Trump Proposes Punitive Trade Measures Against China, Challenging Xi

Trump’s punitive actions against China might lead to a trade war between two of the world’s largest economies.

In the past two decades, the leaders of China have utilized global trade rules set by the United States and others to their advantage of growing the nation’s domestic economy, despite wide complaints of the country not playing fair.

However, this may be coming to a stop because of President Donald Trump. President Trump, who has sided with protectionist views with his recent trade measures, challenges China’s leader, Xi JinPing. He will have to confront the reality that China has become one of the United States’ biggest economic rivals and could no longer finesse out of trade measures like the country used to.

On Thursday President Trump announced tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese goods along with new restrictions on Chinese investments in the United States. In response to this protectionist measure specifically targeted towards China, Xi has proposed on Friday additional tariffs on over 100 American products at the value of $3 billion. Despite its attempt to counter America’s new trade measure with its own, China’s main priority lies in negotiating with the United States to “avoid damage to the broader picture of Chinese-U.S. cooperation.”

President Trump’s punitive trade actions could potentially lead to a trade war between China and the United States. A professor of international relations at Renmin University, Shi Yanhong commented that since China has been able to dodge the criticism regarding its trading practices in the past, it is not prepared for this change of temperature in the global economic climate and may have underestimated the gravity of this situation.

Analysts in Washington and Beijing agree that Mr. Xi will still aim to find a middle ground between the two countries to avoid a broader confrontation that will not only be a blow to China’s economic growth, but also his own political standing as well.

Cliff Kupchan, the Washington-based chairman of Eurasia Group, said: “Xi’s done an excellent job walking the thin line between Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and protecting his own strong nationalist image.” He also comments that this would be a great test for Mr. Xi and his advisers’ ability to steer China towards the right direction economically in the world.

President Trump, on the other hand, has been consistent in his hostility against China, as he referred to China as “raping” the United States and its workers even during his campaign. His effort to curtail China’s economic growth and prevent China from getting away with its trade practices is apparent.

Mr. Xi, however, has already made concessions to Mr. Trump’s increasing pressure and tightened its sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear program. The Chinese government has already sacrificed a sizable amount of money, and is therefore agitated and deeply frustrated by Mr. Trump’s continuing discontent and wariness against China. In fact, Mr. Trump, by refusing to meet with Mr. Xi’s personal envoy and pushing forth the tariffs on steel and aluminum on the same day, has angered China greatly and dimmed hopes on cooperation.

China has stated that it will push back against whatever the United States continue to do regarding to trade measures and tariffs. Beijing has released a statement criticizing the Trump administration even before the release of these punitive actions.

Experts have expressed the sentiments that no one would win from these sanctions as “China is far more salient than the U.S. to the pain.”

China has coped with similar trade complaints in the past decades by enlisting big businesses in the United States and swapping out punitive measures with small concessions and compromises. It has already expressed its willingness for more concessions to open up China’s economy more to specifically America in a news conference from earlier this week.

This statement, however, is not reciprocated by Mr. Trump, who seems to be adamant in carrying out these punitive trade measures upon China.

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