Is China Dumping the Dollar? – And is Ray Dalio Right about Reserve Currencies?
Is China Dumping the Dollar? – And is Ray Dalio Right about Reserve Currencies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nj4b-619A
Tag: China
China’s Halt of Critical Minerals
China is the only main supplier of rare earths. Rare earths are key to military and industrial technologies. The Trump administration seems unprepared for China’s predictable move to ban rare earth minerals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcR50vC6nGE
Tariff carve-outs underscore weak US position in China trade war: ‘This is going to get really ugly’
“The White House says it has the upper hand in its trade war with China. Its actions suggest otherwise.
Top administration officials spent the weekend trying to defend a carve-out of consumer electronics from the astronomical 145 percent tariffs it levied on China last week. The carve-out was neither an exemption nor a policy rollback, the White House argued, because those electronics are still subject to a separate 20 percent tariff on China and some electronic components could face sector-specific tariffs in the future.
But to some White House allies, the exceptions are indicative of the relatively weak position the administration is in as it wages a trade war with China, which has spent years making preparations for an escalation with the U.S. on trade. The carve-outs also reveal the conundrum facing the administration: The U.S. is imposing new tariffs on Chinese goods in an attempt to move manufacturing back to the U.S., but those tariffs are particularly painful for U.S. manufacturers because they are currently so dependent on Chinese parts.
So far, the U.S. has demonstrated that it is more willing to bend than China is in this burgeoning fight.
“Xi Jinping will not back down,” said one former Trump administration official, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to share their candid assessment of the U.S.-China relationship, adding that “the CCP will lose confidence in him” if he does, using the acronym for the ruling Chinese Communist Party.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/14/trump-china-tariff-carve-outs-weak-position-00008887
USAID-Funded Pandemic Research Failed To Spot COVID or Ensure Chinese Transparency
USAID-Funded Pandemic Research Failed To Spot COVID or Ensure Chinese Transparency
https://reason.com/2025/02/06/usaid-funded-pandemic-research-failed-to-spot-covid-or-ensure-chinese-transparency/
USA Trade War Escalates
Despite the tariff pullback, Trump tariffs are still very high!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt8RGkgHKwo
How China Is Preparing for “Major-Power War”
How China Is Preparing for “Major-Power War”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDcWLm_ltIk
TikTok deal put on hold after China objects over tariffs, sources say
“A deal to spin off the U.S. assets of TikTok was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve the deal following President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Trump on Friday extended by 75 days a deadline for ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of the popular short video app to a non-Chinese buyer, or face a ban that was supposed to have taken effect in January under a 2024 law.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-tiktok-sale-deadline-looms-141008550.html
What we can learn about China’s J-36 (from America’s FB-22)
The F-22 could have been far more capable, but the U.S., thinking threats to its air superiority were over, canceled the upgrades to save money. Now, U.S. air superiority is threatened by China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIooaaPlOA
How can China be socialist if it has a stock market? Understanding the Chinese economy
China is not really capitalist because some of their most important industries are owned by the government and the government doesn’t care about the stock market. The main goal of those state owned enterprises is not profit, and, unlike in the U.S., the Chinese government is not concerned with keeping their stock market growing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4__IBd_sGE
Trump’s TikTok-Oracle deal could break the law — but nobody can stop him
“Across Washington, China hawks are trying to draw a hard line against any plan that would let ByteDance maintain a degree of control of the company or insight into its underlying technology, both of which are banned by the bipartisan 2024 law passed by Congress.
But Trump is already violating that law by allowing the app to stay online. And if his promised deal goes through, Congress has almost no leverage to stop it: The law leaves final approval in the president’s hands, and lawmakers can’t take him to court even if he violates its clear meaning.
“Congress does not have standing to sue,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. He said a lawmaker can typically only file suit if they’re personally harmed by a violation.
An illegal TikTok-Oracle deal blessed by Trump would immediately join a host of White House actions that flout settled law. The Trump administration is being sued for breaking laws around deportations, civil-service protections, federal spending rules, government data-sharing and more — all of which are now playing out in federal courts across the country.
When it comes to TikTok, however, even the courts offer little recourse to enforce the 2024 law, which the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed in January.
The law requires a “qualified divestiture” of TikTok — an arrangement where ByteDance gives up all control of both the company and the powerful algorithm that runs TikTok’s video-sharing service. It can retain at most a 20 percent financial stake in the company.
The Oracle deal under discussion — a modification of a prior arrangement between TikTok and Oracle, where U.S. user data was stored on Oracle-run servers while ByteDance retained a role in TikTok’s operations — would likely flunk one or more of those tests. But it’s Trump who is ultimately empowered to declare an agreement acceptable.
“The president gets to decide what constitutes a qualified divestiture,” said Michael Sobolik, a former national security staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. “That is completely up to him, even though the contours of what needs to happen in a divestiture are spelled out in the law.”
China hawks on Capitol Hill are rattling their sabers at Trump, warning against any deal that keeps ByteDance in the room.
“The law is clear,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, wrote on Tuesday. “Any deal must eliminate Chinese influence and control over the app to safeguard our interests.”
But Moolenaar and other lawmakers have few options to stop Trump once he decides to proceed. And lawyers say Washington’s sense of powerlessness is compounded by the fact that the White House is already ignoring the TikTok law.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/21/trumps-tiktok-oracle-deal-could-break-the-law-but-nobody-can-stop-him-00242107