Comments by "Louis Giokas" (@louisgiokas2206) on "Processing: The Greatest Threat to US Economic Security || Peter Zeihan" video.

  1. What is left out is that a lot of this processing moved to places like China primarily because of environmental regulations in the US and the west in general driving up the cost. Yes, the Chinese subsidized heavily, but the west also found it a convenient thing to do to export their pollution. A simple solution to this is to apply the same environmental standards to materials that are imported as our industries are forced to comply with. Although CO2 is not a pollutant, the EU is instituting what they call the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. This is basically a tariff on carbon intensive products and production. The same mechanism can be applied to any number of processes. It would also make sense if you care for the environment. The other alternative is to just relax the environmental regulations in the west. This could happen if things get bad enough. As for things like aluminum and steel production, a lot of that is used in China. It is not necessary to produce as much as they do to meet the needs of the western world. Don't forget that prior to 30 years ago all this stuff was done in the west. As for semiconductors, those also started out in the west, mostly the US. It became a more efficient thing to do for chip designer firms to go to a "foundry" to have the chips manufactured. Those foundries can be anywhere. And don't give too much credit to Taiwan and companies like TSMC. They purchase the equipment and everything else needed from western companies (I include Japan in the west here). Again, subsidies.
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