Any way you slice it, Trump got his head handed to him in his trade negotiations with China. From Mike Whitney at unz.com:
When President Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs on April 2, he had two main objectives:
- Reduce the trade deficits
- Bring jobs and manufacturing back to the United States
These were the stated goals but, as we soon found out, the real aim was to weaken China by preventing them from selling goods to US consumers. The Trump administration also used the tariffs to isolate China by providing incentives to the nations that agreed to reduce their trade with Beijing. In short, the tariffs were the main weapon in a trade war on a peer competitor who has overtaken the US in nearly every area of industrial and technological production.
Fortunately, Trump’s plan failed, and he was forced to ease the tariffs without achieving any of his main objectives. The reason we say “fortunately” is because the tariffs policy never served the interests of the American people. Quite the contrary, Americans are hurt by unilateral policies that ignore the rules of international trade and needlessly disrupt supply chains. All that does is push prices higher, reduce employment and slow growth. Besides, manipulating tariffs with the intention of destroying a rival violates a number of widely accepted WTO rules that protect the interests of everyone.
In contrast to the US, China acted in a way that was consistent with their broader social philosophy which is rooted in their unique interpretation of socialism. They took the moral high ground, acted on principle, and refused to give in to Trump’s coercion. They only initiated countermeasures in response to Trump’s tariffs blitz that completely ignored the rules articulated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which stipulates that countries cannot arbitrarily exceed “bound rates” or selectively target one country with 145% tariffs. (which is the equivalent of an embargo.) By acting alone, Trump basically showed his contempt for the international system and for any legal constraints on his own power. This is from the Global Times:
The multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core is the cornerstone of international trade and plays an important role in global economic governance. All parties should resolve differences and disputes through equal-footed dialogue under the framework of the WTO, jointly uphold multilateralism and free trade, and promote the stability and smooth functioning of global industrial and supply chains. Global Times
A comment at the Z Blog that we could have fixed all this 40 years ago but we chose go along get along has really stuck with me.
To be fair to Tricky Dick Nixon he was ordered to make China the shop floor by the globalists and bankers who own and run this world.