“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu states the following:
“All warfare is deception.”
While the news of the day consists of Roseanne Barr/Samantha Bee bad word salads, the Trump/Kim Jong-Un on-again-off-again relationship that is beginning to look like Ross and Rachel from “Friends”, the on-again-off-again relationship with Europe that resembles...I don’t know what, and, of course, that beloved Russia investigation, the Chinese are in talks with the United States regarding trade between our two countries. We really aren’t hearing much about that. Because of that, if you ask me, they are winning, and Trump might be winning with them.
There are some pretty big points of contention. The trade deficit is almost $400 billion favoring the Chinese and that is not good for our economy. Their manipulation of their currency is another sticking point, but the biggest point of contention was the Chinese telecom company ZTE. They were are in the news because of things they stole from the United States: Namely, cellular phone technology.
From all places...The Daily Caller:
The 2013 report of the prestigious bipartisan Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property certainly indicates that Chinese cyber-theft should top the list. It states, “The scale of international theft of American intellectual property (IP) is unprecedented — hundreds of billions of dollars per year, on the order of the size of U.S. exports to Asia,” and concludes, “China is the world’s largest source of IP theft.” The FBI agrees.
”China is Stealing America’s Property” by Chet Nagle, The Daily Caller, 9/24/2015
In essence, whenever they could steal they did steal, whenever and wherever they could.
At FBI headquarters in July, the head of FBI counterintelligence, Randall Coleman, said there has been a 53 percent increase in the theft of American trade secrets, thefts that have cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the past year. In an FBI survey of 165 private companies, half of them said they were victims of economic espionage or theft of trade secrets — 95 percent of those cases involved individuals associated with the Chinese government.
”China is Stealing America’s Property” by Chet Nagle, The Daily Caller, 9/24/2015
The FBI testified as late as February of 2018, that using cellphones created by Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei is a security risk.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked the group to raise their hands if they would recommend private American citizens use products or services made by Apple competitor Huawei or smartphone maker ZTE. None of them did.
FBI Director Chris Wray explained why it is an issue for companies and local governments to use Huawei or ZTE products and services.
There is a risk of letting any company "beholden to foreign governments" inside the country's telecommunications infrastructure, he said. Huawei is a global leader in networking equipment, and the government has previously blocked it from selling technology to some federal agencies.
“The FBI, CIA and NSA say American citizens shouldn't use Huawei phones” CNNMoney, by Selena Larson, 2/14/2018
In April of this year, Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, finally decided that enough was enough and we needed to do something about this.
The U.S. government said Chinese telecommunications-gear maker ZTE Corp. violated the terms of a sanctions settlement and imposed a seven-year ban on purchases of crucial American technology needed to keep it competitive.
”U.S. Government Cuts off ZTE from American Technology for 7 years” by Andrew Mayeka and Ian King, Bloomberg.com 4/16/2018
You would think that this would be a great negotiating tool in a trade negotiation. Well, not so much. One month later..
xPresident Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018“Donald Trump Now Wants to Save ZTE and Everyone is Confused”
xPresident Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018Here is what happened right after that (and I mean right after)…
China Contributing $500 Million to Trump-Linked Project in Indonesia
We heard about this early, but now nary a drip of information about the trade negotiations. And the mainstream media only took a sniff over this for about a minute and a half. Why? The concentration on the above-mentioned topics.
Trump literally gave up his biggest point of leverage, yet we hear nothing.
There was a lot of confusion (naturally) about this. Some hemming and hawing between Republican senators and Trump...
“Marco Rubio on Trump’s ‘Very Bad’ ZTE deal”
but eventually this “deal” was signed.
Trump Strikes Deal to Save China’s ZTE as North Korea Meeting Looms
Got that? He got a “win” before his hoped-upon next “win” in Singapore over North Korea’s nukes. (That’s in China. Guess who will be listening.) Please spare me the hope that the North Korean talks fail. They won’t. They’ll get some sort of milquetoast deal that Trump will proclaim is the deal of the century. His cult will follow. Then the Chinese will get away with murder.
Though Marco Rubio talks a big game, I think there is no way that the Senate stops this. They could, but they won’t because they are weak. We have heard next to nothing about if the Chinese will actually try to lower the trade deficit and absolutely nothing about China’s currency manipulation, which is precisely what China wants.
And that, my friends, is how Trump and the Republicans have let China off the hook. They get caught stealing and get a slap on the wrist and go about doing their business. (I’m sorry. $1.3 billion is chickenfeed compared to the trillions the Chinese can actually pay out.) I know they are saying that they will get risk managers and do better at overseeing their company, but that is what banks said before the Great Recession. They had risk managers, too, you know.
Besides, how the hell is the party of less regulation understand how good regulation works?
Trump’s tweeting is the distraction. Trump’s chaos is the distraction. I wouldn’t be surprised that not only has he colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election, but with the Chinese as well.
We know it. We feel it, but now we need to get out there and shove in people’s faces that China (and their money) mean more to him than America, because that is what this is really about. Maybe we can push the Senate to not ratify this agreement (it is a treaty, after all), because it is terribly one-sided, but I am not holding out hope for that. This is an issue, however, that we need to use against the Republicans in November. We need to remind people that Trump promised the Chinese would suffer. Well, they haven’t and are not going to be in the foreseeable future. More jobs are going there. Count on it.
The good news is that we may have some help on the horizon.
Justin Trudeau and the rest of the leaders of the G-7 have pulled a fast one on Trump, and I love it. The Canadian Prime Minister is using another tenet of Sun Tzu’s tome.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”
Yesterday, after a disastrous meeting with the G-7, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that the tariffs he imposed on American products in response to Trump’s tariff against Canada on steel and aluminum would stay in place.
This the C-Span video. Part of this is in French (which, frankly, sounds better).
This made Trump mad.
xPM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting†and he “will not be pushed around.†Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2018We need Canada and the entire European Union to respond in-kind to Trump’s trade wars. This has been Trump’s biggest mistake. The fact is he started it, but Trudeau and company needs to finish it. They did not fall for his deception. They knew he was giving them the business. Trudeau is hitting Trump’s voters and not just Trump. The tariffs are aimed directly at them. They are not going to let him off the hook.
Trump himself said that the farmers (whom he purports to love) might suffer a little pain…
“Trump warns Americans may have to feel a little trade war ‘pain’”
Well, they ain’t seen nothing yet.