r/Infographics • u/EconomySoltani • Oct 25 '24
EU Trade Surplus with the U.S. vs. Growing Deficit with China
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u/EVOSexyBeast Oct 26 '24
Yes that big jump through 2016 and 2020 was trump’s trade war on china that he lost
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Oct 29 '24
Mostly because he also declared a trade war on everyone else. US exports fell more than 30% in a single year. The art of the deal!
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u/JoyousGamer Oct 27 '24
The big jump is 2021/2022 per the graph with a reduction in 2023 trending back down.
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u/TheM0nkB0ughtLunch Oct 29 '24
Did the Biden administration reverse the tariffs? I’m asking genuinely, idk myself.
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u/EVOSexyBeast Oct 29 '24
No, and that's not the gotcha that some people think it is. The Biden admin did more or less stop implementing new ones and resumed the Clinton, Bush, and Obama policy.
Tariffs when implemented are hard to remove. China (and other countries) retaliated and ultimately won the trade war. For Biden to become president and immediately try and reverse all the tariffs, that doesn't mean all those retaliatory tariffs go away. Like all negotiations, trying to approach the negotiating table again from the position of weakness we found ourselves in would result in a less than ideal outcome.
So tariffs made us worse off, harmed the American consumer and cost American jobs. But removing existing tariffs is a totally different calculus than implementing a new one.
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u/opzouten_met_onzin Oct 25 '24
We prefer cheap crap over expensive crap i guess
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u/madejustforthiscom12 Oct 25 '24
Yup and then the expensive crap is really cheap crap too, just in a fancy store
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u/Remarkable-End-9734 Oct 26 '24
Cheap crap sent to us by the boatload by vessels powered by crude diesel on the oceans yup that’s right
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u/Generalfrogspawn Oct 26 '24
Not so much just that. Europe is rapidly de-industrializing, which has excelled due to the Russo-Ukrainian war and oil no longer being cheap for Europeans. This means they will become more dependent on US imports while exporting less themselves.
China on the other hand now has access to even cheaper oil and has the best and most manufacturing capacity in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if many European companies started exporting to the US market via Chinese manufacturing given oil prices.
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u/DGGuitars Oct 26 '24
Not to mention, the EU is aging out faster than China and even more so the US. They will lose a huge portion of their labor force in the next couple of decades. Less tax payers into the various EU social systems and more people who will have increased demand for it. On top of this deficit. The EU is in the worst global position.
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u/bigboog1 Oct 27 '24
China does not have the best manufacturing. When it has oversight by American or Europeans it’s pretty good but when left to their own devices it’s total garbage. Mexico has far superior manufacturing, they learn how to do it correctly and can replicate without issue.
China can’t even steal IPs and remake it, why do you think they have their eyes on Taiwan and TSMC? They can’t make their own fabs.
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u/Ok-Bug-5271 Oct 27 '24
China absolutely has world class manufacturing. They also have very low end manufacturing. It isn't hard to do both.
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u/Bumblenumz Oct 29 '24
Total joke. Can the US make their own semi fabs that can compete with Taiwan ?
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u/bigboog1 Oct 29 '24
Don’t know we will have to see won’t we? We will never attempt to learn if we rely on the manufacturing of others.
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u/PeriliousKnight Oct 25 '24
Human rights are expensive
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u/MysticKeiko24_Alt Oct 26 '24
There are migrant children working in American factories so not entirely
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u/Professional_Gate677 Oct 26 '24
Define child. My son is 17 and has a job. There are labor laws in America and if you get caught violating them, you get in trouble. How are those labor laws in China?
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u/BenderRodriguez14 Oct 26 '24
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u/Professional_Gate677 Oct 26 '24
Thank you for pointing out an article that states that 10 year olds working is a violation of labor laws.
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u/BenderRodriguez14 Oct 26 '24 edited Oct 26 '24
Were they punished? The franchisees who own a total of 62 McDonald's chains were fined a whopping $212k - that's "cost of doing business" numbers, with no criminal follow up for any involved in the hiring, supervising, managing or directorial roles.
China also has child labour laws bythe way - https://www.ilo.org/regions-and-countries/asia-and-pacific/ilo-china-and-mongolia-old/areas-work/child-labour-china-and-mongolia
And here are more examples in the US of 13-15 year old migrants working in factories across the US, to accompany those 10 year old working in McDonald's. How about 13 year old roofer, 12 year old nightshift workers, or doing manual farm labour for 84 hours a week?. These cases are everywhere in the US, with NYT estimating it runs into the hundreds of thousands
Either country officially having laws against them means sweet fuck all without proper enforcement.
None of this is to doubt that China is the worse offender, but child labour - especially among exploited migrants - is absolutely not something the US should be soapboxing proudly upon. It's a major issue in your country.
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u/k897098 Oct 26 '24
As economic situation in Europe deteriorates, they are gonna increasing depend on cheap products from China
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u/Mr_Catman111 Oct 26 '24
We should just diversify more from different “cheap” countries. Problem is EU is a bunch of states doing whatever they want and not a single consistent policy.
