Fair enough. I'm not in America but from here in New Zealand there was a recent perspective I thought was interesting although I do not usually agree with the author. The rest of the world does still look to the US as 'the leader' and many outside America feel it is in decline and that China is rising into the void left by that.
2 sats \ 1 reply \ @Nuttall 1h
Maybe New Zealand is tired of the 5 eyes money and they are warming up to their neighbor in the Pacific. New Zealand has been quiet as far as we are seeing. No Agenda has a large Australian audience but not New Zealand.
My guess is that New Zealand is getting tired of the hegemony and maybe wants to join South Africa and Brazil in Brics.
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New Zealand is hugely dependent upon China for both getting the best prices for its commodity exports and for the supply of manufactured imports at the best price. NZ is one of the few developed economies to have a fairly balanced trade with China- almost all other western countries operate a trade deficit with China. NZ has the exports China wants (fish, wool, timber, meat, and some education and tourism) and NZ needs the manufactured goods China excels in producing at low cost. Yet almost all countries globally are now more reliant upon China for the well being of their economies than the US- simply because China buys commodities and converts them into manufactured goods more efficiently. Despite NZ being militarily and monetarily very much a tribute state to the US since WW2- 80% of our banking sector is majority owned by US shareholders- we pay a higher ratio of our GDP to US bank shareholders than any other OECD nation, the US has always refused to grant us any free trade agreement. New Zealand signed the first free trade agreement between an OECD nation and China in the early 2000s. That has delivered huge economic benefits- nothing like it has been offered by the US...Trump closed down the Asia Pacific trade deal that was continued without US involvement.
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