Its not like Chinas economy is on fire…..
….or that they are a great trading partner…..
If there was sudden switch, and all trading flows ceased between the US and China, both countries would be harmed, but ours more severely. China doesn’t really depend on us for much. Soybeans? $0 in 2025 apparently. Oil? How about Canadian oil, eh?
They are heavily electrifying their economy, and solarizing, and nuclearizing their grid. They now have fast electric trains going everywhere… I’ve been on the Beijing to Shanghai high speed rail, it was awesome. We seem to fight and fight and overpay to build so much as a treehouse.
Chinese, Singaporean, Malaysian airports are beautiful, I come home to Houston, and ours are dingy and depressing. Houston Hobby listed as one of America’s worst recently. When you sit in the Cell Phone lots in the Houston airport, you feel like the resident of a homeless encampment.
We can’t fight a war without Chinese controlled rare earths.
Repeat - we can’t fight a war without rare earths.
“Cut off nose to spite face” comes to mind.
I can hear the shouts and grunts “we should just effing TAKE the rare earths!”. Land war in Asia, hundreds of times worse than Afghanistan… that would turn out poorly.
China is trying to be the adult on the world stage, and is backfilling the trade spaces that we leave, if they offer products to fill, not to mentioned foreign aid that ultimately benefits them, of course.
What we USED to do. The free food we sent abroad, was bought from US farmers.
I think it’s all just sad. I’m a bit insulated with my gold (US currency diversifier) and my heavy non-US stock allocation (and as a trader I date my stocks, I don’t marry them) and I look around at people and think to myself… “you have no earthly idea what could be coming in 2026 when sentiment turns into hard data”, especially considering that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are loaded with debt.
I look at the homeless and Houston and think… it’s not really hard times overall in America. What if we have a really bad recession or stagflation? What will society look like then? And who will be scapegoated for it?
What would be your plan to equalize trade with China and bring back American production and self-reliance?
It’s a good thing I’m not a politician, because I would not have a plan. My answer is a 100% “I don’t know”. I can’t tell you how you undo or run in reverse four decades of deliberate US monetary, fiscal, and industrial policy (or dis-policy) in order to regain what we lost.
In a nutshell, here is the last forty years:
We’ve exported jobs to China to lower US corporate costs… so the first and largest share of blame goes to US executives and managers who have sold out American workers. Or… maybe they’ve been fiduciaries, and have been maximizing shareholder value. Take your pick.
In doing so, we exported our 1970s and early 1980s inflation… we imported deflation from China.
We paid Chinese producers in US Dollars, then they sunk those Dollars into US Treasuries, funding our ballooning Federal debt.
Another things that happened is the Boomer generation (the Reagan Revolutionaries, “The Me Generation”) decided they want to decrease commitment to things like education, to increase their short-term personal wealth, so since the 1980s public education in real terms at all levels has been slashed, and surprise! we’ve had to import scientific and engineering talent via the H1-B Visa program, mostly from India but also China. So American corporations were literally playing an international game of education arbitrage, buying talent on the cheap, and to heck with Americans born here… exactly what they did with manufacturing.
The problem is, you don’t just grow an engineer on demand… that’s a multiple decades endeavor. In fact, it’s generational. I was a Geophysicist, so my daughter was something closely related… an Electrical Engineer. We’re at the point where many Americans aren’t just not educated, I fear they’re not educatable! Not ready to learn.
America is so used to the printing press… “money printer go brrr”, lower interest rates, increase stock market liquidity. Well, you can’t print an engineer, you can’t print an electrical grid, you can’t print lithium. And, we’re going to find out that you can’t print the trust of allies and trading partners.
So here we are… got any ideas?
That’s why I have international investments and gold…
I’m glad you asked. Yes, I would increase tariffs on goods from other countries to force US self-reliance and production. Especially in cases where the other countries have had predatory US practices and we need to even the playing field.
And regarding, “We’re at the point where many Americans aren’t just not educated, I fear they’re not educatable! Not ready to learn.” – yes there are too many worthless, stupid and lazy people.
But when I see things like Microsoft firing thousands of qualified US workers at the same time as they import thousands of H-1Bs, it lets me know our problem isn’t unqualified American workers, it is evil practices by large companies who put profit ahead of America.
I’m looking at the US car makers now, I’m getting very afraid that they are setting themselves up for a repeat of the 1970s 1980s. We’ve already tariff’d the Chinese electric car company BYD off of US shores. But BYD reported makes a fantastic car… you know who said so? The CEO of Ford.
“Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that if the U.S. loses the global EV race to China, “we do not have a future Ford.” He made this statement during a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival in mid-2025, referencing Chinese automakers like BYD and Xiaomi.”
BYD is doing what Honda / Toyota did a generation or two earlier to the global car industry. But US car makers are insulated from that now with tariffs. so they aren’t competing, they’re not learning.
American car makers are building for the US luxury market, and the US luxury market alone… just like in the 1970s. Why? Because rich Americans have stock, real estate, and crypto money due to “money printer go brrrr”. The top 10% of the US is doing 50% of the buying. And because Americans are beyond broke, totally in debt.
They are totally setting themselves up to be disrupted, again. If if they go under… I don’t think they can be rescued. Not again. People won’t stand for it.
I understand the sentiment around tariffs. But tariffs only appear to solve things. What we really need to try in the US is capitalism, but the US government has been captured, so we practice crony “fake capitalism”. CINO… Capitalism In Name Only. We need really deep reforms around:
Monetary policy
Fiscal policy
Education
Industrial policy
Tariffs might be a small bit of that in some cases. But not most of it.
And everything has to be in relation to what the entire rest of the world is doing. We only have 25% of global GDP! Did you know that? It’s very possible our stock market “catches down” from 65% down to 25% of global stock market value.
You’re making future predictions based on history. But technology and demands have changed.
With the increasing popularity of ridesharing and passenger drones replacing land vehicles, we will probably never return to the car manufacturing the country once had. I anticipate most people will ride-share with passenger drones.
It makes for a provocative moment in which to reconsider global trade dynamics. What is unfolding at the moment reflects how connected, yet by design, robustly, regulated, resilient the global economy is today. When Trump claimed that China would have a difficult time without U.S. consumers, the assumption was that it was too economically reliant and dependent on U.S. consumers to be able to diversify or quickly re-establish the trade relations. China is tossing around trade partners now, especially to EM’s, as well as Southeast Asia, and African partners.
This does not mean the U.S. market doesn’t matter anymore, because it still has an importance in the global trade symphony, but China is intentionally working to reduce single-market risk and expand their domestic and regional demand. The American companies are also desiring to diversify the supply chain, shifting some into Vietnam, India, and Mexico.
So instead of just collapsing under the pressure of U.S. trade policy, China adapted to develop a more fragmented, multipolar trade relationship, which opens the economy to less trade protectionism with other countries by being less reliant on a single country, in addition to re-establishing responsiveness to shocks of trade policy.
Let me disassemble your points here…
Ridesharing INCREASES vehicle use per passenger trip and roadway congestion. Why? Because 40% of the time, the Uber / Lyft vehicle is empty, dwell time or running to the next assignment. This is called “deadheading”. And that will be true even if the vehicle is computer piloted!
When you drive your own vehicle, whether you drive it or whether it it computer piloted, when you get to the destination, you park it. It’s not depreciating (wearing out) sitting there,
You’re confusing YOUR investment with vehicles with ALL OF SOCIETY’S investment in vehicles. Yes, ridesharing solves YOUR problem of having to own a car. But the US and world will need more car, unless we pivot to public transit, in which case we will need more roling stock for transit (I don’t see that at all in the US). The US, the World will need more vehicles, and (getting back to the original point of the post) if we don’t have a intelligently thought out total industrial and human resources strategy China will win with great vehicles at a low price point, and stick a chopstick in us, we’re done. The re-dinosaured, re-protected by tariffs US auto companies like Ford will be dead, as CEO Farley fears. And GM, Stellantis.
ELECTRIC HOVERCRAFT - currently the Chinese EHANG hovercraft capable of flying up to 300 meters high is certified for passengers for short sigtseeing trips up 3-10 minutes long. Cost? $100-$300. Dubai is still trying to launch their EHANG based hovercraft tourist enterprise… so this is only operating experimentally in China.
Flying vehicles do not need roads, which means we would need a lot less road infrastructure. This reduces all of society’s investment in transportation.
Of course, cars depreciate when they’re sitting there. Why would you think they don’t?
When multiple people share the same vehicle (either land-based or flying), you need fewer vehicles.
The problems facing private flying vehicles as a practical transportation system are many and are very difficult to overcome.
They must be lightweight but robust enough to park in a public place. A slight bump could make it unable to safely fly. The propulsion system would need to be robust, quiet and efficient. The landing and takeoff areas would have to be clear of obstructions and people. Traffic control would have to automatically control every flying vehicle and accommodate hundreds or thousands simultaneously.
