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— and Trump clearly won the first round of his tariff war
China now needs to be very careful and not engage in their usual delaying tactics to avoid complying with Trump's demands. If they don't, they'll find themselves, once again, facing crippling US tariffs.
Trump isn't playing around.
The president had Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the ropes. Trump’s 145% tariffs on Chinese goods landed a crushing blow to Beijing’s economy, already staggering under the weight of rising unemployment, unsustainable debt, and rising bankruptcies.
All this is why China, as soon as the tariffs were announced, called for a meeting. Not long after, China’s finance minister, Lan Fo’an, traveled to Washington, DC to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The meeting was held in the basement of the International Monetary Fund and, at China’s insistence, was kept secret.
This meeting paved the way for last week’s confab in Switzerland, at which China made some major concessions, reducing its tariff rate on US goods to 10% and, even more important, promising to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl into the US.
The final lesson learned from Trump’s tariff strategy is that mighty China, the Communist giant supposedly poised to dominate the world of the 21st century, is a paper tiger.
In the end, Trump decided not to use America’s vast leverage to push China into collapse, with all of the unpredictable consequences that might ensue for the Chinese people and the world. But now he knows he could.
And, equally importantly, the Chinese leadership knows this too. They also know that, this time around, Trump is starting early — still has plenty of time to act if they renege on the deal.
China now needs to be very careful and not engage in their usual delaying tactics to avoid complying with Trump's demands. If they don't, they'll find themselves, once again, facing crippling US tariffs.
Trump isn't playing around.