This was a couple of years ago but I think the numbers are still the same: sending a shipping container from Hong Kong to Newark cost about $3000 while sending the same container in the opposite direction cost about $500. This is because we badly want the shit China makes while they don't want anything we make (the same situation that led Great Britain to force China to accept opium at gunpoint almost two hundred years ago). Sending a container to China is so cheap that for a stretch we were actually filling them with our garbage because it was less expensive to dispose of it there.

Anyone who think this represents economic weakness on China's part is batshit crazy.

[–] Treetrimmer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

Not entirely true, they love our soy beans and alfalfa.... But Chinese junk and cattle feed are both horrible for this world. In fact, you can pack a freighter full of alfalfa and hardly add to its weight.

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