cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59118855
- “Given the increasingly severe international situation, I believe we may truly be at a turning point in history,” Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said at the start of the meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul. “That makes it even more important to overcome division and confrontation through dialogue and cooperation,” he added.
That was definitely the mood during the first Trump term, but it does seem that the realization is slowly sinking in that the nature of the relationship between the US and the vassals is changing.
Yet they’re all maintaining their anti-Chinese tarrifs and policies; some are expanding upon them like Mexico.
The US has a huge amount of economic leverage over them by design, so they can’t just openly go against the US demands. It’s going to be a process from realizing they need to wean themselves off the US market to actually making it happen.
The problem is that decoupling from the US is a very complicated process, especially when it comes to technology. Well, it’s complicated in the sense of how to decouple without hurting corporate profits/control, or giving rise to a populist momentum.
Indeed, the oligarchs don’t want to rock the boat and they will fight any attempts to redirect trade because that would negatively affect them.