“The US has been doing the same for a century or more, what's the difference. If the US influence is so friendly and benign, why are countries the world over shifting to trading with China? The question needs to be asked. Not long ago, countries the world over traded with Great Britain, and that ended too.
Stephen Miller stated the other day that countries in North and South American that engage in resource trade with countries other than the USA are enemies. He seems to think that it all belongs to the US. I'm sorry but trade with China seems pretty benign in comparison.”
Great Britain and lost trade.
For a start, we got out of the empire paradigm because of the natural desire for independence our once empire manifested. This was not as much a body blow as some romantics are inclined to hope or, at least, believe it to have been. Empire doesn’t consist of 100% gain; it carries with it one gargantuan responsibility towards those people that are part of it. Think India: it has an enormous, ever-growing population that is certainly not composed entirely of highly educated scientific minds. The social problems that the imbalance creates would have bankrupted Britain decades ago had it continued to try to maintain responsibility for India. That India is today promoting itself as the No3 economy of the world might or might not be based on fact - how could I possibly know? - but poverty has certainly not even started to be eradicated. In fact, there are social groups, casts, beyond any help, were it even on offer. Again, but an idea, but does the sub-continent’s leadership actively give a damn about them, spend billions of rupees attempting to lift them out of their situation?
Add to the British mix the industrial situation of the pre-Thatcher decades, where Communist-led labour unions managed to wipe out an enormous car industry, not to mention make its shipbuilding and heavy engineering history burnt toast, unable to compete, price-wise, with France, Italy and then Japan and Korea, and you will understand why the country(s) ended up a service economy, with banking and other highly competitive and rich industries eventually carrying the weight of the rest of Britain on its back. What do you do with the now unemployable? Imagine if India and bits of Africa were added to that load. The irony is this: apologists for the shipbuilding trades ignore the competitive factor, and curse owners for not investing. You know, throw more good money into the bottomless pit of industrial strife.
Funnily enough - but who’s laughing? - the US is in exactly the same state: it has been paying itself too much, and the same foreign sources that took on the failing British production offer are supplying it with goods at prices that home production can’t even look at. Solution offered? Sanctions. In other words, US citizens will have to pay even more than they once had to, and stoke up their political daydreams with the idea of reopening factories that died because they were uncompetitive. Suddenly, that‘s going to help anyone? Well, if it’s done in the style and manner of the Russian oligarchs, at least the guys, the fairies on the very tip of the Christmas tree, will see a new Christmas every day.
As for foreign countries deserting US sources, the reason has been pointed out above: uncompetitive pricing and, suddenly, on top of that, political turmoil and uncertainty. Would you seek out contracts with people you believe to be living on the brink of hallucinations?
