The effect of the Coronavirus
As the Corona virus spreads and results in the disruption of the supply chain from China, it has becoming alarmingly clear just how dependent on that country the world economy has become.
That is very true for the United States. The shutdown of the manufacture and shipping of the materials that we import from China threatens to impact the manufacturing of this country to a major extent. The wall street gurus recognized this and the results are shown in the decline the the stock market.
It turns out the almost every essential thing you buy has a part or all of it manufactured in China. They are into every thing.
Cars can't be built because critical parts are manufactured in China.
If your television isn't outright made in China, critical parts of it is
Look around you. Almost everything you see was made wholly of partly in China. Your appliances, the clothes on your back, your lap top or desk top computer, that IPhone (Smart Phone) that you can't live without and everything else are all linked into the China pipeline one way or another.
The pharmaceutical products marketed at your local drug store all seem to have all or part of their ingredients manufactured in China. When you go to he drug store to fill your prescription, you will be out of luck. They can't make that medicine you need.
And, the most disturbing thing is, that critical parts of most of the equipment built for the military is manufactured in China. That includes our most advanced weapon systems. There is no source for these parts in the United States. If the China pipeline is shut down the military would take a significant blow.
You know very well why and how we got into this mess. We kept looking for cheaper prices as consumers and it was cheaper to invest billions and trillions of dollars in to manufacturing facilities in China than to build in the United States. We exported jobs to China as well as technology and was the principle driver behind China's rise into world power in such a short time. In return that blender you bought costs less as does those blue jeans you love so much. Building cost less because steel imported from China costs less than American produced steel. And the story goes on.
To make matters worse we gave China sweetheart trade deals that levied little of no import taxes on products brought into the United States and at the same time as China levied large and restrictive taxes and restrictions on American products. China can own outright property in the United States without any additional restrictions or costs than those born by the American citizen, but an American can not wholly own property or manufacturing in China. They must have a Chinese party who owns the controlling interest in the facility.
The outbreak of the Coronavirus and it's potential impact on the supply chain from China has just high lighted the dependence on the stuff we import from that country. Of course, we have a large trade imbalance with China that has been going on for years. With no end in sight.
President Trump has tried his best to address some of the these problems, using the only tool he has. A raising of the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods. Of course the dems screamed bloody murder about that. They always yelled that these problems should be solved through diplomacy. But, several administrations have tried that approach, to no avail. It seems that no matter what Trump does, the dems are going to scream about it, just because he did it.
And, the beat goes on.
Sooner of later, the virus will be brought under control and normal shipping and manufacturing in China will return to normal, and everything will go on as before. Nothing will change, and we will be facing the reality that China has emerged as the worlds dominate power. Militarily and economically.
