Good morning 🌧️🌪️. A typhoon passed through 🇭🇰& it's gloomy outside, just like the mood of markets after:
a) JPO said hedgy words "act as approprioate"
b) Carney speech on the dollar & digital $
c) China raising tariffs to 30% from 25% on 75bn
d) Trump raised 300bn tariffs to 15%
Facts of tariffs so far:
a) China imports from the US roughly 120bn & tariffed 110bn so got 10bn left & so to ESCALATE it needs to raise the level as volume limited
b) That happened w/ 75bn raising by 5% so items like US crude went from 25% to 30%
c) US imported ~550bn & so far
Events leading to today:
June '18: 🇺🇸25% tariffs on 34b; 🇨🇳 retaliates w/ 25% on 34
Aug '18: 🇺🇸25% on 16b; 🇨🇳 same
Sept '18: 🇺🇸10% on 200b that'll be raised to 25% (1 Jan)
🇨🇳 retaliates w/ 5% on 60b
Truce
May '19: 🇺🇸 raises 10% to 25% on 200b
June '19: 🇨🇳 raises 5-25% on 60bn
Not yet tariffed by both sides but WILL starting 1 September 2019, yes this Sunday:
a) 🇺🇸 tariffs on the remaining (see chart 👇🏻) 300bn by 10% that later exempt 156bn (mostly consumer goods till 15 December)
b) China retaliates w/ raising 5% on existing tariffs of 75bn so +5% 👇🏻
👇🏻:
c) 🇺🇸 Raising 5% on existing to 250bn to 30% on 1 October 2019.
By 1 October 2019: China tariffs on the US ranging from 10-30% of 110bn of goods & the US got 30% on 250bn of goods & 15% on 300bn of goods (w/ 156bn delayed til 15 Dec)
Basically all of trade b/n US&China 👇🏻👇🏻
d) By 15 December, unless there are efforts to delay tariffs, there will massive front-loading for fear of this happening & guess what?
WE WILL HAVE TARIFFS ON ALMOST ALL OF US CHINA TRADE.
But that never ends there. Watch investment.
70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China led by the CCP is on, wait for it:
1 October 2019, which is the same date that the 25% of 250bn goes to 30% & obvs a month before on 1 September 15% on 144bn (156bn to be applied on 15 December 19.
About that September talk😬..
As a recap: Notice that the "bark" much stronger than "bites" to manage expectations & actions always surprise u w/ lower magnitude but trend is escalation.
Meaning, worst case scenario now new normal & u rejoice when it escalates but less than "bark"👈🏻
As in the 10% to 15% of 144bn of goods on 1 September 19 (15% on 156bn of consumer goods 15 December) & 25% to 30% for 250bn of mostly intermediate goods on 1 October may not be realized, which u'll rejoice but only b/c ur expectations are managed. Don't forget that norms change
Trump: Non-committal in China tariff delay. Told you. He just puts it out there so you price the WORST & then takes a bit away & then when it happens you will think it is GOOD NEWS.
True story. This is what happened since late Jan 2018. SPX futures up 1% vs -1% this morning.
Do you know what happens after every escalation so far for trade-war? Deescalation by both China & the USA (yep, true story), albeit short-term reprieve until it escalates again, kind of like a dance to get to know each other's limit...
Same script still plays to buy time👈🏻
#Breaking Mofcom's Gao (de-escalating): Trade escalation not good for 🇨🇳, 🇺🇸; 🇺🇸 & 🇨🇳 in effective contact; 🇨🇳won't discriminate against foreign firms; Won't crack down on foreign firms; discussing 🇺🇸 visits in Sept; 🇨🇳 has ample tools to respond but thinks should discuss removal
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
First, we have to realize that Vietnam went through two stages of FDI.
The first stage is driven by NORTH ASIANS that are basically fed up with geopolitical tensions and too much competition from China (think Japan in 2010 w/ rare earth and South Korea with THAAD but even before) and so what do they do?
They MOVE their production base slowly out of China into where? Well, for South Korea, it was Vietnam.
Samsung Electronics moved into Vietnam in the early 2000s to the point now more than 50% of their stuff is exported out of Vietnam. But not only. Many other Korean stuff.
Also Japanese etc. So what you see in the telecom here is not CHINESE PHONES but KOREAN PHONES.
The second wave of course is Chinese outward FDI themselves and also increasingly EUROPEANS.
Anyway, let's talk about phones.
For phones, the key thing I want to show here is that while Vietnam exports have grown a lot, over time, the IMPORTS of that have DECLINED.
And they have declined everywhere. People that look at China all day long think Vietnam only trades with China.
No, Vietnam is a relatively big trader for its small economic size so it TRADES WITH MANY ECONOMIES, the US and also South Korea etc.
Long story short here is that Vietnam is importing less of inputs while exporting more and that tells you that overtime supply chains are DEEPENING THERE FOR THAT ITEM. And it's not transhipment.
