Trump Needs a Plan to Win His Trade War With China
Pushing for a stronger yuan would help the U.S. and remove a huge global economic distortion.
A better balance.
Photographer: Ulrich Baumgarten/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s trade war is less bad than it was just a short time ago. After some tense negotiations, the North American Free Trade Agreement has been replaced with a new, very similar arrangement, meaning the disruption to trade — and to U.S. relations with Canada and Mexico — will be contained. The agreement might even ease the damage from the president’s misguided steel and aluminum tariffs. Trump has also turned his attention away from Europe, avoiding the mistake of getting into a harmful spat with allies he should persuade to form a trading bloc and a unified front.
Instead, Trump is increasingly focusing his trade war on the appropriate target — China. Rather than being an ally, China is the U.S.’s main geopolitical rival. It engages in a wide range of unfair trade practices and industrial espionage that distort the efficient workings of the global economy. And Chinese import competition has been much more harmful to American workers than competition from Mexico, Europe or any other country. Even some Democrats support pushing back against China.