And that needs to be done cheaply and not use fossil fuels.
The technology will be here sooner than later and will use fewer resources than maintaining the current land transportation system at existing levels.
Will the same solutions immediately replace all land-based people and freight transportation? Probably not. But you don’t need to solve every problem and replace everything as the tech unfolds.
And there is no reason why flying vehicles can’t use fossil fuels.
It’ll take a very long time for private flying vehicles to be practical in a metro setting and it would have to be 100% centrally controlled via autopilot from beginning to end of every flight in within designated airspaces.
Fossil-fuel powered propulsion is very poor at fuel weight-to-power ratios at low altitudes and produces way too much heat.
I’m 100% for people sharing the same vehicle… carpooling, public transit… but Uber / Lyft isn’t that, just to be clear. The driver is a worker, he or she comes with the vehicle, providing a service, isn’t going anywhere. Only one person is a true traveler, going from point A to point B… the fare payer.
Depreciation is a model. It’s an abstraction to predict how much value an asset loses over time. There is no hard and fast “law” to it, like gravity.
In reality, most cars do lose value sitting there (t), but that rate of depreciation is small compared to the miles (t) put on it and the kinds of miles (city stop and go, extreme temps, stored outside vs inside, towing, smooth tarmac vs gravel roads, variable k). “It all depends”.
If you avoid driving your car, it will depreciate more slowly. It’s not d=f(t), it’s d=f(t)+g(m)*h(k)
Don’t confuse your personal ownership of a vehicle and the number of vehicles (and roads) needed by society. Who the vehicle is titled to is irrelevant to transportation planners. VMT matter, vehicle miles traveled.
Actual hovercraft… wow, how about air traffic control problems? I had an FAA drone pilot’s license (haven’t used it, it expired), and to fly a drone anywhere you have to file a flight plan or get an exemption from a flight plan based on altitude and location, but you to apply online in real-time for exemptions.
Can you imagine the numbers of mid-air collisions that would occur if soccer parents were dashing their kids around at 4 PM? Or commuters trying to fly in non-VFR conditions? I think this is totally untenable, given the fragility of our ATC system. We had ground stops this week and HOU and IAH because of ATC staffing.
I think there would be huge numbers of deaths even from take-off / landings hitting trees, powerlines. Hovercraft higher than 12 inches ain’t happening, for which you will still need roads. Maybe they potholes don’t have to be fixed but the traffic must still flow and be controlled at intersections.
I have 2,000 hours logged as a private pilot. When you add up & down to the horizontal navigation process things can get a lot more complicated.
And when on the ground not in use, an aircraft takes up way more real estate per person transported than a car does.
If I could press the reset button on my life….that’s one area I would pursue…..
In Alaska an airplane is the equivalent of an RV.
I’m going to answer a few messages by H200h and ochotona here, just to cut down on clutter.
Fossil-fuel powered propulsion is very poor at fuel weight-to-power ratios at low altitudes and produces way too much heat.
I expect many of these will be battery-powered and charged via fossil-fuel power until Nuclear and other options become ubiquitous. Some people seem to think that “battery powered” means the power comes from Unicorns and the Sun, when it often comes from fossil fuels.
100% centrally controlled via autopilot from beginning to end of every flight in within designated airspaces.
Probably not. I would expect onboard AI to handle all piloting.
Actual hovercraft… wow, how about air traffic control problems? I had an FAA drone pilot’s license (haven’t used it, it expired), and to fly a drone anywhere you have to file a flight plan or get an exemption from a flight plan based on altitude and location, but you to apply online in real-time for exemptions.
I would expect onboard AI to handle all piloting, but there could be central systems in place to avoid congestion, weather, hazards, etc. and the AI would communicate with it.
Can you imagine the numbers of mid-air collisions that would occur if soccer parents were dashing their kids around at 4 PM? Or commuters trying to fly in non-VFR conditions? I think this is totally untenable, given the fra…
Again, AI would handle all of the piloting. These probably wouldn’t even have manual controls.
See-and-avoid VFR-type flight would likely be impossible, even with AI doing 100% of the flying and nav. Onboard AI would have to interface with a central traffic control communicating with every vehicle in the controlled airspace and designated ground-to-air transition zones within. Additionally that system would have to interface with long-range aircraft transitioning within and/or near as well.
Once quantum systems become a reality and AI is integrated into them, a workable solution would be possible. Until then, I don’t think so.