David Silenus
As this piece makes clear, China is deeply intertwined with the US economy — both major corporations AND consumers,
who benefit greatly from the lower prices made possible by the lower wages found not just in China, but, increasingly, throughout SouthEast and South Asia …
By ratcheting up tensions with China in a visible and emotionally violent way, Trump is directly endangering the health of the US economy …
Contrast the deep US / China inter-connections shown in this piece — which appeared during the usual news “black hole” between Xmas and New Year’s —
with the almost total ABSENCE of significant economic connections between the US and Russia, with whom Trump seems so anxious to improve relations …
Indeed, there are only two visible areas of political economic overlap between the US and Russia:
First and foremost, oil and energy companies, especially ExxonMobil, home of Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson … and …
Politically, the evident commitment by Trump / Putin / and their “alt-right” admirers in the US and Europe to WHITE SUPREMACISM …
Given the dependency of both US companies and consumers on good relations with China — and the almost total absence of positive links with Russia —
one has to wonder why Trump is so obsessed with playing nice with Russia — while creating massive and emotionally violent tensions with China …
“Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung have all flocked to China to lower their production costs, bolster their bottom lines and tap into the world’s largest consumer market. And many rely on local manufacturing partners like Foxconn.
While Apple came later than many technology companies, it now generates nearly a quarter of its revenues from sales in China and has some of the fattest profit margins in the business.
As such, the Zhengzhou operation provides an especially illustrative look at China’s importance to American technology companies — specifically iPhone production and more recently, Apple’s consumer sales.
A 32-gigabyte iPhone 7 costs an estimated $400 to produce. It retails for roughly $649 in the United States, with Apple taking a piece of the difference as profit.
The result: Apple manages to earn 90% of the profits in the smartphone industry worldwide, even though it accounts for only 12% of the sales.”
A hidden bounty of benefits for Foxconn’s plant in Zhengzhou, the world’s biggest iPhone factory, is central to the production of Apple’s most profitable product.
Source: How China Built ‘iPhone City’ With Billions in Perks for Apple’s Partner – The New York Times