Presidential candidate Donald Trump invited Chinese electric carmakers to enter the US market—as long as they made the China-designed cars in America.
This would be a stark contrast to the Biden-Harris system of keeping the popular clean-energy cars out of the country by slapping a 100 per cent surcharge on them.
BANKERS INTRIGUED
The Trump plan has investment bankers intrigued.
"If acted upon, this would be a revolutionary change in the US-China trade relationship," said Marko Papic Chief Strategist at BCA Research.
"First, it would separate national security concerns from trade, adjusting US trade policy to the realities of a global multipolar environment. Second, it would resolve the trade dispute using tried and tested policies from the 1980s."
The strategist was referring to a period when Japan was the world's leading carmaker and was coerced into building its vehicles on US soil.
INVITATION INCLUDES THREAT
Trump has repeated the offer to Chinese carmakers several times, although it has had little coverage in the mainstream media, since it doesn't fit the narrative.
In March this year, he said: “If they want to build a plant in Michigan, in Ohio, in South Carolina, they can, using American workers, they can."
The offer was repeated last month in a convention speech, but in keeping with his tough guy image, a threat was included. "We don’t mind it happening but plants will be built in the United States and our people are going to man those plants. And if they don’t agree with us, we’ll put a tariff of approximately 100 to 200 percent on each car and they will be unsellable in the United States."
US CAR MAKERS NEED CHINA I.P.
Of course, all politicians make promises that fail to turn into actions. Yet Trump has made this offer repeatedly, and the electric car issue is not going to go away, so something will have to be done about it. Geely, BYD, Chery and other Chinese firms are enjoying remarkable sales growth in multiple countries.
There would be other advantages too, including IP transfer from China to the United States carmakers: In America, Tesla is over-dominant (51% of the electric market) and the Big Three car firms (13% between them) do need some creative input.
Would China consider accepting the deal? Probably yes. It has shown repeatedly that making trade deals overseas is the country's superpower.
WAY OUT OF TOXIC POLITICS
But more importantly, the offer shines a light on an unexamined difference between the two political parties in the United States.
The hyper-politicized Biden-Harris administration is controlled by the security establishment (call it the blob or the swamp or whatever), which gives an insanely paranoid military-intelligence quadrant the final yea or nay to every deal involving China.
Trump, for all his faults, is showing that a business deal can be handled as a business deal. This is something that China, and indeed all of Asia, can understand.
Trade is often beneficial, while US geo-politics is now always toxic.
Yet the Chinese should not make the mistake of thinking that Trump is friendly towards them. In the same speech that he invited them to build factories in the United States, Trump said: "If you go back 20, 25 years they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68 percent of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them."
His motivation sounds less like a hope for a win-win deal, and more like revenge.
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
Trump's Venezuela play just gave Western progressives a masterclass in American hypocrisy.
Steve Bannon, Trump's longtime strategist, told The New York Times the Venezuela assault—arresting President Nicolás Maduro and all—stands as this administration's most consequential foreign policy move. Meticulously planned, Bannon concedes, but woefully short on ideological groundwork. "The lack of framing of the message on a potential occupation has the base bewildered, if not angry".
Trump's rationale for nabbing Maduro across international borders was drug trafficking. But here's the tell: once Maduro was in custody, Trump stopped talking about Venezuelan cocaine and started obsessing over Venezuelan oil. He's demanding US oil companies march back into Venezuela to seize control of local assets. And that's not all—he wants Venezuela to cough up 50 million barrels of oil.
Trump's Colonial Playbook
On January 6, Trump unveiled his blueprint: Venezuela releases 50 million barrels to the United States. America sells it. Market watchers peg the haul at roughly $2.8 billion.
Trump then gleefully mapped out how the proceeds would flow—only to "American-made products." He posted on social media: "These purchases will include, among other things, American Agricultural Products, and American Made Medicines, Medical Devices, and Equipment to improve Venezuela's Electric Grid and Energy Facilities. In other words, Venezuela is committing to doing business with the United States of America as their principal partner."
Trump's demand for 50 million barrels up front—not a massive volume, granted—betrays a blunt short-term goal. It's the classic imperial playbook: invade a colony, plunder its resources, sail home and parade the spoils before your supporters to justify the whole bloody enterprise. Trump isn't chasing the ideological legitimacy Bannon mentioned. He's after something more primal: material legitimacy. Show me a colonial power that didn't loot minerals or enslave labor from its colonies.
America's Western allies were silent as the grave when faced with such dictatorial swagger. But pivot the camera to Hong Kong, and suddenly they're all righteous indignation.
The British Double Standard
Recently, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith penned an op-ed in The Times, slamming the British government for doing "nothing but issuing 'strongly worded' statements in the face of Beijing's trampling of the Sino-British Joint Declaration." He's calling on the Labour government to sanction the three designated National Security Law judges who convicted Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai of "collusion with foreign forces"—to prove that "Hong Kong's judiciary has become a farce." Duncan Smith even vowed to raise the matter for debate in the British Parliament.
The Conservatives sound principled enough. But think it through, and it's laughable. The whole world's talking about Maduro right now—nobody's talking about Jimmy Lai anymore.
Maduro appeared in US Federal Court in New York on January 6. The United States has trampled international law and the UN Charter—that's what Duncan Smith would call "American justice becoming a farce." If Duncan Smith's so formidable, why doesn't he demand the British government sanction Trump? Why not sanction the New York Federal Court judges? If he wants to launch a parliamentary debate, why not urgently debate America's crimes in invading Venezuela? Duncan Smith's double standards are chilling.
Silence on Venezuela
After the Venezuela incident, I searched extensively online—even deployed AI—but couldn't find a single comment from former Conservative leader Duncan Smith on America's invasion of Venezuela. Duncan Smith has retreated into his shell.
Duncan Smith is fiercely pro-US. When Trump visited the UK last September amid considerable domestic criticism, the opposition Conservatives didn't just stay quiet—Duncan Smith actively defended him, calling Trump's unprecedented second UK visit critically important: "if the countries that believe in freedom, democracy and the rule of law don’t unite, the totalitarian states… will dominate the world and it will be a terrible world to live in."
The irony cuts deep now. America forcibly seizes another country's oil and minerals—Trump is fundamentally an imperialist dictator. With Duncan Smith's enthusiastic backing, this totalitarian Trump has truly won.
Incidentally, the Conservative Party has completely destroyed itself. The party commanding the highest support in Britain today is the far-right Reform Party. As early as last May, YouGov polling showed Reform Party capturing the highest support at 29%, the governing Labour Party languishing at just 22%, the Liberal Democrats ranking third at 17%, and the Conservatives degraded to fourth place with 16% support.
The gutless Conservative Party members fear offending Trump, while voters flock to the Reform Party instead. The Conservatives' posturing shows they've become petty villains for nothing.
Lo Wing-hung
