China is using capitalism against the US, Hayman Capital founder says
Hayman Capital Founder Kyle Bass told FOX Business the Chinese have been using capitalism against the United States to the “best of their ability.”
“They basically bribe U.S. CEOs and corporations by giving them special access to various markets, while not giving access to the rest of the U.S. corporations and then they use those CEOs to lobby the president to leave China alone,” he said during an interview on “Making Money with Charles Payne” Tuesday.
However, Bass said U.S. legislators, the government and even academics are becoming more aware of corporate America’s lobbying influence with the Chinese. He acknowledges that pushing back against China hasn’t been a partisan issue.
“Whether it’s Steve Bannon or [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, I think you’d hear the same thing coming out of both of them with regard to how we should treat our relationship with China. China steals $200 [billion] to $300 billion worth of intellectual property a year,” he said. “They run state-sponsored programs to put a lot of our industries out of business because they can and they have done this for decades and we’ve just recently woke up to the fact that we need a reset in our relationship with China.”
While the Chinese have said that their relationship with America should be based on mutual respect, Bass finds that the Chinese aren’t practicing what they preach. Therefore, he believes we should walk away from a trade deal with China all together if they refuse to meet us halfway.
“I don’t know if you steal a couple hundred billion dollars of goods from someone each year how that is respecting our relationship. For the Chinese to backtrack and say that intellectual property theft is off the table or unilateral enforcement of a trade agreement is off the table, we should walk away from the agreement. I know in the near term everyone that owns stocks, including myself, will suffer near term pain but in the long run we can’t let our industry be hollowed out by the Chinese communist party.”
Although some critics would say that China has the ability to play the waiting game with the U.S. on trade, Bass believes China’s economy is unstable.
“They are on the shakiest economic ground they have ever been on today. They’re desperately short of U.S. dollars. They’re running out of reserves. They run a fiscal deficit and current account deficit, I think secularly, from now on…[President] Xi [Jinping ] is in a really difficult position and any pushback we give him right now will go a long way to upsetting his political foundation.”
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Ultimately, Bass says the pushback against China is leading the U.S. toward the right direction on trade.
“I’m thankful we are pushing back and our kids will be thankful that we reset this relationship and again disallow this hollowing out of U.S. industry.”