Tbh I have no idea… financial services, I’m guessing from the way the question was asked?

No I'm asking also. I guess financial services is based primarily on trust/enforcement. Industry is based on toxic backbreaking labor and deep knowhow. Maybe I'm missing something about financial services, maybe its our ruthless military backing? I don't know man.

Well I don’t know much about manufacturing tbh, but for China to take a chunk of our financial services industry would be very difficult.

The dollar is still the world’s reserve currency by a long way, American capital markets are still the world’s largest and safest, and investors do not like capricious governments that don’t always adhere to established practices and rule of law (see: Ant Financial). Investors don’t want to put money in a place where saying the wrong thing or associating with the wrong person could negatively impact your ability to transact in that country (also see: Russia c. 1990).

So I would assume it would take decades for China to maneuver the world away from American financial services.

> Investors don’t want to put money in a place where saying the wrong thing or associating with the wrong person could negatively impact your ability to transact in that country

I don't think people understand how fortunate the US is to be reasonably uncorrupt/have a solid rule of law, have the world reserve currency, and for the most part be where any company in the world would prefer to be incorporated. That type of branding is impossible to put a value on.

Unfortunately the US is currently speed running to remove these advantages. Luckily it takes time for large money outflows to occur, and hopefully US law can hold in the meantime.

You’ve articulated one of my biggest, cash-under-the-mattress, doomsday fears: that if the US continues this path of removing those corruption / rule-of-law guardrails, there is a lot at stake for us to lose.

Maybe I’m just paranoid, and I know it doesn’t happen overnight, but my goodness… that keeps me up at night.

Precious metals under the mattress is probably a better idea than cash against these risks.

GLD has been bringing in decent returns.

Or maybe this is one of those where the crypto guys can finally say to me, "I told you so" :)

I'd guess that they're both hard, in different ways. But financial services... you need the whole rule-based legal climate for that. That's going to be hard to import into China. (See Esophagus4's reply for more.)