BY DANIEL SAENZ
During the 2016 Presidential Election, there was a great deal of talk between the United States and China over trade deals. From the United States’ perspective, China has not been paying its share as showcased by discrimination against foreign companies, stealing intellectual property and heavy trade regulations that make fair trade impossible between the two nations.
Consequently, since 2018, The United States has started putting tariffs on over $100 billion worth of Chinese goods including steel and aluminum. China, however, has responded by putting tariffs on almost exactly the same amount of goods; although, China has decided to target a trade sector that matters a great deal to the United States: agriculture.
That being said, President Trump has announced that after reaching a trade deal with Mexico, he plans on adding at least $400 billion more worth of tariffs. Likewise, China has announced that it will continue to respond in turn.
Furthermore, in order to safeguard against potential damage to their economy, China has pushed for an agreement to be passed among members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This partnership consists of over 15 Asian countries including China, Japan, as well as Australia. If such an agreement were to pass, it would undermine U.S. diplomatic leverage as well as the U.S. ’s influence in Asia.
So what significance does this have at the local and domestic level? Here in Kansas, there is a bad habit of simply discarding foreign affairs as nothing more than mindless gibberish that does not really affect us in any way.
However, this trade war showcases how global events affect us all in one way or another. Farmers in Kansas used to be able to make a profit by selling products such as soybeans back to China. However, due to new trade restrictions preventing them from selling it back in this fashion, the Kansas Global Trade Services has had to come out and say that Kansas farmers have to either shrink their businesses or be ready for some major setbacks, thus resulting in a loss of profit for farmers.
In essence, our vote really does matter because we are at a point in history where every international event produces a chain reaction in even the smallest, most rural areas in the world.