Donald Trump has clearly wanted, for years, to start a trade war with China. And in the opening weeks of his second administration, he finally has it.
Trump has said, many times over the years, that China is “taking advantage of us” and “ripping us off.” The answer? Tariffs and other measures to ease the American economy’s dependence on goods from China.
However, there are many indications that the “war” isn’t going so well, and that the U.S. may have even already lost this “war.”
The Latest Salvo: Trump vs. China
On Tuesday, the Trump Administration noted that China “now faces up to a 245% tariff on imports to the United States as a result of its retaliatory actions.”
However, if Trump thought that the tariff actions would be met by China’s President Xi begging for peace, that’s not how it’s good down at all.
In fact, Trump can’t even get his Chinese counterpart on the phone.
Per a CNN report last week, the U.S. has told China that Xi “should request a call with US President Donald Trump,” while the U.S. has promised that they will not reach out to China first.
“China wants to make a deal. They just don’t know how quite to go about it,” Trump said last week, with CNN adding that Trump would ultimately like a “grand bargain” with the Chinese that includes more exports from the U.S. to China, a crackdown on fentanyl, and a resolution of who will own TikTok.
But Xi has not called, nor does he appear interested in calling. Instead, the Chinese president recently embarked on a tour of other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, to reassure those countries that they’re more reliable trade partners than the Trump-led U.S.
The Reshoring Threat
The implication, with the tariffs, is that the U.S. can threaten China and other countries with “reshoring,” or moving some significant amount of manufacturing and supply chains out of China and other countries and back to the United States.
But thanks to the structure of how manufacturing works, and the structure that’s been built already, doing so would be difficult, time-consuming, and very expensive.
According to a CNBC survey released earlier this week, most companies say the tariffs won’t get them to move manufacturing back to the United States, and if they did bring it back, they would rely on automation rather than depend on hiring U.S. workers.
Nearly half of those surveyed answered that reshoring would “double costs” for them. Also in the survey, it was clear that if manufacturing in China got too expensive, companies would go hunting for other countries with low tariffs, rather than shift their supply chains back to the U.S.
In addition to the cost and the worry about finding skilled labor, the “current administration’s inability to provide a consistent strategy” was a key reason companies are avoiding reshoring, per the CNBC survey.
Trump in a Bind: Where Does the Trade War Go From Here?
On a New York Times podcast this week, Ezra Klein interviewed veteran foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman about the China issue, and where they see the trade war going.
As pointed out by Klein, the tariffs on China have been wildly inconsistent: They were placed, then electronics were exempted, and then they weren’t.
“What if you get into a trade war with China and you lose?” Klein asked, raising the possibility that the trade war could make China look stronger in the eyes of the rest of the world, without the U.S. having anything to show for it?
Friedman made another point: During COVID, most American business executives who had been based in China left the country and stayed away for a while, which hurt the American business world’s ability to understand China during a crucial five-year period.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter
