In Trump's trade wars, China's unexpected win: More friends

[left-of-center2012]

Under pressure from President Trump’s tariff war, China has embarked on a charm offensive on the diplomatic circuit, smoothing over old disputes and courting partners who could help Beijing weather the storm with Washington.

Germany, which perennially harangued Beijing over market access restrictions, recently let Chinese investors hold bigger shares in joint ventures in a significant concession.
South Korea, the target of withering Chinese boycotts last year over its deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, is seeing Chinese tourism revenue and automobile sales return.

This week, China’s relations with its heavyweight neighbor, Japan, reached its highest level in years.
After meeting at a summit in Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that China will welcome Abe on his first state visit to Beijing next month after he was frozen out for years over territorial disputes and the Japanese leader’s visits to a controversial shrine for wartime dead.
The two men smiled for a photo together, a stark turnaround from four years ago, when they could barely face each other for a memorably grim snap.

The U.S. “strategic rivalry” with China has had other secondary effects.
The People’s Liberation Army this month participated in Russia’s biggest military drills since the Soviet era, while Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin sipped vodka at a summit in their latest display of brotherhood.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/14/trumps-trade-wars-chinas-unexpected-win-more-friends/?utm_term=.78ad213424c5

[Hoyt]

1. It should have been expected. Even Obama warned a failed TPP would help China at our expense.

[Voltaire2]

5. That isn't the problem.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. With tRump's all-front trade war, the World is just trading around the US. Bye-bye USA. . . . nt

[gordianot]

3. Who is the most odious Administration on the planet?

Anyone who agrees with Trump anywhere on the planet has a serious problem.

[Voltaire2]

4. Piss off your allies and then start a stupid

trade war with the 2nd biggest economy in the world.

Brilliant.

[soryang]

6. What's unexpected?

The fundamentally coercive style of Navarro, Mnuchin, Trump and the neo-cons versus "win-win." The author cites the historical pattern but doesn't recognize it. It isn't going to be turned around by more wars, defense spending, threats, sanctions, and tariffs.

[Ohio Barbarian]

7. Unexpected? To whom?

It should come as no surprise that Trump's tariffs would inspire the targeted countries to trade and cooperate more with each other in response. We saw what happens when tariff wars get going with Smoot-Hawley in the late 1920's. The Great Depression and World War II followed them.

Of course, Trump's too much of an imbecile to know or care about history or previous examples.