Latest / Financial Survival Network / Reshore Reality: China Trade Exposed - Spencer Morrison #6282
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: And they made commitment after commitment out commitment to engage
- 0:03Speaker 1: in fair trade practices, to give American companies intellectual property
- 0:08Speaker 1: rights in China, and of course to lift to not
- 0:10Speaker 1: impose all of these non monetary barriers to entry to
- 0:13Speaker 1: the Chinese market. And the question is is in the
- 0:16Speaker 1: last twenty years have American companies being able to penetrate
- 0:20Speaker 1: the Chinese market? And I think the answer is a
- 0:21Speaker 1: resounding no.
- 0:23Speaker 2: You are listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where
- 0:26Speaker 2: you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else
- 0:30Speaker 2: to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial
- 0:34Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork
- 0:39Speaker 2: dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial
- 0:43Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than ever.
- 0:50Speaker 3: And welcome. You are listening to and watching the Financial
- 0:54Speaker 3: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, we're talking
- 0:57Speaker 3: about tarrists. We're talking about trade deals with China. Is
- 1:00Speaker 3: there a deal? Is it imaginary? Is it all fluff?
- 1:04Speaker 3: Are there two deals? Is there the public deal and
- 1:06Speaker 3: then the real deal? Well, noted attorney and scholar Spencer
- 1:11Speaker 3: Morrison author with us now to discuss Spencer great having
- 1:16Speaker 3: you on the show. So is there a deal or
- 1:19Speaker 3: is there a deal to make a deal, or is
- 1:21Speaker 3: there really a deal that took place that we don't
- 1:23Speaker 3: know anything about.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Hey, Carry, it's my pleasure to be on the program.
- 1:27Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting question that you post. Is
- 1:31Speaker 1: that the tariffs have been paused, of course in bulk for.
- 1:34Speaker 4: Ninety days, except for on certain goods I think.
- 1:36Speaker 1: Steele and automobiles for example, the tariffs are still on
- 1:40Speaker 1: the table, and allegedly this is to give more time
- 1:43Speaker 1: to negotiate. Now, I'm not particularly optimistic that negotiating with
- 1:47Speaker 1: China is really going to get us anywhere. China join
- 1:51Speaker 1: the Worldwide Organization in two thousand and one, and they
- 1:55Speaker 1: made commitment after commitment out commitment to engage in fair
- 1:58Speaker 1: trade practices, to give American companies intellectual property rights in China,
- 2:03Speaker 1: and of course to lift to not impose all of
- 2:05Speaker 1: these non monetary barriers to entry to the Chinese market.
- 2:09Speaker 1: And the question is is in the last twenty years
- 2:12Speaker 1: have American companies being able to penetrate the Chinese market?
- 2:15Speaker 1: And I think the answer is a resounding no. So
- 2:18Speaker 1: China agreed to lift all of these barriers in two
- 2:21Speaker 1: thousand and one they didn't. So I'm a skeptical that
- 2:25Speaker 1: we're going to make any headway here in the next
- 2:27Speaker 1: ninety days. I mean, they've had twenty four years to
- 2:30Speaker 1: do it, they haven't done it. In another ninety days
- 2:32Speaker 1: is probably not going to make that big a difference.
- 2:35Speaker 3: There is a difference now, though, and that is this
- 2:37Speaker 3: situation in China is pretty dire. Basically, you got factories
- 2:43Speaker 3: closing down by the thousands, unemployment rampant. It kind of
- 2:48Speaker 3: reminds me of the pictures I'm watching coming out of there,
- 2:50Speaker 3: the real ones, not the fake shill accounts. But it
- 2:54Speaker 3: reminds me of the of the crash in the US
- 2:59Speaker 3: and the you know, twenty nine crash, where like all
- 3:02Speaker 3: these guys just leave a factory en mass and it's
- 3:06Speaker 3: empty and that's the end of it. And that's what's
- 3:08Speaker 3: happening there. So one thing about Trump is we know
- 3:12Speaker 3: he's a master of leverage, and you know he knows
- 3:16Speaker 3: that this could be the exact right point where he
- 3:19Speaker 3: applies maximum leverage to get maximum results.
