When it comes to why China is not giving in to Donald Trump on tariffs, the reason is that it doesn’t need to. China’s leaders would argue that they are not going to give in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly called the Trump administration a – but it also has the ability to do this far beyond any other nation on the planet.
Prior to when the tariff war took effect, China did have a huge amount of sales in the US, but, for perspective, this only equaled 2% of its GDP. All the same, the Communist Party would plainly like to avoid getting stuck in a trade conflict with the US as it struggles to repair its own significant economic pains, having weathered several years of an apartment crisis, exaggeratingly massive regional debts, and unemployed young people.
Yet, in spite of this, the government has informed its citizens that it is well equipped to withstand the US attacks. It also understands its own tariffs are plainly going to damage US exporters as much.
Trump has been boasting to his base that it would be simple to bring China into submission by merely striking the nation with tariffs, but this has turned out to be extremely misleading.
Beijing will not back down.
The leader of China, Xi Jinping, advised the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that the European Union and his country ought to “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of Trump’s administration.
Sanchez, meanwhile, stated that China’s trade tensions with the US should not hinder its cooperation with Europe. Their meeting was held in the Chinese capital during the hours leading up to Beijing again raising its tariffs on US goods, although it has indicated that it will not retaliate against further US tariff hikes.
Next week, Xi travels to Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. All of these countries have been badly affected by Trump’s tariffs. His ministers have been meeting South African, Saudi Arabian, and Indian counterparts, bigging up more trade co-operation.
Furthermore, China and the EU are said to be negotiating the potential elimination of European tariffs imposed on Chinese automobiles, to be offset by a minimum price instead, in order to contain a fresh bout of dumping. In short, wherever you turn, you can find that China has alternatives.
Experts have explained that these reciprocal tariff hikes by the two superpowers are now fast becoming symbolic, as they’ve already gone beyond eliminating much of the trade between them.
Thus, the tit-for-tat tariff hikes in both directions have turned symbolic.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has, in the last two days, tweeted pictures of Chairman Mao on social media, including a video clip during the Korean War when he informed the US that “no matter how long this war lasts we will never yield”.
Over this, she made her own comments, saying:
“We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We won’t back down.”
If the Chinese government breaks out, Chairman Mao, you know they’re serious.