But what's RISING in imports FROM EVERYONE? WELL, capital intensive stuff. Vietnam is importing a lot of machinery etc from EVERYWHERE.
Note that it imports a lot from South Korea and Japan, Taiwan etc as well as China.
Did you know that Vietnam's Q3 GDP grew 8.2%YoY and Q2 was 8%? It is one of the few countries in Asia where manufacturing share of GDP is rising even as Chinese imports flood the market. Why?
“In contrast to other countries that are stuck in political paralysis, Vietnam has moved very swiftly to secure lower tariffs and reform its economy to increase productivity and competitiveness,” @Trinhnomics , a senior economist at Natixis SA, said. “This has allowed Vietnam to emerge as a winner under Trump 2.0 despite high tariffs because it’s favored as a foreign direct investment destination for those wanting to diversify away from worsening US-China tensions.”
Look at manufacturing across Asia and what do you see? Its down for India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia.
But not Vietnam. It's up. The fact of the matter is Vietnam faces a widening trade deficit with China but at the same time it has turned that into an overall trade surplus, which means that Vietnam value add has risen over time.
And you can see it clearly in its manufacturing share of GDP or global market share. Has been slowly steady climb.
This year, in 2025 manufacturing output surged 9.92% in the first nine months of 2025 from a year earlier, with around 77% of companies surveyed by the National Statistics Office saying export orders were higher or at the same level, a sign that US buyers are shrugging off the tariff hit for now.
What is Vietnam doing right? Well, first, the most important thing is that it wants manufacturing above all else. Vietnamese people need formal jobs and by prioritizing that, Vietnam is now focusing on the next leg of development, which is how to ADD MORE VALUE.
Blink and you will miss the biggest reform story of Asia. Vietnam literally redrew its map & made one of the biggest structural reforms in decades.
Rare earth is in the news again. Of course it is not rare, just that you gotta dig deep and then obvs process it. That entire process is polluting, costly and the output itself doesn't yield a lot.
That's how China has captured the market. It's willing to do polluting working and basically sells more not a lot. But having cornered that market, it also sees it as leverage, which it has used since 2010 (with Japan). The weaponization of supply chain is what we call it.
The free market economics of it makes sense for people to just leave it to China to do rare earth & then focus on the more market profitable business. Until, well, dun, dun dun.
So how should a firm or government view rare earth? Should you go and pay HIGHER price than what the Chinese rare earths are going for to then secure resilience of supply chain?
Most say, well, "Nah." That is a costly move because well, others will outcompete you with cheaper Chinese inputs while you go dig and refine your rare-earth magnets. Not an economically worthwhile endeavor.
But not everyone has taken that decision. Here is a story of a company that didn't: General Motors.
Here I summarize the great reporting of the WSJ Jon Emont and Christopher Otts.
As you know, we have known this issue for a long time & Japan knew about it since 2010. So the Japanese usually have about 1 year of this stockpile, just in case. Not the Americans.
The car industry is pretty dependent on rare-earth magnets. GM decided that Covid shocks, which left it with semiconductor shortage, that it should secure non-Chinese rare earth magnets.
This sort of decision takes years to bear fruit so it is one with risks. Why? Well, your competitors can buy cheaper Chinese rare earth while you are trying to get more expensive non-Chinese.
Here we go, as I'll go on TV soon with @JoumannaTV to discuss data, let's take a look at China September trade data that just came out.
September exports rose 8.3%YoY in USD and imports increased 7.4%YoY.
Year-to-date, exports grew 6.1% while imports declined -1.1%YoY.
By destination, China exports to the US fell -16.9% but to Asia rising rapidly.
Exports to India rose 12.9% and India deficit with China is accelerating, with imports not just intermediates for production but also final consumer goods.
Shipment to ASEAN rose 14.7% with fastest growth to Thailand and Vietnam (+22.5% and 22.3%, respectively). The sharp increase of shipment reflect supply chain diversification but also rising imports for domestic demand in ASEAN that also poses challenges to domestic industries.
Exports to the EU rose 8.2% with shipment to Germany increasing +10.5%.
Interestingly, China exports to Russia has fallen this year by -11.3% as Russia puts up curbs to some Chinese exports.
China trade surplus in September:
#1 EU 22.9
#2 USA 22.8bn
#3 ASEAN 17.2bn
#4 India 10.3bn
From winning the Trump trade war, India is now the US President’s biggest target. The Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on India. To add insult to injury, Trump announced another 25% tariff, effective tomorrow, on the grounds that India imports crude oil from Russia.
Indian goods bound for the US will now face tariff rates similar to China’s if we include the Trump 1.0 tariffs, making any China+1 strategy in India less competitive for US markets, and relative to Southeast countries, which for the most part face tariff rates of about 20 per cent.
Will the additional 25% tariff stick? While Russia’s war with Ukraine isn’t going to end by Wednesday, the secondary Trump tariff is likely temporary. Therefore, the question is not whether India will be able to bring the 50% back down to at least 25%, but when.