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Comment by User23

Soybeans are literally a commodity. Some third country will just buy the US soybeans and sell them to China.

Edit: Commodities are fungible. They are things like gold, pork bellies, soybeans, and so on where there is no meaningful difference based on where they were produced. Buyers from some third country will buy soybeans from the USA, relabel them as originating in their country, and flip them to China for a profit. Trade circumvention is nothing new[1]. The US seller doesn't even have to be complicit, once they deliver to the third party they have no control over the labeling and they're not liable to care much either.

Edit: Regarding 5G hardware: "The basic idea is that there is little differentiation between a commodity coming from one producer and the same commodity from another producer. A barrel of oil is basically the same product, regardless of the producer. By contrast, for electronics merchandise, the quality and features of a given product may be completely different depending on the producer."[2] So, no, 5G hardware is not a commodity.

[1] https://agmetalminer.com/2017/05/24/what-is-trade-circumvent...

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/commodity.asp

parent User23 7 years ago

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