The US is losing economic ground to China and Russia as Middle Eastern and Asian nations turn to the BRICS development partnership.
Dr Jack Rasmus told Sputnik that Washington's hostility towards Beijing has remained constant under successive Republican and Democrat governments.
"Beginning in August 2017, the US decided that China's advances in next generation technologies like AI and cyber security and 5G and all that were getting to to close to parity with the US," Rasmus explained. "Under Trump, they attempted to thwart China's technology development through trade negotiations, through tariffs and so forth."
That "trade war" approach didn't help so the Biden administration turned to import "quotas," he said, limiting the number of microchips US firms could import from China. And the CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden ratified in August 2022, constitutes a $500-billion "bribe" to semiconductor manufacturers to move production back to the US from China.
That is "all about preparing for a possible conflict with China," Rasmus said. "Get those US and other tech companies out of Taiwan, get into the US, then producing these key products here in North America" — although more likely in Mexico than the US.
Meanwhile, the US dollar's privileged position as the currency of international trade is under threat, with many nations agreeing to trade with China in its Renminbi currency or their own.
"China and others are going to buy fewer and fewer dollars," Rasmus said. "They're not recycling the dollars back to the US. That was part of the neo-liberalism trade imperialism arrangement the US developed here," a system he dubbed the "twin deficits."
"We're going to run a trade deficit. So dollars are going to flow out of the country," the author explained. "But free trade with these other countries are going to mean that they're going to recycle the dollars back to the US."
What's more, formerly close US trade partners are turning to the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which offers direct investment and development loans with fewer strings attached.
"It's very clear that the Saudis and the Emirates are beginning to place their bets, both on China in the BRICS. Brazil, Russia and so forth, which will start expanding pretty soon. Argentina is going to join, maybe Mexico, a couple other countries," Rasmus noted.
He said Turkiye and possibly the United Arab Emirates were buying Russian oil at a 25 per cent discount and "reselling it to Europe. So Russian oil is getting back to Europe, just not directly from Russia."
"This is going on throughout the rest of the world, India and others," Rasmus said. "They're not following the sanctions. The US does not have the power to enforce secondary sanctions."
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