One day, on July 6, the United States’ decision to impose a tariff on China’s $34 billion in exports to the United States will come into effect. China has been waiting for it, and it will inevitably use the "quantity-type and quality-type" measures for peer-to-peer counter-measures. The Sino-US trade war is on the verge of exploding.
Since it is a war, both sides will inevitably pay the price. Therefore, China is not willing to fight trade wars, nor will it open a "first shot" because China knows well that there is no winner in the trade war. Once China and the United States go to war, the biggest losers are undoubtedly the people of China and the United States and the world. However, in the United States, three people do not think so. Because, in their hearts, maintaining the absolute hegemony of the United States, realizing personal superpower, and seeking personal self-interest far exceeds the opposition of American companies and the public, far exceeding the welfare of the global people.
Since the US President Trump took office, the cabinet fight and policy confusion have long been not news. For example, on the issue of trade with China, there are both hard-line faction headed by trade representative Letshheze, director of the White House National Trade Commission, Navarro, and moderates represented by Finance Minister Mnuchin and Secretary of Commerce Ross and a swingman like Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council. After several rounds of fighting, the hardliners in the White House have prevailed. At present, the White House “iron triangle” consisting of Trump, Wrightheze and Navarro is using the tariff as a means to provoke war against all the trading partners they think “account for the US”. It is the main target.
This is not surprising. As far as Trump is concerned, he was born in the business world and voted for Bo. He campaigned for a populist card and targeted the Chinese, claiming that China had taken away the American job and he wanted to help the Americans get it back. After entering the White House, the cornerstone of all his policies was to fulfill the campaign promises, to maximize the votes, to consolidate the Republican Party's dominant position in the midterm elections in November this year, and to pave the way for his re-election campaign. Therefore, all domestic and foreign policies in the past must be subordinated to him, rather than he must follow these policies. In this way, China naturally becomes the main battlefield for his fulfillment of promises. He wants to make use of the business field he is good at and the "transaction art" to make him "the United States is great again."
To achieve this, Trump must look for "like-minded" comrades. Thus, Wright Heze, who is known as the "American trade tsar," and Navarro, the concocter of the "China threat theory," entered his field of vision.
Wright Heze is the main designer of the US 301 survey. He has participated in more than 20 international trade negotiations involving steel, automobiles and agricultural products. He became famous in 1985 and forced Japan to sign the "Plaza Agreement." As early as 1999, Wright Heze publicly declared that China’s accession to the WTO was a threat to the United States and accused the US government of making concessions to China on trade issues. Since the outbreak of Sino-US trade friction, Wright Heze has always been at the forefront. He did not satisfy the intentional agreement reached with China on the trade balance issue, and directly pressured China to carry out "structural reforms" in an attempt to change China's development path.
As for Navarro, he had never been to China until 2018. Although he mainly studied electric power and energy in his early years, he did not prevent him from becoming a half-way monk with his second-hand materials, and pieced together the "China threat theory" and several books that regarded China as an "imaginary enemy." For more than a decade, he has been eager to study the "China threat" issue, and thus entered the US political arena, frequently attacking China in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US-China Economic Security Review Commission, the US Congress, and so on, and finally succeeded in causing Trang. General's attention has become one of its most important policy advisors.
At this point, the only three people in the United States who want to trade with China have come together for the same reason: Trump only has votes and party struggles, and the "trade tsar" Wright Heze is eager to "create glory again." Navarro, who is "the work of the body," hopes to put the hypothetical issues he has worked hard for more than a decade into practice. The three people therefore hit it off and they all needed it. As a result, people have seen that in the US trade war with China, the role of the three people is: Trump is the chief commander, and Twitter is the charge for issuing orders; Wright Hize fills the current front and continues to launch the so-called China. Reports and testimonies of trade barriers; Navarro is a military division, and his book "Fatal China" is the "source of policy" for the US to launch a trade war against China.
As a staunch supporter of populism and protectionism, the White House “iron triangle” has reached a state of arrogance for the maintenance of American hegemony. They all believe in the “zero-sum game thinking” of “you win and lose”, but they are not aware of China and are biased. This is also doomed to have a fatal weakness: Trump has no experience in trade wars, and he wants to subdue China by fraud and extreme pressure on the business field. It is undoubtedly self-effacing; The agreement is a famous work. However, China is not Japan. It is not 1985 in 2018. His experience and means are outdated. As for Navarro, although he has dealt with the theory of "China's economic aggression", it seems to be awkward. In fact, it is "on paper."
The mainstream media and experts in the United States generally believe that Navarro has little knowledge of the deep-seated reasons for the Sino-US trade deficit and cannot be led. For example, The New Yorker magazine called Navarro's point of view “not only overly simple, but also wrong and dangerous.” The Cato Institute pointed out that almost every paragraph in the Navarro column contains factual errors or misunderstandings.
Just past July 4th, it was the US "Independence Day." Ironically, after two hundred years of development, the "free trade" and "open society" policies that the United States has been pursuing have been completely overthrown by the Trump administration today; the traditional values that have made the American fathers proud are positive. Subverted by the "White House Iron Triangle" and shelved. The United States is now slid to "isolationism" and "closed society." Some people call it the "start of the decline" in the United States. So who is this?