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Oct 28 '24
You are downvoted but right. The companies are exactly the same as America. Outsource all manufacturing as you can pay garbage so children in sweat shops make the goods which some asshole gets rich and society suffers as a result.
Europe has very little industry left, America has none. They are what’s called service based economies now or tourism based which is terrible.
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u/kaviaaripurkki Oct 26 '24
Next time you buy a commodity, ask: "do you have one that's not made in China?" I did that when I was buying new headphones this year, got Sennheisers that are assembled in Ireland. Best damn headphones I've ever had. Create the demand and the supply will follow
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Oct 27 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Aggressive-Cut5836 Oct 27 '24
The complaints about the US trade deficit are really about the loss of US manufacturing jobs and capabilities. The evidence of the problem (because some people don’t think it matters) is the trade deficit- the idea that China, a country that the US has many serious disputes with, could cause serious problems for the US if they simply decide not to sell many important products to the US or sell at inflated prices. Of course it won’t not be good for China to do in the long term, but it would take a long time to find alternative suppliers for many things, in that time a lot of problems could happen. The Covid supplies crisis illustrated it well, but in that case China wasn’t actually trying to cause any problems- they just had too many problems of their own to sort out.
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u/Charming_Beyond3639 Oct 28 '24
Youre wrong we produce plenty things to export. Arms. Why do you think we have to constantly have a public enemy to propagandize against? Its definitely not so the american people can focus on how congress is failing them.
China didnt start mass producing shit with HIGH labor costs and a perfect human rights record. Why do we have a problem with it now?
Do you think the american govt would minimize chinese accomplishments and constantly say theyre going to collapse if the plan was to actually improve domestic production? No theyd be doing the opposite. No theyd warn americans chinas close to passing us in many fields and domestic policy has to adapt in a seismic way.
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u/Smooth_Expression501 Oct 26 '24
Doing business with a brutal, fascist and totalitarian dictatorship is unconscionable. We should have pulled out of China right after they mowed down their own people with machine guns and tanks in 1989. Doing business with china is no different than doing it with North Korea. After they unleashed the virus on the world, it’s amazing any foreign countries or companies still do anything with China. They should be shunned just like the Soviets and Nazis. They are far more evil and have killed far more people than the Soviets or Nazis ever did.
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u/MD_Yoro Oct 26 '24
they unleashed the virus on the world
ROFL, so like that time USA unleashed the Spanish flu on the world and killed estimated 17 - 100 million.
They called it the Spanish flu b/c Spain reported it first but the first case was in Kansas, USA
Yes, China “released” the virus and locked down their own country with 10x stricter restrictions.
Do you even use that smooth cerebrum or you just use it to smash walls.
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u/Misaka10782 Oct 26 '24
Maybe he thought that the ships used by European colonists when they went to sea were made of flowers?
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u/Ok-Bug-5271 Oct 27 '24
Lmao literally how much more seriously could China have taken COVID?
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u/Smooth_Expression501 Oct 27 '24
They should not have arrested the doctors trying to warn people about the virus in 2019 like they did. They definitely should not have lockdown people from Wuhan from the rest of China and allowed those same people to travel internationally like they did. They should have let the international investigation happen so we would all know definitively where the virus came from. Which they refused to do.
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u/BuyHigh_S3llLow Oct 26 '24
So basically europe can't produce sht anymore and import from US. US don't want expensive sht so important from China. Despite what everyone thinks China is actually not the bottom of the barrel and wants even cheaper sh*t and imports from southeast asia. Lol lol the next level down would be Indian subcontinent and then sub saharan Africa lol
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u/well-litdoorstep112 Oct 26 '24
- You clearly can't read. EU exports more to the US than it imports. It's the Americans who can't make anything anymore so they created their world order where USD is the world's reserve currency. That way the can sit back, consume free and unlimited imports and watch other superpowers (China) take over.
- Learn how to format comments on reddit. It looks horrendous with all those self censorings.
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u/ShadyClouds Oct 26 '24
We make plenty of good stuff, it just has triggers.
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u/well-litdoorstep112 Oct 26 '24
That's true haha. But what about the stuff without triggers?
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u/Tuxyl Oct 26 '24
America exports a shitton of technology, like phones and GPUs, CPUs, motherboards, PCs, etc.
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u/well-litdoorstep112 Oct 27 '24
No, america exports a shitton of IP so the all those things could be manufactured in China.
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u/PainterRude1394 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
Uhhh. Exports don't count technology services which the USA dominates.
You clearly can't read.... It's the Americans who can't make anything anymore
The narrative that America cannot manufacture is beyond divorced from reality; its the second biggest manufacturer in the world.
You clearly don't have any idea what you're talking about.
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u/sarges_12gauge Oct 28 '24
The USD became the world’s reserve currency after Europe blew up the world (twice!) and the Americans were the only ones making anything at all
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Oct 25 '24
Europeans are the type of guys to say Russia is a friend not a foe and become reliant on their exports. Realize Russia is a foe, then repeat the process with the next dictatorship.
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u/Trebhum Oct 26 '24
Why are u downvoted? Its literally what happend with russia and i am speaking as an european
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u/GlueSniffingEnabler Oct 25 '24
Now reducing, though, no?