- 3:22Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I agree with that.
- 3:25Speaker 1: I mean, Chinese economy is uniquely vulnerable to these sort
- 3:28Speaker 1: of shocks to trade because they have a very dedicated
- 3:31Speaker 1: they have a very bifurcated economy, so a significant portion
- 3:34Speaker 1: of their manufacturing industry is geared only towards exports. It's
- 3:39Speaker 1: very different than an economy like America or even frankly,
- 3:41Speaker 1: most development economies in Europe, where most businesses have some
- 3:45Speaker 1: exposure exports and significant domestic exposure.
- 3:49Speaker 4: In China, it's very different.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Most of their businesses, up to ninety five percent of
- 3:52Speaker 1: their businesses do not deal with other countries. They just
- 3:55Speaker 1: service the Chinese market. But that five to ten percent
- 3:58Speaker 1: ish of Chinese companies, they're ninety ninety five percent export oriented.
- 4:03Speaker 1: So China is uniquely positioned to suffer from these sort
- 4:06Speaker 1: of trade shocks.
- 4:08Speaker 4: And of course America's got all the leverage, just like
- 4:10Speaker 4: you said.
- 4:10Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because we're the country
- 4:12Speaker 1: that's running the trade deficit, right and we export to them,
- 4:18Speaker 1: you know, about a third of what we buy from them,
- 4:21Speaker 1: so we have you know, every dollar of these tariffs
- 4:24Speaker 1: and trade that's shifting around hits them three times as
- 4:26Speaker 1: hard as it hits us.
- 4:28Speaker 2: Hey.
- 4:28Speaker 3: And and let's also a big real is that what
- 4:31Speaker 3: we export to China they really need. What we import.
- 4:36Speaker 3: Like if you don't get another iPhone charging cable, USBC
- 4:40Speaker 3: cable or a charger, your life will still go on.
- 4:45Speaker 3: Outside of rareth meta metals, which really aren't rare at all.
- 4:49Speaker 3: They're just we've just had a policy of not mining them.
- 4:52Speaker 3: There's plenty of them all over the place. It's such
- 4:56Speaker 3: a misnamed commodity because they're not rare, but they do
- 5:02Speaker 3: come from the earth, you.
- 5:03Speaker 4: Know, Yeah, that's actually very true.
- 5:08Speaker 1: They're rare because we didn't want to mind them because
- 5:11Speaker 1: of the environmental and sometimes human consequences of doing so.
- 5:15Speaker 1: But you know, we've scaled up the production pretty significantly
- 5:18Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, and of course there's lots
- 5:20Speaker 1: of other places we can get the same material. And
- 5:23Speaker 1: to your point, China is exporting, you know, it's the
- 5:25Speaker 1: exporting manufactured goods. That's stuff that we can build here.
- 5:29Speaker 1: America's exports to China are overwhelmingly shifting towards raw materials,
- 5:34Speaker 1: which of course an economy can't function.
- 5:36Speaker 4: Without raw materials.
- 5:37Speaker 1: They can build its own polypocket toys and you know,
- 5:41Speaker 1: shean skirts.
- 5:42Speaker 4: Or whatever we're getting from China these days.
- 5:45Speaker 3: Hey, and you know, like tabu is like dead dead
- 5:50Speaker 3: in the water here. Hey, your book, though, resure how
- 5:53Speaker 3: tariffs will bring our jobs home. And you know, there's
- 5:58Speaker 3: a whole thing about tara They go back to Smoot
- 6:01Speaker 3: Hawley in the thirties that that was the final nail
- 6:05Speaker 3: in the coffin of the Great Depression. But this is
- 6:11Speaker 3: a completely different case here. I mean, I'm a free
- 6:13Speaker 3: trader by nature, all right, I'm a libertarian. I believe
- 6:17Speaker 3: in free trade, except when it's weaponized against us and
- 6:21Speaker 3: used to basically drive us into the ground and send
- 6:25Speaker 3: us into a decline and pretty much enable them to
- 6:29Speaker 3: achieve the world hegemony. That's what's happening here. This is
- 6:34Speaker 3: weaponized free trade. It's not good for us, but it's
- 6:38Speaker 3: really not good for the Chinese either. The Chinese people
- 6:41Speaker 3: for the most part. Yeah, there it's been a lot
- 6:43Speaker 3: of progress. They got iPhones or androids or Chinese knockoffs,
- 6:48Speaker 3: whatever it is. But still the vast majority of China,
- 6:52Speaker 3: and I've been there a couple of times, live in
- 6:55Speaker 3: unimaginable poverty that few people in this country could really
- 7:00Speaker 3: comprehend the scale of it.
