Friday 15 June 2018

Who will blink first in the US/China trade war?

Trump said he would do it and he has done it. He has approved tariffs on Chinese imported goods worth $50 billion. China will do likewise on US imported goods. Round one of a trade war. Trump thinks the US will win the trade war, any trade war, but there is far more at stake than a simple America First policy. For a start, China's acquiescence on the North Korea issue will be vital if a proper no-nukes agreement is going to become a reality. At present, China is participating in sanctions against Pyongyang, although there are undoubtedly leaks in the sanctions regime. But it was one of the ingredients that persuaded Kim Jong-un to go for "peace" with the US. If the trade war leads to wholesale tariffs across all imported items, Beijing might decide that cooperation with the Trump America is no longer beneficial or sensible. Might China, then, lift sanctions unilaterally against North Korea as a snub to Washington? It's a risk. But somehow I think Beijing will play the long game and keep the trade war as a separate battle with Washington. China knows that if Kim Jong-un plays his cards right, and keeps Trump happy on the nuclear front, the benefits for China's future could be huge: not just no more heavyweight American military exercises in South Korea but also a much-reduced US troop presence, perhaps even zero troops. As the Chinese economy gathers pace and its military modernisation programme, including expanding its naval and missile presence in the South China Sea, a Korean peninsula without 28,500 US troops would be a massive bonus. So President Xi Zinping will play this one carefully. He knows, as does Trump, that trade wars between the world's two largest economies will end up as a futile exercise. Some grown-up arrangement will have to be agreed. It will be interesting to see who blinks first.

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