Democrates may gain control of House and/or Senate.
If the Dems get a big win, some may try to impeach Bush.
If the win is marginal, that won't happen.
House may stop voting money for Iraq war, or reduce funding, etc. and put enormous pressure on the Administration.
A big win could see some Democrates in a position to pass some protectionist legislation, along the lines of Senator Schumer's Bill, but weaker. I would expect that the pro-business people, both democrat and republican, would amend the bill until it was mostly symbolic.
Movie piracy is likely to be one real part of the bill, since the movie industry heavily contributes money and the actors draw media attention to campaigns.
Drug piracy would be another.
I would not expect anything else that would affect the China-Wal Mart trade, or outsourcing production to China, FDI, or much else.
I expect China will have several leverage points to affect the bill..
-Large orders for Boeing - the leverage of this has dropped since Airbus is screwng up so badly. A traditional game, probably done since the Tan dynasty.
-Do something about North Korea. Of course, it would be something China was going to do anyway, just with different timing ;-)
-Slower buying of US Treasuy bills. Of course this has the bad effect of making the RMB stronger versus the USD. Also, there is plenty of recycled oil money buying US paper, enough to actually push down interest rates, so this may not be the most useful threat at this time.
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China could also do something in Sudan, relative to Darfur.
While there is lots of oil there, the foreign policy price of supporting Sudan gets higher has the Sudan becomes more of a pariah state. |
