Trump’s Trade War May Be His Waterloo

With the passing of former American President George Herbert Walker Bush we have been reminded of what a sincere and good friend President Bush was of China and the Chinese people, and how after President Nixon’s seminal opening to China, Bush played a pivotal role in cementing the burgeoning diplomatic relationship between the USA and PRC, for the benefit of the planet as a whole.

This wise and enlightened statesmanship and with it the careful and thoughtful management of the Sino-American alliance stands in stark contrast to the reckless and bewildering management (or mismanagement) of American-Chinese relations under the Trump administration. The Trump administration have taken US-China relations to their worst state of being since Nixon and Kissinger’s historic founding of modern diplomatic relations between the two global giants in the 1970s with Chairman Mao.

By initiating a bewildering and highly damaging, plus needless, trade war between the Earth’s two largest economies Trump squandered much good will that existed after his election to attempt to work in a serious and statesmanlike fashion for the betterment of the Washington-Beijing relationship – the most important strategic state on state diplomatic relationship of the 21st century. The appointment of the Trade advisor Peter Navarro has also been extremely nauseating and disturbing for the overall direction of the Trump administration’s policy regarding China. 

It has been bewildering because the tariffs the Trump administration have introduced on American-Chinese trade have badly hit American businesses and consumers, not that a person and shabby con artist business merchant such as Trump could care less about that, he has after all spent his entire life sticking it to working class folks. There has always been a natural, organic synergy to US-China relations with a mutual win-win for both countries rather than a zero-sum game. That is why the Tariffs have been so disruptive, damaging and discouraging for the symbiotic nature of the Washington-Beijing alliance, and it is an alliance, that when a good and healthy state of relations between DC and Beijing has existed has always been of the greatest benefit for the American and Chinese peoples united in friendship and cooperation and for the world as a whole.

That is why the management of the American-Chinese relationship is of the greatest strategic global geopolitical importance, especially as this century the PRC will be an incredible economic superpower that will drive and influence a huge amount of global economic growth. With this the management and handling of the relationship between America and China is a top tier significant planetary and historical matter alongside such pressing global challenges of our age like climate change. By behaving so badly and acting in such an immature, petty and irresponsible way in conducting Superpower diplomacy with a pre-eminently ancient, supremely wise and magnificent civilization such as China, Donald Trump may just finally have met his Waterloo. Unless Trump changes tack immediately matters will only get worse for the Trump administration, and indeed further down the line in years to come, the Trump organisation.

Trump must sack Peter Navarro and have a shake up and overhaul of the Office of US Trade Representative. Protectionists must be junked and a preference for free trade restored. Trump must also stop his anti-China rhetoric which is not helpful and only serves to whip up unfounded prejudice and paranoia among his supporters. Trump must also desist immediately from pursuing the CFO of Huawei and shut that appallingly politically motivated case down. The Trump Trade Tariffs must go with normalcy returning to US-China trade which was the case before Trump instigated these disgusting tariffs. And Trump must rein in his Vice-President Mike Pence who has been making matters worse and increasing tensions with ignorant, inflammatory and stupid comments regarding the rightful Chinese sovereignty over the South China Sea. Trump is fundamentally a non-serious spoilt brat showman who has never really had to work hard for anything in his life but rather has had it handed to him on a plate. As a politician, apart from getting some groups whipped up and putting on one heck of a tour de force in modern American political campaigning, Trump has shown little real appetite or knowledge or skill for actually running a Government and a country with far too much of his time spent on twitter or watching the media. Yet patience is starting to wear very thin for this Trump clown circus act that passes for a Superpower Government.

Photo: Flickr

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By Matthew Jamison
Source: Strategic Culture