the reindustrialization of postwar Germany and Japan would surpass that of America’s, and to maintain its imperialist streak, the empire chose to end the Bretton Woods arrangement and hyperleaped into finance capitalism, but that’s a story for another day.
The important point here is that China has to launch a Marshall Plan if they are serious about challenging US dominance. There is no point selling cheap Chinese EVs to African countries in exchange for their raw materials, for that will not help those countries industrialize and will only perpetuate their status as colonies to yet another superpower.
What China needs to do is to first, use its massive dollar reserves to pay back Africa’s and the Global South’s debt, then give those countries yuan - the Chinese currency - in order to support purchase of Chinese goods. This will in turn raise the income of the Chinese working class, increase their purchasing power, and will enable the Chinese workers to import goods and services from the Global South countries, raising their income too and fund the development of those countries.
Most important of all, this will also lower the massive trade surplus in China (yes, China will lose its net exporter status, but does China really want to compete with other poorer economies to manufacture low value added goods like shoes and clothings?), paving the way towards a bancor-like mechanism to return the world economy to a more balanced trade, and towards ending US monetary imperialism once and for all.
But there is no indication at all that China is willing to do this. The dollar hegemony has greatly benefited the Chinese economy over the past 30 years, and so we end up in this comical situation instead, where Trump is actively trying to end this mutually beneficial arrangement while China runs with “protectionism bad! free trade good!” defense.
But sooner or later, everyone will have to accept that neoliberalism has run its course. But, will it be the US new fascist technofeudalism that takes its place, or a socialist model upheld by the Global South?
Now this is a fucking xiaohongshu post
How did any of us believe the impostor for a second
pure cope that our penpal was back
yellow snow funny
Made a new account just in time to catch and upbear another banger xiaohongshu post. Massive bummer to hear about your laptop, glad you stopped by Hexbear again though!
Now I know who to follow.
One thing I didn't understand was about the IMF buying up a of the assets? I thought that the IMF just loaned money with liberalization agreements? Like, well give you money as long as you open up your markets, and privatize your public services.
Also, (still reading) what is the incentive for foreign capital to invest in regional governments? Is it like a bond thing? What would give confidence to an investor to buy local government debt?
IMF doesn’t buy up assets, IMF lends money to countries under economic distress and often makes demands like you have to balance your budget (“structural adjustments”), and to meet that target you cannot spend more than you earn (austerity), and so you have to cut social spending and public services, privatize this and that to get the money rolling. Show us low budget spending, show us you are financially responsible, and we will lend you the money.
In other words, it restrains economic development and further entrenches the influence of Western imperialism in the Global South.
For foreign investment, you gain access to that country’s market share. For example, the entire supply chain (including intermediaries) that Apple has built in China comprises nearly 5 million people. That’s about 0.6% of all employed workforce in China. Of course China can destroy Apple in a moment’s notice, but they have to be careful about the fallout in unemployment because 0.6% is not a small number and can have knock-on effect on the entire economy.
For banking capital, it’s about bypassing capital controls. Typically countries want to protect themselves from foreign capital speculation, so they impose capital controls. The downside to this is that if your economic policy requires that you attract foreign capital/earning export revenues in order to keep budget deficit down, because - no surprises here anymore - IMF says so (see my response to another user here), you’d want to open up your capital markets to let foreign capital in.
As you can see, China can easily solve half of its problems by simply stop believing in all the IMF neoliberal nonsense. From what I’ve seen, they are far too indoctrinated to do that, to the point of “accusing” Trump of violating IMF free trade agreement!