The U.S. government began investigating China’s dominance in the shipbuilding industry, where it manufactures as much as 75%-80% of fleets, during the Biden administration.
Steep levies on Chinese-made ships arriving at U.S. ports have been proposed, up to as much as $1.5 million, as part of a plan to bring more ship manufacturing back to the U.S., a policy which has bipartisan support.
This is essentially adding another layer of tax or tariffs on imports, and more impediments to global trade. Basically, Trump is determined to stall trade with the world and fuck the economy.
will Americans stop him before he starts more wars?
A really good question. Politically it seems like it's not going to happen, but I still have (at least naive) hope that the actual US mlitary would not respond on commands should the cheeto order active military operations against China. That would make absolutely no sense in so many ways, no matter how you spin it around, that I'd expect the boots on the ground would just say 'fuck off'.
But I also tought that the orange clown wouldn't have a chance on elections either, so we'll see. And also, I'm across the pond from US, so my information is mostly from European media outlets and social media around here, so take that with suitable grain of salt. I just rather not see the reality where US is fighting China and Europe is left to deal with Russia. Not because we couldn't handle that, but because that would be just bat shit crazy situation in my lifetime.
Trick is that Vancouver is a massive port complex and can pick up the slack for the US pacific ports.
And knowing how Richmond, BC operates, expect to see a lot of sudden Chinese business activity where things are being "finished" in Canada then shipped to the US.
Yes, I imagine there will be a rush to spend a trillion or two setting up infrastructure in a country that can't keep it's trade policy consistent for 45 minutes in a row.
China could also say only Chinese ships docking at Chinese ports and now there's a nice middlemen that also adds cost to the price.
The most efficient is probably ship to Mexico or Canada and import through land, but still need middlemen to do them + extortion by Cartels in Mexico.