Is trade decoupling on the horizon?

TRADE WARS NO LONGER ABOUT RECIPROCITY

CAN CHINA SURVVE WITHOUT U.S. TRADE?

It is no longer trade negotiations, based on using tariff's to address trade restrictions and barriers by trading partners. It is now using trade as a weapon to force submission to U.S. will in not only economic, but political and maintaining geopolitical supremacy.  It is no longer about reciprocity, which was a method of insuring fair trade between partners.

It seems our leaders in Washington believe that the U.S. is essential to the economic health of the rest of the world. A country with a population of 330 million vs a population of over 6 billion. While the U.S is a huge trading nation, it is debatable who will be more damaged by a decoupling of trade with the rest of the world. While the goal for Washington is submission and maintaining supremacy, its opponents understand that as sovereign nations they cannot allow themselves to submit to this intimidation. It is very likely this will  end in decoupling, a suspension of trade that will have uncalculated repercussions around the world.

While some believe that this will rebuild American industry and cause a decline in the economic power of China and its affiliated countries, it seems to be a delusional belief that the world can not survive without U.S. trade.

It is similar thinking that believed that Russia could not survive without selling energy to the EU, a policy that has forced Russia to focus on other buyers and has destabilized the economies of EU nations. The reality is that the EU may have lost the access to Russian energy for decades.

I suspect that if this trade war continues the U.S. is in store for increased inflation, a shortage of essential materials and even a shortage of simple domestic goods. While China and India and others will suffer for some time, they will have access to a market of over 6 billion willing to do business, that is proving to be a mutual prosperous endeavor.

It is possibly the end to globalization in trade and will descend into trading blocks made up of nations focused on manufacturing and essential materials and those who are made up of financial services and consumerism. In the end a very lopsided and unlikely competition.

The solution is co-existence as equals and mutual prosperity, not subjugation and submission. The alternative is a recipe for poverty of nonproducers or war as a last resort to maintain supremacy.