Ooops, China making mistakes. Untrustworthy people are not worth dealing with. Buying Made in China is apparently a bad idea because China will cut off supplies at inopportune times. Ford out of stock of magnets. Production line stops. China stole intellectual property from QUALCOMM which is also an untrustworthy activity. They were in good company because Korea, India, Eurostan and even the bloody USA got into the robbery game. Reputations are hard-won and easily lost. Reputations do not quickly recover, if at all. But they can do. Rising and falling reputations are interesting and often dramatic and can be very fatal to millions of people. Heck, even billions these days though that record setting number hasn't been achieved yet - a close call at times with nuclear war within an inch at various times.
China should have just ignored Trump's tariffs and not bothered with reciprocal tariffs and not bothered to cut off supplies of magnets. If USA doesn't want to buy or sell, then buy or sell from other people, or do it yourself.
China's reputation is going bad. England made a mistake giving Hong Kong to China. Hong Kong was great. It should have stayed Singapore style. Being subsumed by goose-stepping megalomaniacs is a bad idea. Same for the lovely people of Taiwan. China's murderous monsters will reduce Taiwan's value. They already are doing so as business flees as they can from Taiwan. Admittedly I'm making that up, but I'm pretty sure that's a trend [to Vietnam, India, USA and I suppose elsewhere].
Ford Motor Co. temporarily idled factories in the US over the last three weeks due to a shortage of magnets containing rare earth minerals, key components embroiled in US trade tensions with China.
Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said the situation demonstrates the need to develop a domestic supply chain for critical auto components. China has instituted a new approval process for exports of rare earths that has slowed supply lines.
“We cannot get any high powered magnets without China,” Farley said Friday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “We shut down plants for the last three weeks because we cannot get high powered magnets.”
Farley said those magnets are critical to seats, windshield wipers, doors and audio systems. “We can’t make that stuff,” he said of the magnets.
I've had seats with no magnets, windshield wipers that worked fine since the 1960s, I need no magnets on doors or their locks, and sound systems are good enough without Made in China materials if they want to go Albanian. Or I might buy Toyota [which I already do] or not own a car and simply hire an uberized autocar for much cheaper than I can own, maintain, park and insure a personal car.
Mqurice |
