US immigration authorities said on Friday that they had detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided Hyundai’s sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia, where the Korean automaker makes electric vehicles.
The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, said the US labour force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July.
So you stopped reading at “Trumpian Fascism,” 4 words into the message, and decided to miss “will make China look good” and all the other stuff that I was disagreeing with? Glad we got that sorted out lol.
I agree with what you’re saying now, still just not sure what it has to do with public opinion polls in Korea or “make China look good.”
Well, I mentally added “relative to America” to that “will make China look good”: Trump’s actions have made China look good relative to America.
China isn’t really any better “looking” than before, it’s just that Trump has tilted the balance against America, and hence favored other nations, China being IMHO one of the best placed to win from it in International Trade terms because they’re already a massive manufacturing and exporting nation - the need for products and services is still there and if America made itself a less reliable partner, then somebody else will be taking the place of America in the trade partnerships that will now exclude America and China seems likely to be a big winner from that.
This doesn’t just apply in Trade terms. In Geostrategical terms Trump’s Risk (and the risk of any future Trump-like president) also applies - just notice what’s happening to Ukraine - and the change in the perception of America as a reliable geostrategical partner will also benefit other countries which vie for primacy in the geostrategical arena, again most notably China which seems to be the most likely nation to in this century replace America as the top power in the World.
In multiple arenas, if you can’t trust potential partners you chose different partners or treat them and their promises with extra skepticism.
This is were the public opinion polls in Korea come in: if people in Korea see America as less reliable (i.e. more risky) they will tend to do business with America less, and that’s not just in individuals and businesses trading less with America and American businesses but also at the level of governments trusting the promises of American governments less and hence taking preventive measures for the possibility that America won’t uphold its promises.
In practice that means less trade with America - which as I explained above likely benefits China the most - and also in military and diplomatic terms having a less adversarial relationship with China so as to reduce the military and diplomatic risks from China, because Korea can’t rely as much on America to help dissuade China from any funny business in Korea so has to thread more lightly - this too benefits China as a Korea which wants to appease China is more likely to offer them diplomatic concessions than otherwise.
Again, none of this means China’s appeal has increased, it just means that relatively to that of the major military, trade and diplomatic power which is the US, China’s appeal went up.
It’s more America losing than China winning.
Sounds great! For the nth time, it sounds like we agree on pretty much everything you just said. I think your extensive lectures need to be directed at the person I replied to, not at me.