Decoupling, derisking, deglobalisation. Ending connections. Maintaining hegemony. Preventing the usurpation of China. Making sure everyone can still buy cheap knick-knacks online.
Something smacks of the USA's Civil War. The North went with Industrial Capitalism (which was only began to be replaced with the UK flavor of Financial Capitalism in the 1970s). As bad as things were for factory workers, the labour shortage and conditions of at worst bonded/debt slavery vs. the South's chatel slavery was a significant inducement for the labour to escape. The South broke off from the North to protect it's pre-feudal slave based economy, and the rest is history. It seems the bonded slaves of the West are starting to get a hankering that student debt, medical debt, are not immutable facts, so the West seeks to isolate itself. I don't think this is going to work out well.
I would not say decoupling is impossible except in a technical sense. If the combination of a stupid American president and a stupid American people blunder into a war with China and insist that China be punished then the United States could go quite far down the road of hurting its own economy to punish China. But critical minerals are where they are and a maximum use of military and economic brute force by the United States will not change that.
Something smacks of the USA's Civil War. The North went with Industrial Capitalism (which was only began to be replaced with the UK flavor of Financial Capitalism in the 1970s). As bad as things were for factory workers, the labour shortage and conditions of at worst bonded/debt slavery vs. the South's chatel slavery was a significant inducement for the labour to escape. The South broke off from the North to protect it's pre-feudal slave based economy, and the rest is history. It seems the bonded slaves of the West are starting to get a hankering that student debt, medical debt, are not immutable facts, so the West seeks to isolate itself. I don't think this is going to work out well.
I would not say decoupling is impossible except in a technical sense. If the combination of a stupid American president and a stupid American people blunder into a war with China and insist that China be punished then the United States could go quite far down the road of hurting its own economy to punish China. But critical minerals are where they are and a maximum use of military and economic brute force by the United States will not change that.