China threatens to cut sales of iPhones if 'naive' Trump pursues trade war (theguardian.com)

12 points by doener 9y ago ↗ HN

6 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] thread

> China can also limit the number of Chinese students studying in the US.

Is the party somehow disgruntled about this too? The proposed retaliations read like a wish list.

Arguably it's a form of brain drain. The US imports a lot of graduate students who got a subsidized undergrad for cheap (or free!) at public universities in their home country.

I should know, I was one of them, and now I'm working and paying taxes in the US. Arguably a net loss to my home country :-P

anaccountwow 9y ago ↗

It's always struck me as weird how the prevailing opinion on hacker news is anti-foreign students / workers...

mycall 9y ago ↗

Imagine if China started dumping U.S. Bonds and T-Notes. eaks.

toomuchtodo 9y ago ↗

Social security would be able to soak them up (its the largest holder of treasuries). And it'd be helpful for interest rates to go up to slow federal spending.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html

http://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt

spikels 9y ago ↗

This kind of trade war with China seems like win-win for Trump. He can help his blue collar supporters at the expense of people who are against him.

Hope this does not happen as trade is an overall good but the benefits to Trump seem strong.