China Called Trump's Bluff - Chait the Atlantic
When President Donald Trump launched his trade war on the world, he issued a stern warning: “Do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.” China ignored the warning. It was rewarded anyway. This morning, Trump largely suspended his trade war in return for nothing but promises of ongoing discussions. There is a lesson here for everybody Trump threatens, whether countries or businesses or universities. The unveiling of the Trump global tariff regime was accompanied by a distinct form of dominance theater. The president and his gang assured his targets that if they submitted to his tariffs, he would repay their compliance. Any country that dared defy him would suffer terribly.
Foreign diplomats expressed repeated frustration as they failed to ascertain what Trump even wanted from them, let alone what he was prepared to offer in return. To date, only the United Kingdom has managed to resolve its trade status with the United States. China, however, retaliated with countermeasures of its own, imposing steep tariffs on American imports. Trump decided to make an example of the country. “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” he announced on Truth Social. (This figure eventually increased to 145 percent.) Other countries, which had showed proper respect, would receive a merciful reprieve. “The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction,” claimed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Trump held out for one month before backing down. Under the new 90-day agreement, tariffs on Chinese goods will come down to 30 percent; China’s tariffs on American goods will likewise decline to 10 percent. .. . The decades of China allegedly “ripping off” the United States were apparently forgotten, along with China’s insolence in retaliating and the supposed need for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on Chinese imports. The administration isn’t even pretending that it forced China to pay any special price for its defiance. It is memory-holing the entire “do not retaliate” episode and moving on as if the point this whole time was to get along better with Beijing.
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Consider a handful of recent cases. Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s invasive demands, only for the administration to come back and issue even more. The powerful pharmaceutical lobby decided not to resist Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose weird ideology poses an existential threat. Not only has Kennedy declined to back down from his extreme positions; the administration has escalated its war on the industry by cutting funding for scientific research and taking steps to impose limited price control. By contrast, when Harvard defied Trump’s list of demands, the administration claimed that its letter threatening the university had been released in error, and complained that the famous university had acted unreasonably.
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The genuinely complicated factor in these negotiations is that “winning” with Trump is often impossible, because the relationship itself is lose-lose. Trump does not appear to recognize the possibility of a positive-sum engagement, and his attempts to turn a productive connection into an exploitative one create losses for both sides… Trump is a classic bully who craves submission and fears conflict. His fervent supporters want him to be Michael Corleone, but he’s more like Biff Tannen. Standing up to Trump does not mean that you win. But giving in guarantees that you lose.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-called-trump-bluff-152100673.html
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