- 7:02Speaker 1: Yeah, And to your point, I think it's really important
- 7:05Speaker 1: to remember that. I think we're all on the same
- 7:07Speaker 1: side in terms of being free market guys. We want
- 7:09Speaker 1: to functioning free market and we want functioning international free trade.
- 7:14Speaker 1: But what we have right now and what we've had
- 7:15Speaker 1: for the last fifty years, is anything but free trade.
- 7:19Speaker 1: There is no free trade with a country like China.
- 7:21Speaker 1: China is it's run by the CCP, and the Chinese
- 7:26Speaker 1: government supports and subsidizes all of these industries in order
- 7:31Speaker 1: to change the trade volumes and the types of goods
- 7:34Speaker 1: that are being traded in a way that asymmetrically benefits
- 7:37Speaker 1: China's domestic policies and whatever it is that they want
- 7:40Speaker 1: to do. So, for example, one of the things that
- 7:42Speaker 1: China has been doing is they say, look, we want
- 7:44Speaker 1: to industrialize, we want to have a cut of the
- 7:46Speaker 1: high tech industry.
- 7:48Speaker 4: So what do they do.
- 7:49Speaker 1: They subsidize the cost of raw materials, They subsidize the
- 7:54Speaker 1: cost of power, They give referential land use policies to
- 7:58Speaker 1: Chinese companies. They force American companies to do joint ventures
- 8:02Speaker 1: with Chinese companies, and part of those joint ventures is
- 8:05Speaker 1: the American company has to give all the technology to
- 8:07Speaker 1: the Chinese company. So they're engaged in massive intellectual property theft.
- 8:12Speaker 4: Let's call it what it is, it's theft.
- 8:14Speaker 1: Right, So China's trading with China is not free. We're
- 8:17Speaker 1: paying for it with their technology and ultimately, and I've
- 8:21Speaker 1: been talking to small businesses, you know, local manufacturers all
- 8:24Speaker 1: throughout the country and they're telling me how am I
- 8:26Speaker 1: supposed to compete with China when the price of Chinese
- 8:30Speaker 1: goods is subsidized by the government to the point where
- 8:32Speaker 1: they're driving me out of business?
- 8:34Speaker 4: Right, this is you know what Peter Navarro talks about
- 8:36Speaker 4: all the time. It's dumping.
- 8:37Speaker 1: China's selling below cost goods to kill American businesses and
- 8:41Speaker 1: once they take over that market, they jack up the
- 8:43Speaker 1: price anyways.
- 8:45Speaker 3: And you know, we had this impression that Chinese could
- 8:49Speaker 3: do no wrong. Obviously it was like Japan, same thing.
- 8:53Speaker 3: But what we're seeing like, I don't know about you,
- 8:56Speaker 3: but I would not fly on the Comac Seed nine
- 8:59Speaker 3: to one nine jet. It looks like an airbus, kind
- 9:04Speaker 3: of a cross between an airbus and a Boeing, But
- 9:07Speaker 3: every test they don't bother doing like private testing like
- 9:12Speaker 3: Boeing an airbus where they test the hell out of
- 9:14Speaker 3: the thing and find every flaw. They do real time
- 9:17Speaker 3: passenger testing. You know, the passengers are part of the
- 9:21Speaker 3: product development, and I would not go on that thing
- 9:25Speaker 3: and look, Spencer, Everything in the place is collapsing tofu
- 9:29Speaker 3: dreg construction, you know, buildings, just a bridge, a major
- 9:35Speaker 3: bridge in Beijing. It was twenty five years old and
- 9:40Speaker 3: it just collapsed the other day, and that's emblematic. So
- 9:44Speaker 3: this is what they're exporting to the world, is tofu dreg.
