" They desperately need our LPG, so just stop the export to china of all LPG and get their attention for some REAL trade talks"
There's a little thing called sovereign risk, should we do the same with USA companies who continue to pay no tax here?
The U.S.-China Trade Deal Was Not Even a Modest Win
The United States has fundamentally misread the relative strengths of both itself and China. It has acted as if Chinese exports to the United States are the key driver of the Chinese economy and hence tariffs are a potent weapon. As underscored by a recentMcKinsey study, in fact, China has been aggressively, purposefully and successfully shifting from an export-driven economy to a consumer-driven one. Much of the gain of exports accrues to the multinational companies that source in China and not to the domestic Chinese economy, and more and more Chinese manufacturing activity is geared toward its own vast internal ecosystem. Tariffs certainly stung, but their greatest impact was not economic but rather as a signal to Beijing that the United States was no longer a reliable economic partner.
