Looks like it is already happening and a desire to reduce dependence on the United States market is a key driver of these projects. They have come to view LNG export capacity as a strategic hedge. Makes a lot of sense.
I know I’ve said it before, but I still find this confidence in the US market as an entity in itself misguided. The US is a desirable market precisely because of its openness, not in spite of it. If we never back away from this direction of rabid protectionism and self-sufficiency at literally any cost, the world *will* have to react. I don’t even have to disagree with the approach to question why other countries would chase at the US teat if we embrace a complete realignment of our supply chain from a global one to a domestic one.
I similarly find this potentially a bit naive. I’m really not trying to draw an equivalence between the United States and China, or to place China on a pedestal. But history is littered with radical realignments, and if there are even a select handful of particularly shrewd Chinese leaders, I could absolutely see the specter of recency bias driving behaviors that might be illogical. If the United States abdicates its throne on the global stage, I just don’t know if that history will matter as much as you do.
I don’t know that I am so much as I distrust the ability of the leaders of other countries to make their decisions based on it. You’re all pretty fond of telling me how many wealthy countries have been lost to the Marxists, yet I’m supposed to trust that these same people won’t abandon us when we veer *both* toward the political right and away from free markets? I find it hard to believe these weren’t the very sentiments commonly expressed by say the British or the Romans once upon a time. Again, this isn’t even meant to read as an indictment on the policies or to suggest we’re on the brink of a collapse or anything crazy like that. But I just find arguments that rest on existing geopolitical alignments to be inadequate for me when presented with such new variables.
That’s where we ultimately disagree. I do think the fact that China is a communist dictatorship is a factor that will reduce its capability to capitalize on decreased US demand, but I think that’s an internal Chinese problem more so than a global one. I think the much of the world would ultimately be able to get over the scourge of communism provided China reformed its trade policies to take market share, and I honestly don’t think China would have to sacrifice all the domestic political control they have over their citizens to achieve it. Ultimately I think China will fail for the same boring reasons nations have always failed, and that’s a lack of sufficient imagination.
It’s much more likely the US reacts to recency bias quicker than the Chinese. We do, after all, have elections.
It’s fun to ask Italians from Italy what do they think of the Chinese in the country making all of the worthless designer bags that get to be labeled as “made in Italy”.
Or Ask Germans about BYD
Well yeah, this hinges on the question of “what if China changed its policies to capitalize on the US turning away from free trade?” And I do agree with you that the US is more likely than China to see the error of their ways. But I guess I just see all of this being described as some static law of the universe when in reality it’s a bunch of governments upholding current arrangements. Thethe’s position seems to be that the US will not see the error of their ways, and instead has already done so, corrected course and we’re off to the promised land. You and I clearly disagree with him on this point, yet I fail to see how your analysis on China/US trade superiority doesn’t rest on some similar assumptions.