Posted on 08/28/2019 12:30:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The U.S.-China trade war is clearly putting a dent in China’s economy, but it seems to be helping other countries in Asia. Vietnam is the most prominent beneficiary.
“We’ve already seen in our seaborne shipping data that a drop in imports from China has been substituted by supplies from other countries,” wrote Chris Rogers, an analyst at the trade-data provider Panjiva, in an email to Barron’s.
“For example in July, total U.S. seaborne imports from China fell by 3.0% year over year while those from Vietnam climbed 28.5% and shipments from India and Thailand rose 17.6% and 16.0% respectively.”
While Vietnam has built up a strong manufacturing base in the past decade, particularly for clothing, it has increasingly been drawing technology companies that rely on factories there to produce high-tech goods. Samsung Electronics (ticker: KR:005930), LG, Olympus (JP:7733), and others have set up production in Vietnam.
Escalating tariffs and wages in China are sparking even more interest.
On Wednesday, the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Google, owned by Alphabet (GOOGL), is moving some production of its Pixel smartphone to Vietnam, citing people it didn’t identify. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Pixel isn’t among the top 10 smartphone brands in the world, but it ranks fifth in the U.S. It is priced at a significant discount to Apple ’s (AAPL) iPhone and other high-end devices; the 3a version retails for $399. Some 3a production could move to Vietnam before the end of the year, the Nikkei Asian Review reported. The newspaper also said Google plans to eventually move production of most of its hardware that is bound for the U.S. to Vietnam.
Vietnam’s economy has been growing quickly for more than a decade, but the last couple of years have been particularly promising.
(Excerpt) Read more at barrons.com ...
“Vietnam is the most prominent beneficiary”
It’s supposed to be the United States.
We aren’t in need of new offshoring sites, we’re in need of our industries coming back.
I agree, but some things are not coming back. And right now, starving the beast, that is China is more important, IMHO. They hold a significant amount of our debt. They themselves have a ton of debt. Crush them and then things can gradually reset. Thing is, all they have to do is play fair and they seem to be unwilling to do that.
Exactly what I was thinking. I enjoy seeing commies rot as much as the next guy, but the shift is SUPPOSED to go to America, from what I understand.
We aren’t in need of new offshoring sites, we’re in need of our industries coming back.
That was never going to happen.
Democrats are preventing any chance of these jobs returning with a $15 minimum wage. Many states are doubling their minimum wages. This is designed to keep out jobs and draw in illegals to work for less.
At least moving production from China is a good national security development.
The only things that will come back will be heavily automated production.
What people forget, it is not just the hourly wage. It is having to provide health insurance, dental, retirement, etc.
Then if you get sick from working with hazardous substances you file a lawsuit for millions of dollars twenty years later.
If somebody wants to work in a factory making Lithium batteries in China, India, Vietnam or Mexico go right ahead.
Personally, I will pass.
Make Vietnam Great Again.
North America has re-shored over 5 million jobs in the last 4 years. Most went to Mexico from China. But, over a million came back to the USA!
In the meantime, chicoms are suffering because of an exodus of businesses.
Chinese R&D = Chinese Ripoff & Duplicate
Since President Trump, it seems to me that there are more folks talking about what life in China is like. Pretty much to the person, there’s not a single thing about them that people should be in awe of. They use slave labor for everything. For the most part, their tech savvy comes from kids that were educated in the west. They have a conscript military. And outside of the major cities the people live like the Flinstones.
The President bringing what jobs back, that he can scares the sh*t out of Wall St and the multinationals as it cuts into their profit and allows for more competition. They, like their Chinese puppet masters, like playing a rigged game.
I don’t think there’s as much going on there as they’d like the world to think.
True - but until/when companies come back, those with current manufacturing facilities will fill the gap that China is opening by being reticent about honest trade policies...
“is an incentive to great for some of these corporations”
And that’s exactly what the tariffs need to dis-incentivize.
ALL of our industries can be offshored. Every last one of them. The last 30 years have proven that: you just drop your trousers and let them take all your junk.
The question is, do we want to let that happen?
Lotsa people here say SURE, you’ll feel great afterwards!
Oddly I don’t think so.
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