The thing is they can keep crossing whatever red lines they want, it doesn’t change the equation that it is the U.S. is fundamentally in a reactionary position to China’s economy. While the financial and government elements think they have the tiger by the tail, whatever shenanigans they pull ultimately hurt the U.S. domestically far more.

When we, in American industry, lose access to Chinese inputs, we are the ones who are scrambling to fill those inputs, with suppliers that fundamentally don’t exist (a.k.a. are three to four years out in manufacturing at volume, which is an eternity in business), but we still have to compete internationally with companies that do have access to Chinese inputs. Some people are conning a free lunch from China, but most people in this country are not. If anything they are in a tighter spot because China is the one paying for their lunch and if they do not, then they will starve, and everyone in manufacturing that knows anything knows that.

If the U.S. wants to compete with China at all, it will have to fundamentally change it’s domestic industrial policies, and actually organize production to combat these inevitable shortages, something that it ideologically will not, and honestly at this point does not have the ability to do. Perhaps China does not want to press the ‘socialism’ button, but honestly, if I were them, I would wait for the U.S. to drive itself into a wall attempting to compete with something it fundamentally cannot. Let them be the ones to pull the trigger.