THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

If Trump is making America great again, how come China is cheering?

If Trump is making America great  again, how come China is cheering?

Re: “Are Americans happier than Donald Trump? Just look at the job figures” and “A more realistic way of measuring happiness in Trump’s America”, Have Your Say, September 10 and yesterday.

Aside from other inaccuracies, the US unemployment figures do not cover the agriculture sector. American farmers cannot be happy after China retaliated to Trump’s tariffs by imposing tax on their soybeans – about 60 per cent of US soybeans are exported to China. 
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too optimistic over the latest US job figures, despite the tendency of mainstream media like Fox News and CNBC to present a brighter picture of the economy that favours President Trump.
The US Labour Bureau’s August employment figures actually show that 3,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, most of them from the auto sector, while the combined addition of 93,000 jobs that the government originally reported for May, June and July was revised down to 62,000. 
Immigrant departures and employment restrictions mean many jobs previously filled by migrants are returning to Americans; these jobs are not newly created. This could also be the reason why there is a shortage of labour in the market.
Donald Trump’s tactic of levying sanctions against any nation or person that gets in his way is weakening the status of the dollar as international reserve currency and accelerating the “de-dollarisation” process. To avoid sanctions, Russia and Iran are using yuan as petro-currency instead of dollars, and China is launching the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) as an alternative to the Swift clearing system dominated by the US.
Import tariffs imposed by the US, especially on China, will eventually lead to slower economic growth as well as rising inflation in the US.
Those who are currently saying “Thank you, Donald!” are not just his supporters, but also the foes of the United States. 
Yingwai Suchaovanich
Bangkok

nationthailand