On the one hand, ZTE buys a lot of semi components from the US, and if ZTE craters, those sales disappear.
But on the other hand, if ZTE craters, then other NEMs and handset makers would presumably replace those sales. The thousands of 5G base stations that AT&T and friends are building are still going to get built whether it's ZTE or someone else supplying the components. So if ZTE disappears, it's not like demand for the low-level components disappears too - in theory, those demanded supplies should just get rerouted through other intermediate suppliers, right?
So to first order, I'd think the the effects would be zero. To second order, maybe there would be changes in supplier mix, as Huawei's favorite supplier gains relative to ZTE's favorite supplier. And maybe the loss of ZTE does cause some near-future work to be delayed, shrinking the short-term market slightly. And maybe the loss of a player concentrates more market power in the ZTE-level of the supply chain, drawing profits from the carriers above and the component makers below. And of course there will be costs caused by rerouting supply chains and inventories and the uncertainties therein. But I have no clue how marginal or substantial those second-order costs might be.
If the failure of ZTE is not necessarily a loss to the Chinese government, we can infer that it is not necessarily a gain to the US government, as the gp claimed but using the logic of zero-sum.
As of right now, if all the US has done is threaten sanctions on EU companies, then it's ZTE that has received the dramatically worse outcome.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-m...
Peddling influence and using government for personal profit seems par for the course in this administration.
https://www.salon.com/2018/05/16/trumps-bizarre-zte-tweets-p...
This is not a game without consequence.
It puts money in his bank account. Of all the things to understand, this seems like it should be the easiest.
Much like his inaugural Carrier "negotiation", these things tend to fluff his ego, benefit the other party and somehow leave everyone else worse off.
- All key leadership and board memebers are to be fired and replaced within 30 days
- US picked compliance team embedded in ZTE that the commerce department is reimbursed for by ZTE
- $1B fine and $400M in escrow
- Qualcomm / NXP deal seems likely to be approved, helping US jobs
In the past we've seen other countries deal with Iran while under sanctions, and we've gotten nothing out of them other than speeches at the U.N.
I kinda think I like this better.
oblig disclaimer - I didn't vote for Trump, and I don't knee-jerk defend his actions...
> I kinda think I like this better.
I think this is immensely unfair - you cite one deal that got a lot of press due to a series of unexpected about-faces in the US position. There’s no reason to believe that agreements of this nature are made but not publicized.
Also, I'm not sure I understand how this action relates to the sanctions placed on Iran. What is your reasoning?
Minor correction: I keep seeing totals around 75,000 jobs[0] though I'm not sure if it includes all their subsidiaries[1] - some of which are classified as associates.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/233051/number-of-employe...
And how Democrat presidents are always portrayed by partisan conservatives as morally corrupt degenerates (Clinton as a murdering, philandering drug kingpin; Obama as a Kenyan-born Muslim homosexual on globalist puppet strings)?
Usually I just assume this is confirmation bias + partisans being partisan.
But sometimes I like to wonder, "What if it's all true?"
W was a bit naive but not a dunce. His folksy Texas way of talking was an affectation. He flew fighter jets in the 70s, when that was about as safe and easy as juggling chainsaws. I think W is one of the worst leaders we’ve ever had, but he wasn’t an idiot.
The thing about Obama being a muslim homosexual is fucking stupid and not worth responding to.
I could do the same with welfare, as it greatly outnumbers military spending even though its no where in our constitution or bill of rights to offer such.
Remove your personal issue and think about this rationally please.
As an aside, the president should first and foremost, represent the nation's best interests. But I can't determine what Trump holds in higher regard, the office of the president, or himself. I imagine most people think being president of the US would be the highest position in the world. For any politician at least, US or foreign, the top of their food chain is the US President. But how does a billionaire like Bezos, with a business and news-media empire, view being president? Does someone like that look down or up? What I mean is, would and should a billionaire 'play' president the same way a politician would 'play' president? My imagination is that a billionaire would want to become president in order to use the office to accomplish political goals not possible simply with money, versus a career politician who might simply see the US Presidency as a goal in itself. At the end of the day, both want to see their desired outcomes come to fruition, both want to be in a position of governmental power to make their wants happen. Which one is better for the nation?
https://nypost.com/2016/10/02/bill-clintons-executive-suite-...
(Of course the real power behind money isn't the money itself, the ownership, but the power to use it. So for taxpayer's money, the power comes from the mayor, governor or president and to a lesser extent congress/senate and their lower level equivalents. For companies the power behind the money is management/directors/CEO, and to a (much) lesser extent shareholders. So one should always make the distinction between ownership and the ability to control something. The control is much better than ownership, for one thing, control is not taxed)
And before you say "but that's the president". Well we know about Bill Clinton, don't we. He's the sort of man that forces people in his employ to service him sexually. So clearly, he's the sort of guy that takes "one service for another" pretty damn (in fact illegally) far.
Now you can say "but Bush, and Obama (and even Trump) are better than that". Perhaps, but first, not likely, and secondly even if it's just the one, the results will be similar, perhaps a bit more limited in time at best.
One wonders just what level of favor that buys, but it must have been ... well let's say at least $20 million worth of favor. If you can put a price on it at all, as this is a property that doesn't get taxed, even gets maintained and serviced by the government for free and normally wouldn't be available at all. So that price is the cost price of this thing, actually buying this as a private individual would have been at the very least 10 times that.
So $165 million, firstly $11.5 million directly from the local government, > 10% from foreign governments, and several high 6 figure "donations" from people he pardoned (on top of those people paying "consultation fees" to close family members of the Clintons).
I probably should have said "by the public purse, among others".