The US trade deficit with china is ataggering-and getting worse. basically, the Chinese have undercut/put out of business US-based producers of shoes, clothing, textiles, had tools, appliances, audio equipment, PCs, etc. The only thinkg the Chinese want from us are raw materials, and high-tech stuff that they will steal and copy later (like software and nuclear reactors). This situation is not new-the Western nations had the same problem in the 1840’s: Basically, the situation was the same-the West had a huge deman fro Chinese-made products-like china, silk fabric, tea, furniture, and luxury goods. The problem was that the Chinese didn’t want any Western goods-the only payment they accepted was silver and gold. England was being drained of silver-so the solution was to export indian opium to China. the British managed to turn the chinese into a nation of opium addicts, and the trade balance was achieved with opium. Would such a solution work today? Could we ship drugs to china like the British did?
We’re giving them satellite TV and the internet. Those are the worst drugs around.
I believe China is already a pretty big pharmaceutical market (I have never seen anywhere else you could buy Viagra in the hotel gift shop, for example). It’s worth about $55 billion right now and it’s been exhibiting double-digit growth for years. That said, the Chinese are brilliant knockoff artists, and I wouldn’t be surprised if their own pharmaceutical companies start taking up a large part of that in fairly short order.
If you mean…uh…recreational organics… you can’t be serious, can you? Given our “War on Drugs”, even suggesting it would be political suicide. The logistics of trying to avoid having drugs come back into the States would be a nightmare. Besides this, just in case you haven’t noticed, the Chinese government is in a much better position to resist that kind of underhandedness today. What do we do if Customs simply refuses to let them into the country? Forced entry isn’t exactly a good idea with a nuclear power.