Why would this happen? Are French markets ignored because the US exists? Nobody wants to leave billions on the table...

When you're designing an iPhone, the French market is an afterthought. The US and Chinese markets are not. In a decade or two, the Chinese and Indian markets could get so huge that the US market becomes an afterthought. Although unlikely, it's a definite possibility.

At what percentage of the global economy do you think the US will become uninteresting?

(it's currently between ¼ and ⅕ of the global economy)

Once China reverses its mercantilist policy that % will plummet and the US will suffer very high levels of inflation.

That will probably happen once corruption in China becomes manageable, the Chinese stop moving their assets offshore and the US has no industrial technological advantage any more (i.e. once China can make equivalently good airplanes and microprocessors).

You mean the Chinese government will stop protecting their currency and hurt their export?

That isn't likely to happen soon even though other governments want them to float freely rather than in a price band.

China doesn't hold enough USD to hurt the US economy without hurting themselves even more seeing as the bonds are non-callable by the buyer.

>You mean the Chinese government will stop protecting their currency and hurt their export?

Right. Exactly like the US does right now.

>China doesn't hold enough USD to hurt the US economy

It isn't about who holds the little green bits of paper. It's about who can turn off the wealth spigot.

The US would experience a huge bout of inflation right now if China decided to just float, it's just that China would probably suffer too. Once the US has nothing China wants (soon) they will have no reason to keep giving us a bargain on their imports.

I've been reading this argument since at least 2003.

And? In 2003 they weren't even close to technological and industrial parity but even then it was fairly evident that they would be within < 25 years.

Now they're not far off parity - maybe 5-7 years before they can manufacture anything the US can.

Trends that continue for a long time do not continue forever. That goes double for things that look like a free lunch.

Exactly. People seem to forget that the fastest (publicly known) supercomputer in the world is made of components that are 100% chinese made (including the CPUs). They are catching up fast, and yet folks continue to bury their heads in the sand.

>You mean the Chinese government will stop protecting their currency and hurt their export?

For the last two years, their problem was the opposite. They went quite draconian on people selling RMB to keep currency strong.

The main motivation is to allow CCP keep throwing money around the globe, buying allies