- 9:48Speaker 3: And perhaps Trump will get the better of them. He
- 9:53Speaker 3: couldn't be in a better position to do it now
- 9:55Speaker 3: because their economy is definitely on the skids debt crisis.
- 9:59Speaker 3: You know, they might have the largest horde of gold
- 10:01Speaker 3: in the world, but in the end that's not going
- 10:02Speaker 3: to save them.
- 10:03Speaker 1: Well, I think it goes back to the age old
- 10:06Speaker 1: maxim you get what you pay for it, don't you
- 10:08Speaker 1: You get what you pay for it. If you're getting
- 10:09Speaker 1: cheap Chinese goods, they're going to be cheaply made as well, right,
- 10:14Speaker 1: And I think that's something that people don't understand. I
- 10:16Speaker 1: did some research into this in the book actually, So
- 10:19Speaker 1: in the book, we look at the cost of appliances,
- 10:22Speaker 1: household appliances.
- 10:24Speaker 4: And everybody thinks they're getting a good deal on.
- 10:26Speaker 1: These household appliances. Because we're getting the parts from China,
- 10:28Speaker 1: the parts are cheaper. They can take the sticker price
- 10:31Speaker 1: of the product down right.
- 10:33Speaker 4: The problem.
- 10:34Speaker 1: The problem is is that these machines are all failing
- 10:37Speaker 1: way earlier than they used to be. Failing manufacturers are
- 10:41Speaker 1: not sticking behind, you know, big ticket warranties. They're not
- 10:45Speaker 1: even willing to give you a ten year warranty on
- 10:47Speaker 1: most products because they know it's going to fail before that.
- 10:49Speaker 4: One in five refrigerators fail within four years.
- 10:52Speaker 1: So when they say it's cheap goods, what they actually
- 10:55Speaker 1: mean is it's cheaply made and you're going to buy
- 10:57Speaker 1: it two or three times in the same lifespan of
- 11:00Speaker 1: a product that was made thirty or forty years ago.
- 11:02Speaker 1: So is it cheaper, No, it's not. It's more expensive
- 11:06Speaker 1: because you're buying it two or three times.
- 11:07Speaker 4: And I think that's what consumers really need to understand.
- 11:10Speaker 4: The sticker price is not the cost of the good.
- 11:13Speaker 1: The price is the price, but it's not the cost.
- 11:15Speaker 1: The cost is if I'm using this product for fifty
- 11:17Speaker 1: years and I got to buy it three or four times,
- 11:20Speaker 1: that's the cost of the product.
- 11:22Speaker 3: That's it. Pennywise, and pound foolish, as my mother used
- 11:25Speaker 3: to say, and wise lady, yeah you know, and like
- 11:29Speaker 3: you said, you get what you pay for. And well,
- 11:33Speaker 3: it's going to be interesting to see what happens. I
- 11:36Speaker 3: don't think Trump is one to give up an advantage
- 11:39Speaker 3: and negotiating advantage that he actually has. Maybe there's things
- 11:43Speaker 3: we don't know about. Maybe the agreement's already been reached.
- 11:46Speaker 3: One thing I would like to mention Spencer and again,
- 11:51Speaker 3: a book is highly recommended. It's called Resure, How Trists
- 11:57Speaker 3: will bring our jobs home and revive the America and dream.
