2y ago

China set to lose crown as top U.S. exporter after 17 years

asia.nikkei.com

Mexico to take lead as 'friendshoring' brings in manufacturing

15 comments

I love it. My geopolitical fantasy is that North America, Central America, and the Caribbean form an EU-esque partnership some day. We need to focus on supporting and uplifting our neighbors.
- “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” - Hillary Clinton
  If only we had Pokemon-gone to the polls.
  
  A capitalist like Clinton ain’t getting green or sustainable shit.
  
  I pokemon-did 😞
- NAFTA?
  
  https://askanydifference.com/difference-between-nafta-and-eu/
  Tl;dr NAFTA (and later USMCA) is primarily a trade agreement, while the EU is much broader in scope, including free movement of people without visa restrictions and a common currency.
Wow. I had no idea Mexico was such a major player in exports.
- The countries with the infrastructure, and skilled population, to create a lot of major exports are rapidly getting more expensive as their cost of living increases. This, on top of the extra over-head of shipping across the planet, is causing a lot of industries to seek manufacturing bases closer to home. A number of higher end industries are returning to the US, others places like Mexico and Brazil.
The Biden White House has also maintained the tariffs on Chinese products worth $370 billion imposed by predecessor Donald Trump.
That's a hell of a sentence :) I guess we can agree on some things... Tarrifs on china, truly bipartisan...
- It's not like China has any intention of lifting the counter tariffs they put in place, especially with tensions rising over Taiwan, so there's almost no reason for the biden admin to have done this.
  
  Reducing inflation by cutting the cost of imports would be one reason.
  Of course, the consequence of that is that voters in the Rust Belt hate you and you lose re-election, so that explains that one pretty easily.
- Was reading an article about the CPTPP that left me wondering if/when the US might have another crack at it? It's sort of an Everyone-But-China economic club as it stands, and the US was heavily involved in it early on until Trump came along.
  
  Hopefully never.
  As an Australian it would’ve been one of the worst things to happen to us in a long time.
China's exports to the West (as a proportion of the total) has been shrinking: most recently, it was reported that China now exports more to the Global South than to all developed countries combined.
This is, in large part, as China also pursues "friendshoring" by offshoring labour-intensive manufacturing to countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, and recently even considering expansion to Mexico.
Bye Felicia

15 comments