US reliant on China for essential goods - Plutocrats "running" government

The Policy Circle, which is based in India, says the US reliance on Chinese inputs spans 532 key product categories, including essential pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, and rare earth elements — materials indispensable to defence, green tech, and digital innovation. 

"Beijing knows this, and has already weaponised its control over rare earths by placing American defence and tech firms on its export control list.

When a nation controls 72% of your rare earth imports, you do not pick tariff fights unless you are ready for economic masochism.

Nor is the impact of these tariffs confined to urban industries. Farmers in Trump’s heartland — soybean growers in the Midwest, poultry producers in the South — are once again collateral damage.

These are the very people who powered Trump’s rise in 2016. And they are hurting. American soybean exports to China have never recovered from the first wave of trade wars. Chinese buyers have moved to Brazil, where the grain is cheaper and the diplomacy less abrasive."

Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China

Opinion1| Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China.

The Times Opinion columnist discusses what he thinks Trump — and American policymakers  — misunderstand about China in the escalating trade war. "Credit Credit..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-thomas-friedman.html

The New York Times in a pice by Ezra Klein in a discussion Tom Friedman: "Thinks. We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong".

 The Times Opinion columnist discusses what he thinks Trump — and American policymakers — misunderstand about China in the escalating trade war.

Peterson Institute: "The Trump admin is embarking on an economic equivalent of the Vietnam War — war of choice that will soon result in a quagmire, undermining faith at home & abroad in trustworthiness & competence of the US — & we all know how that turned out."

"Farmers in Trump’s heartland — soybean growers in the Midwest, poultry producers in the South — are once again collateral damage. These are the very people who powered Trump’s rise in 2016. And they are hurting. American soybean exports to China have never recovered from the first wave of trade wars. Chinese buyers have moved to Brazil, where the grain is cheaper and the diplomacy less abrasive."

Adam S. Posen ["When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with,” U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted in 2018, “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

This week, when the Trump administration imposed tariffs of more than 100 percent on U.S. imports from China, setting off a new and even more dangerous trade war, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a similar justification: 

“I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos. What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.”

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Posen said Bessent, a billionaire and former hedge fund manager, had wrongly likened the dispute with Beijing to a game of poker in which the US held all the best cards.

Li Chenggang has been appointed China’s top international trade negotiator at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing.

Find more statistics at Statista

Alan Beattiet of the FT: "Its not EU protectionism that hurts American carmakers abroad. The European Commission has long had an open offer to the US to cut all industrial goods tariffs including cars to nil, which the US has failed to take up. Still the sense of victimhood persists."

The Plutocrats "running" the US government

The current government is rule by the top 0.0001% (read as the top one ten thousandth per cent).

In January sixteen of Trump’s 25 wealthiest appointees and nominees were members of the 0.0001%, meaning they are among the 813 billionaires in the United States, where some 341 million of the rest of us make up the 99.9999% (earning an average yearly income of about $61,000).

Trump had a chequered business career, and some of his 0.0001% cabinet picks are incompetent.  

"Elon Musk’s outrageous wealth places him in a category all his own, as the world’s richest person. 

By contrast, cabinet members who are mere members of the top 1% – members such as J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, and Marco Rubio – appear almost working class, even if the wealth of each is more than triple the median income Americans earn over their entire lives ($1.7 million)."

Democrat senators also get into the 1%.

Most of the 50% poorest population live in a different world to Trump and his wealthy friends.

More than 38 million Americans live in poverty. Someone is defined as “poor” when they can't afford life's necessities, like food and shelter.

 In 2022, the U.S. government set the poverty line in America at an annual income of $13,590 for a single person and $27,750 for a family of four.

According to the National Health Institute, the uber-rich don’t just have a more comfortable life, they have a longer one.

 Their research showed that, on average, the wealthiest 1% of women live 10.1 years longer than the poorest 1%. For men, the difference was even greater, with the top 1% living 14.6 years longer than the poorest 1%.

Related

The countries that lend to America

America is the sick man of the advanced world

America's 1% control 31% of wealth- 50% control 6%

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a Nobel laureate in economics and senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and served on President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board. Margaret Thatcher was also a fan.

Leonard Read (1898-1983), founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), is best known for his essay "I, Pencil," which Milton Friedman used to illustrate the power of free markets and the invisible hand of the economy.

"Once, on a visit to China, a deputy minister asked, "Who in the America is in charge of materials distribution?" The question took me aback, yet it was natural. For it was almost inconceivable that a citizen from a command economy could understand how markets distribute materials among millions of people for thousands of uses untouched by political hands."

The countries that lend to America

Major foreign holders of United States treasury securities as of December 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

The Federal Reserve and U.S. Department of the Treasury say foreign countries held a total of 8.5 trillion U.S. dollars in U.S. treasury securities as of December 2024.

Of the total held by foreign countries, Japan has $1,059.8  and China held the greatest portions, with China holding 759 billion U.S. dollars in U.S. securities.

The Irish $336.2 in billion, may be related to American firms that are domiciled in Ireland.

The federal deficit

The federal deficit in 2024 was $1.8 trillion, equal to 6.4% of gross domestic product.

America is the sick man of the advanced world

U.S. healthcare spending per capita is almost twice the average of other wealthy countries

The average life expectancy in Western Europe is 83 years, while in the US it's 77 years.

Trump's America doesn't like foreigners

Europe highlights gender rules and entry risks and Finland's advisory, updated Tuesday, advises applicants to put their gender at birth. "If the applicant's recorded gender differs from their birth sex, US authorities may deny entry."

Several European countries, including Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway, have updated their travel advisories for the US, highlighting potential entry risks for transgender individuals and those with gender identity discrepancies, due to stricter US immigration measures.

'A hostile state': Why some travellers are avoiding the US

Trump signed an order on April 2, 2025, announcing global tariffs minus Russia 

Adrian Wooldridge of Bloomberg has written "If health means wealth, as the adage has it, then America’s economic future looks grim.

Traditionally, the U.S. has enjoyed a health premium. In the colonial era, American men were on average two to three inches taller than Europeans, according to military records, a fact that fascinates historical demographers because height is correlated with longevity, cognitive development and work capacity.

Today, a premium is turning into a deficit. American men are shorter on average than Northern European men, and the gap is getting bigger. Six in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition and 4 in 10 suffer from two."

"America is a sick society,” says William Galston in the Wall Street Journal. "Literally.”

Healthcare spending per capita is substantially higher in the US compared to Europe, yet the US lags behind on metrics like life expectancy and infant mortality.

Survival in the wealthiest U.S. quartile appeared to be similar to that in the poorest quartile in northern and western Europe.

The US is the sick man of the developed world.

Americans' living standards aren't nearly as good as they like to think they are.

Health expenditures per person in the U.S. were $12,555 in 2022, which was over $4,000 more than any other high-income nation. The average amount spent on health per person in comparable countries ($6,651) is about half of what the U.S. spends per person."

US personal savings are close to rock bottom

Personal Saving Rate - in 2024, the US was at 4.6%; 15.3% in the 20-country Euro Area, and 44.3% in China.