- 12:02Speaker 3: You know, all these countries that Trump has called upon
- 12:06Speaker 3: to negotiate agreements. All you hear in the media is
- 12:09Speaker 3: these agreements take years in years to negotiate. Look happened
- 12:14Speaker 3: with the UK right away. With AI, basically, all you
- 12:18Speaker 3: do is you train an AI and international law in
- 12:22Speaker 3: tariffs and shipping, and then you feed in the agreement
- 12:26Speaker 3: and you say the existing one, you say, how are
- 12:28Speaker 3: we getting screwed? And then it gives you a list
- 12:31Speaker 3: and then you say what agreements should we have to
- 12:34Speaker 3: not get screwed? Done in five minutes. What people don't
- 12:37Speaker 3: understand is diplomacy is a grift. It's just another grift.
- 12:42Speaker 3: You negotiate these agreements, the incentive is drag it out
- 12:46Speaker 3: as long as you can. So you get to go
- 12:47Speaker 3: stay in five star resorts and you know you're drinking
- 12:52Speaker 3: a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild by the case eighty two by mission,
- 12:57Speaker 3: and you know you travel around from five store Hotel
- 13:02Speaker 3: Michelin star dining only, and that's the way these diplomats
- 13:06Speaker 3: have gone. But I think those days are over. There
- 13:09Speaker 3: is no way that the UK Agreement could have been
- 13:12Speaker 3: negotiated without Aire.
- 13:15Speaker 4: You're killing me here.
- 13:16Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer.
- 13:18Speaker 4: Yeah, you're you're exposing that. You're exposing us here. No,
- 13:21Speaker 4: it's it's definitely true.
- 13:22Speaker 1: These agreements and principle do not take long to negotiate
- 13:25Speaker 1: because I think everybody understands ultimately what the problems they
- 13:29Speaker 1: want to address are and the problems they're usually you know,
- 13:32Speaker 1: one to five things that really need to be tackled,
- 13:35Speaker 1: and the rest sort of falls into place.
- 13:37Speaker 4: And of course you're right, there's there's great.
- 13:39Speaker 1: I mean, I use legal I software in my own practice.
- 13:42Speaker 1: Of course, there's great software out there that can help
- 13:45Speaker 1: you know, parse these deals and review them and I mean, ultimately,
- 13:50Speaker 1: what we really want is we don't want complicated trade deals.
- 13:53Speaker 1: We want simple trade deals. I mean this goes back to, like,
- 13:56Speaker 1: you know, the tax code. The tax code is a
- 13:58Speaker 1: huge tome.
- 13:59Speaker 4: Why is a tax code of home.
- 14:00Speaker 1: Let's just say it's ten percent of you know, your
- 14:03Speaker 1: income and call it a day. You can do it
- 14:04Speaker 1: on the It's a one sheet of paper.
- 14:06Speaker 4: That's what it should be. And that's the way these
- 14:07Speaker 4: trade deals should be as well.
- 14:09Speaker 1: If we want more fair trade, how hard is it
- 14:12Speaker 1: to say, you know that the terrorists will be level
- 14:15Speaker 1: or whatever whatever it is that we're going to do.
- 14:17Speaker 1: What makes what makes it complicated and what makes it
- 14:20Speaker 1: makes it dangerous is the devil's hide in the details.
- 14:22Speaker 4: Right.
- 14:23Speaker 1: So the reason these trade agreements are so long is
- 14:25Speaker 1: because people are, you know, protecting special interests. They're getting
- 14:29Speaker 1: goodies for one industry over the other. And really, when
- 14:32Speaker 1: they say we've signed a free trade agreement, what they're
- 14:34Speaker 1: actually saying is I've given all of my crooked buddies perks.
- 14:39Speaker 1: And the people who are really going to hurt.
- 14:40Speaker 4: Are the American people, the American consumer.
- 14:43Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think that day is coming to an end.
- 14:46Speaker 3: I think there's a lot more deals being made as
- 14:49Speaker 3: we speak. It's a lot of deals and you only
- 14:52Speaker 3: got always many qualified people who you can trust in
- 14:55Speaker 3: commerce and in state, right because they're purging out the
- 14:59Speaker 3: other ones who are untrust trustworthy, like Usaid, you know,
- 15:04Speaker 3: just totally going against the country's interests. And uh, you know,
- 15:09Speaker 3: it's going to be an interesting time here. But I'm,
- 15:13Speaker 3: as someone once said, nauseously optimistic.
