"China's tariffs on Australian barley could see export market lose hundreds of millions of dollars"

[Fieldy409]

Why Chinese beer will no longer be as Aussie as before

Australia's barley trade with one of the most lucrative markets in the world has effectively ended overnight. Here's why farmers can't just sell it for the same price somewhere else.

www.abc.net.au

So this happened. An 80% tarfiff on Australian barley in China. It might as well be a ban

(My own thought: it may be worse than a ban if it leaves people obligated to fufill contracts at big losses).

Some people say with the timing that it is punishment upon our government for discussing investigations into the origin of Covid-19, others say this was a long time in the works and may be punishment for earlier things in an ongoing 'trade war'.

Australia not blameless in China trade war

Australia has been imposing hefty duties on Chinese steel, aluminium and chemicals for much of the past decade.

www.afr.com

The government insists there is no trade war.

WTO tariff action on barley won't be easy — just ask the sugar industry

Australian barley growers pinning their hopes on a tariff resolution with China through the World Trade Organization could face a frustrating process, as the sugar industry has found.

www.abc.net.au

So basically... We fucked with the dragon and got bit. Which particular fuckery is up for debate but it seems like it might off the record be punishment for Covid-19 politics but it could have been for older 'offences'.

 

[Trunkage]

The best part is that the US is now taking over those contracts. Because Trump is big on making China act nicer in the world.

 

[Agema]

So this happened. An 80% tarfiff on Australian barley in China. It might as well be a ban

...

So basically... We fucked with the dragon and got bit. Which particular fuckery is up for debate but it seems like it might off the record be punishment for Covid-19 politics but it could have been for older 'offences'.

I wonder whether the rest of the world shouldn't take a long, hard looks at ways to get on in the world with less reliance on the USA and China. They're both turning out to be unreliable partners.

 

[Trunkage]

I wonder whether the rest of the world shouldn't take a long, hard looks at ways to get on in the world with less reliance on the USA and China. They're both turning out to be unreliable partners.

Ah... sorry man, I'm putting the UK in that territory too.

At least the UK doesn't infect other countries like the US/China. But the Brexit nonsense is about Britain thinking it's better than everyone else thus deserves trade deals that favour them.

That being said, we pulled a Trump with East Timor and stole their oil for our soliders backing them up. And we are the example of Trump and BoJo use in regards to immigration

 

[Agema]

Ah... sorry man, I'm putting the UK in that territory too.

At least the UK doesn't infect other countries like the US/China. But the Brexit nonsense is about Britain thinking it's better than everyone else thus deserves trade deals that favour them.

The UK is currently unreliable in a way. But that unrelaibility is mostly self-harm, as it doesn't have the power to make life significantly miserable for anywhere else (except possibly Ireland, but Ireland has a massive trading bloc to soften any blows and provide it backing). What's the UK ever going to be able to meaningfully do to Australia, for instance?

Also, the tone of Brexit is really explicitly anti-EU. The concept is that Britain is going to try to be best buddies with everyone (else). Amongst the fuddy-duddy oldsters who support Brexit, the nostalgic dream is some sort of Commonwealth revival where somehow the UK, Canada, Australia etc. all work in harmony, because they don't understand geography, that long distances preclude massive trade volumes.

 

[Gordon_4]

Well you didn’t need to be a psychic to see THIS coming.

 

[Fieldy409]

I wonder whether the rest of the world shouldn't take a long, hard looks at ways to get on in the world with less reliance on the USA and China. They're both turning out to be unreliable partners.

At least Australia is an ideological ally of USA so I think they'd be more reliable. Australias economy being so reliant on exports and imports with economies of other countries whose governments are different to ours like China and thus maybe more likely to become adversarial is a real weakness I think. But we aren't the only ones like that.

My biggest fear, I haven't looked at the hard numbers but I assume China's producing a lot of the world's medical supplies like breath masks. If they chose to leverage that power and tariff masks it'd make this massive blow to the barley industry look pretty light I think.

 

[Agema]

My biggest fear, I haven't looked at the hard numbers but I assume China's producing a lot of the world's medical supplies like breath masks. If they chose to leverage that power and tariff masks it'd make this massive blow to the barley industry look pretty light I think.

It's not impossible, but in practice tariffs are paid on incoming goods, not outgoing. Also, a country that attempted to hold the rest of the world hostage over vital medical supplies would engender some astonishingly counterproductive hostility.

 

[Satinavian]

At least Australia is an ideological ally of USA so I think they'd be more reliable. Australias economy being so reliant on exports and imports with economies of other countries whose governments are different to ours like China and thus maybe more likely to become adversarial is a real weakness I think. But we aren't the only ones like that.

Being an ally of the US has not been a good thing in relations with China.

The US tends to strongarm its allies into boycotting/restricting China trade to put pressure on China without hurting the US economy (Trump does not care for allied economies). And if that lost chinese trade is not bad enough, China tends to retaliate for those perceived unfair measures which hurts those allied economies even more.