David A. Andelman, visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, wrote an op-ed for Reuters about President Trump’s trade war with China.
China is fully prepared to win any kind of tariff war that Donald Trump can throw at it with some quite simple stratagems that might all be grouped under a single rubric: Autocratic Capitalism.
After U.S. markets closed on Monday, Trump announced he would impose a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports to the United States – half the level previously contemplated, but still designed to move Beijing toward bilateral talks. As an added incentive to come to the table, he announced that figure would surge to 25 percent at the end of the year, after the U.S. holiday selling season.
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“These tariffs could help Chinese companies and the economy rationalize and become more competitive and profitable,” Siva Yam, president of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce in Chicago, told me. In short, very much a lose-lose proposition for the White House.
Along the way, there may be a bit of pain. But many in the Chinese leadership, expecting Trump to lose the 2020 presidential election, or the Democrats to sweep the midterms in November, calculate they can manage until the next administration sheds the tariffs, allowing matters to return to a normal, free market reality. Of course, Xi doesn’t have to win an election. He’s president for life, utterly in charge of his system of Autocratic Capitalism.