- 15:18Speaker 4: I like that.
- 15:19Speaker 1: I like that Nat is optimistic. I'm a you know what,
- 15:22Speaker 1: I'm optimistic as well. I think the administration is moving
- 15:26Speaker 1: on the right issues and it's doing it's making.
- 15:29Speaker 4: Headway in a way that hasn't been made in at.
- 15:31Speaker 1: Least fifty years. And you've got to give credit where
- 15:33Speaker 1: credit is due. Nobody's even addressed or acknowledged these problems.
- 15:37Speaker 1: The current administration has acknowledged the problems and they're taking
- 15:40Speaker 1: some steps to resolving them.
- 15:41Speaker 4: So, you know, kudos to them, and let's keep the
- 15:43Speaker 4: momentum going.
- 15:44Speaker 3: It's totally been rugswept for fifty years. And so we're
- 15:49Speaker 3: going to bring China in and they're going to act
- 15:52Speaker 3: like human beings, and you know they're going to stop
- 15:57Speaker 3: forcibly harvesting organs and sending people off to re education
- 16:02Speaker 3: camps because they're going to be making so much money.
- 16:04Speaker 3: Everything's going to be great. And that premise appears to
- 16:09Speaker 3: have failed. And at least somebody is willing to bury
- 16:12Speaker 3: it now because we know what they're about, and you know,
- 16:17Speaker 3: if they want to trade, I think there's a block
- 16:21Speaker 3: that's forming against them, not the least of which was
- 16:24Speaker 3: for the virus, where it occurred and where it was created.
- 16:30Speaker 3: Forget about the fact that we the United States, helped
- 16:34Speaker 3: underwrite it. That's a story for another day. But the
- 16:38Speaker 3: end of the discussion is it happened there. So Spencer,
- 16:43Speaker 3: just tell us where do we find you? How do
- 16:45Speaker 3: we get your book?
- 16:46Speaker 1: Yes, Sarah, you can find me on x and on substack.
- 16:50Speaker 1: The handles are both at Real SB Morrison. The book's
- 16:53Speaker 1: available right now on Amazon and it's also directly available
- 16:56Speaker 1: from the publisher at kalamopress dot com. You know, we
- 17:00Speaker 1: sold out of the first print edition. We're coming out
- 17:03Speaker 1: with a second edition here, so we're really happy. Thanks
- 17:06Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, we're really happy, but it's going to
- 17:07Speaker 1: be more of a collector. We got a paperback coming out.
- 17:10Speaker 1: You know, the book is you got to read the book.
- 17:13Speaker 4: The book. The book is great.
- 17:14Speaker 1: It's a practical it's a practical guide on how to
- 17:17Speaker 1: reindustrialize America, and it gives everybody the tools they need
- 17:21Speaker 1: to understand what's going on and understand how we have
- 17:23Speaker 1: to fix it.
- 17:24Speaker 3: Oh, I got it right here in front of me
- 17:25Speaker 3: on Amazon. I assume it's on Amazon and wherever fine
- 17:28Speaker 3: books used to be sold. And I just released a
- 17:31Speaker 3: book myself called The World according to Martin Armstrong and
- 17:35Speaker 3: the links in the show notes, and it can be bought.
- 17:38Speaker 3: A fascinating story about a fascinating person who's made literally
- 17:43Speaker 3: dozens of economic calls that have all come true or
- 17:46Speaker 3: mostly Crash of eighty seven, unpegging of the Swiss franc
- 17:51Speaker 3: crash of the of the pound, and so many more,
- 17:55Speaker 3: two thousand and eight crash, just call after call, World
- 17:59Speaker 3: according Tomorrow Normstrong, links in the show notes. Spencer, appreciate
- 18:03Speaker 3: you coming on the show. We'll talk to you again.
- 18:04Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, my friend. It's a pleasure.
- 18:06Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To carry Letz's Financial Survival Network your
- 18:10Speaker 2: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
- 18:14Speaker 2: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival network now more than
- 18:20Speaker 2: ever