0% FALSE FLAG: Low GDP Per Capita Restricts Free Trade

If a poor country that benefited from your wealth announces its intention to open up to free trade, you should be cautious about the headline.

Here is why:

I would import goods from the EU to Vietnam and understand the modern and traditional trade channels.

A container of $500k worth of goods is shipped each time.

One of the biggest questions to have answered was the ability of the consumer to absorb SKUs.

We had to manage both trading and distribution with mutinationals

The highest-end Vietnamese consumer may spend $5 at a pharmacy - yet you are talking about 1 million out of, say, 100 million people.

The consumer is extremely price sensitive.

Remember what JD Vance said yesterday:

"We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants.”

Do Chinese ‘peasants’ have the ability to ensure over $100 bln in goods purchased per annum?

If they don’t that who does?

The government?

We are talking about perpetuity or per annum of closing a trade deficit, not a one-off or one-time transaction.

What is Vietnam’s current forex reserves?

$80 Bln.

What is Vietnam’s total trade surplus with the US?

$81 bln.

0% tariff means nothing with low GDP per capita.

Will a crony government be willing to give away all their riches to you?

Absolutely not.

Unless you force them to pay for the surplus they are getting from you.

Also, oil ventures with US-listed companies have also been a bust. Chevron and XOM 0.00%↑ - plus they just want you to do deep-seas exploration to pay for their defense of the South China Sea.

The math ain’t mathing.

The communist always are tricky.