Is it taboo to talk about shipping fraud? | Forexlive

The funny thing about wonk economists is that they rarely look past the math.

With 145% tariffs on China (or today’s Trump-floated number of 80%), they crunch the numbers and trade with China essentially stops. They run that through their models and that spits out assumptions around economic growth and inflation.

It was the same thing when everyone announced sanctions on Russia and Iran.

What happened in reality? Cheating.

You can still get anything you want in Russia as the goods are simply shipped through a Russia-friendly country that then re-exports them. Otherwise, local officials turn a blind eye to where their own companies are shipping: After all, cutting exports means cutting jobs.

Based on today’s Chinese trade data, it hasn’t taken long.

Chinese exports to the US in today’s trade report fell 21% but rose by an equal percentage with south-east Asian nations and the EU. The largest increases were with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Justin wrote about this earlier and has been way ahead on this angle.

So while everyone is up-in-arms about the trade war the reality might be far more benign: The labels are changed.

I expect that the greatest bull market in the world right now is importing Chinese goods, changing the labels and re-exporting to the US. It’s in almost everyone’s best interest to look the other way.

While I think this is all taboo to talk about in economic circles, maybe it should remain that way. Just no one tell Trump and the global economy can continue to hum along.