Will the US and their reliable allies decouple from China?

Kompf. What exactly is in the decoupling bag? To say its economic decoupling says nothing, so we have to be very specific. If you ask me even whether a total decoupling can be engineered by the US and the G7 and the EU and the US reliable allies. I would say yes and no at the same time. During the cold war, the USSR banned blue jeans, as for some curious reason it was considered an icon of Soviet counter culture. But blue jeans still found their way into the wardrobe of most Soviet teens. Same goes for the wheel of fortune and Sesame Street. This was secretly broadcasted by a covert unit set up by the CIA in West Germany. Again millions of Soviets tuned in into it and even made copies thru a video Samizdat underground movement that distributed it complete with Russian sub titles thru out the USSR. Kompf you can say the same about how the Iranians managed to keep their ancient Tomcats and Phantoms and at least ten variants of fixed wing and rotor aircraft flying despite a US iron curtain of sanctions. Kompf I am not saying sanctions don’t work per we. They do have the effect of constricting the supply chain of demand and supply, only there exist plenty of rat lines around it. These rat may not be efficient or for that matter even expeditious from a supplier and user standpoint but there are plenty of ways around sanctions, tarrifs and even embargoes. The point I am trying to underpin is this if I a farmer in Nebraska and I want to buy the most price competitive size 8 monkey wrench. I could go online. May not be able to buy from China direct, maybe in Honduras thru a parallel importer who bought it from an importer from Singapore, but I can guarantee you Kompf, that wrench was manufactured in China! I am not worried about the US and EU tarrifing those knick knacks like plastic walking sticks, Christmas lights and decorations, apparel, toys et al. At end of the day those categories of products and services will still get thru to find the US consumer albeit a convoluted spaghetti supply chain where the product is relabeled as the country of origin. The type of sanctions that are worrisome are on tech specifically chips and software and services. If the US dept of trade comes out with a worldwide moratorium that lets say bans Chinese chips from US cars n washing machines. Its difficult if not impossible to get around that sort of sanctions simply because the electronic ledger can trace the start and endpoint of those sort of transactions. If the US dept of trade does the same for lets say stopping critical tech from being exported to China or Russia again those sort of transactions can be stopped. But what you need to understand is this Kompf, China doesn’t need those stuff as it once did so desperately like maybe 10 years ago. 10 years ago, the US was the only country in the world that manufactured class 3AAA mil spec helium gas. You want a balloon to be go up, you need to buy it from the US. Today China can source 95% of its helium thru its global supply chain from at least 19 aligned BRICS countries. See my point? What I think is the jugular question is this, what operating system will dominate how we as a species, work, live and play in the next five years. If I decide to make an electronic payment using my smartphone what operating system am I using? Who and where was the code written? What’s the country of origin? If I am a farmer and I want to survey my land thru GPS, what satellite is my phone hooking up too, is it US, Chinese, Russian? When you press the button to start your car and the operating boots up, where was it all designed and made? When you go for your MIR scan what technology drives all the 3D imaging, what’s the country of origin of that operating system. I think Kompf those sort of questions will increasingly dominate the forefront of humanity’s attention in the next five years and they will become strategic choices that governments, firms and even little folk like us need to make. In some cases such as defense, telecommunications, banking, infrastructure platforms the choices are limited to only the power of one because they are so complicated, big and pricey. But Kompf, by and large this is not a new story for mankind, we have been down this road before be it opting for imperial or the metric…for me I carry two phones, one is android because its cost effective and the other is Apple because I happen to like pranking Siri with really dumb questions like Hey Siri is the NSA spying on me right now? I think we would all have to get used to carrying two or more smartphones in the future Kompf. My advise is to you is go buy a sling bag and don’t leave home without it.