M. Taylor Fravel
@fravel
Studying China's foreign and security policies @MIT and Director @MIT_SSP. Author of Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 http://bit.ly/2E3WDE3
Launch day! My new book on China's military strategy, Active Defense, is now available: buff.ly/2DucRoV Read more about the book here: buff.ly/2KAgeNb
Top Chinese general removed in latest Xi Jinping purge 2nd highest ranking uniformed member of the PLA on.ft.com/3RJEHD6
A wonderful tribute to @MIT_SSP 's dear colleague, Owen Cote: networks.h-net.org/group/discussi…
I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal. The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries. There should…
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BREAKING: In an absolutely shocking clip, Karoline Leavitt says there will be NO reduction of tariffs on China despite Trump saying otherwise. This is an utter disaster for the economy and the stock market.
RIP #RichardArmitage, former deputy secretary of state & giant in the Asia policy field, who passed away on Sunday. I interviewed "Sir Rich" for Lunch with the FT in 2007. #FreeToRead at on.ft.com/3YwE8Ae
Xi Urges Vietnam to Join China in Opposing ‘Unilateral Bullying’ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The US tariff exclusions announced on April 11 have reduced the risk of imports collapsing for some of the largest categories of imports from China that the US relies upon. Most non-excluded but China-reliant goods are consumer goods. The big exception is lithium-ion batteries.
I would interpret the tariff exemptions primarily as an attempt to mitigate the impact on electronics and consumers more than as a signal of a US-China deal. The exempted categories cover about 22% of US imports from China.
This chart was made in America by skilled artisans. It also provides important context for understanding our current tariff situation.
We calculated that post Trump “put” today, the tariff mix is actually worse —China exports more consumer goods to US than other countries, so boosting that (to 125%) relative to others will boost the hit to consumption goods.
Good morning. The United States now has the highest tariff rates in the world.
This is an amazing resource for those interested in maps and geopolitics
If you want an easy way to make "flipped maps" or get some new perspectives, you can play with this simple tool I made: mapspam.net/ortho.html Also great for making inset maps, blank maps for annotations, or presentation backgrounds.
I can confirm I've replicated the CEA calculation for the so-called "tariffs charged to the USA" on these charts. It is the Census FT900 trade data, exhibit 4, for year 2024, and the formula is MAX(10%,(imports-exports)/imports) per-country on a customs basis.
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us. So we…
It's also important to understand that the tariff rates that foreign countries are supposedly charging us are just made-up numbers. South Korea, with which we have a trade agreement, is not charging a 50% tariff on U.S. exports. Nor is the EU charging a 39% tariff.
Why can a direct comparison of two countries’ defense budget be misleading? @fravel explains: “no two countries in their published defense budgets report spending on the exact same categories.” Learn more here: bit.ly/PRCDefenseSpen…
New book alert—delighted to have contributed a chapter to this excellent volume, expertly edited by Bard Nikolas Vik Steen. Contributors include @stephenWalt @arkroeber @alice_ekman @BrunoTertrais @FHeisbourg and many more who are not on this channel global.oup.com/academic/produ…
Applications close this Friday, March 14! Are you a PhD student, junior faculty member or early/mid-career national security practitioner interested in using wargaming as an analytic or teaching tool? Apply for the 2025 Summer Wargaming Institute! The Wargaming Lab will provide…
The US runs a surplus in manufacturing trade with Canada, so if the goal of the tariffs is to reindustrialize the United States, the trade war with Canada is doubly counter-productive 1/
When will the anti-Canadian insanity stop?