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Mix-Ansicht- das Editoral zum Neuen Tag: (Richard Russel) es tollpatscht förmlich in USA - Emerald, 21.11.2003, 06:52
das Editoral zum Neuen Tag: (Richard Russel) es tollpatscht förmlich in USA
-->-- Let's take a hypothetical situation. You owe this fellow a car-load of money -- and so far he hasn't pressured you to pay him back. Question -- would you walk up to him and slap him in the face?
Oh, you wouldn't do that? But, that's pretty much what the US is now doing to one of its largest creditors -- China.
This week the Bush administration levied quotas on Chinese textiles, lingerie and T-shirts. Prior to that, the US has levied tariffs on such diverse Chinese imports as iron pipe fittings, apple juice, TV sets, metal alloys and saccharin.
In response to this latest dispute, Beijing canceled plans to send trade missions to buy US cotton, soybeans and wheat.
Thus, we could be witnessing the beginning a trade war.
And the background -- China's stockpile of foreign reserve-holding has grown from $168 billion in December 2000 to $401 billion in October 2003. That represents one-third of China's gross domestic product. And the bulk of these holding are in US bonds.
The People's Bank of China is the second largest holder of US Treasury securities, That's interesting. But what's more interesting is that Chinese buying of US bonds finances a large part of the Bush administration's record-breaking budget deficits.
So although more than 80 US trade groups this summer have called for a federal probe into whether the value of the yuan constitutes an unfair trade advantage, the fact is that Chinese buying of US Treasuries goes a long way towards allowing the US to run it outrageous trade deficits. And if push comes to shove, the Chinese could put the pressure on just by slowing down their buying of US Treasury bonds (in other words, the Chinese don't have to sell the bonds, they would just have to slow down their buying of US bonds -- to put pressure on US interest rates).
The crux of the situation is this -- if you insist on slapping your creditor in the face, you better to it very lightly -- like maybe with a feather and a smile.
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