Dobby41 you seem to place little value on the rule of law which is strange for an investor, as it is the fair and even application of the rule of law that supports all our investments whether in the share market, peer to peer lending or in property.
I want to reply to the above though as you are mistaken by a common fallacy.
Economics teaches us that the incidence of any tax falls on those with the least market power. Think about whether employer Kiwisaver contributions come from the employer's pocket or the employee's. A highly valued and irreplaceable employee will be able to squeeze the boss, where a more easily replaced employee will not. It depends on who has more market power.
This effect is stronger for international trade, as large markets have the power to bend the terms of trade in their favour. Look at the products that the US imports from China, they are more easily replaceable than the goods the US exports to China. So to maintain sales and market share, Chinese manufacturers may choose to lower their prices by 25% so the price to the end consumer stays the same. In this case it is indeed Chinese manufacturers that are paying the tariff. Obviously it is easier to eat a 5% price decrease than a 30% one. Lowering your currency, which China is doing, is another method to achieve the same result. This is known as
burden sharing.
If you compare the
terms of trade for 2019 with 2018 you can see the terms of trade gap has started to close.
I am not saying this is fair, just explaining the economics behind it. The same thing happened to NZ when the UK joined the EU in the 70s, NZ commodity exporters had to pay the EU's tariffs until we found new markets.
All of this is fairly predicable and clear evidence of the CCP's economic mismanagement. They should have identified the political danger of a massively out of whack terms of trade with the world's largest economy early on and made sure the terms of trade was below 2:1 and not let it get to 4.5:1.