The U.S.-China Trade War And Global Economic Dominance

Why is U.S. President Donald Trump willing to negotiate and compromise with Mexico and the EU on trade, and not China? The answer, in short, is that Trump’s dispute with China is more than just America’s trade deficit. It is a head-to-head struggle between an incumbent superpower and a rising challenger, fueled by a deep conviction among the White House’s economic policy team that America’s problem with China is not just the trade deficit, but China’s very economic structure itself, which disadvantages foreigners not only in trade, but also in investing and operating in China, and distorting business competition in favor of Chinese companies.

In Trump’s crosshairs is the Made in China 2025 initiative, announced in 2015 aiming to upgrade comprehensively within a decade China’s industrial production, especially in manufacturing, to be among the best in the world. It is therefore being seen increasingly in the U.S. as a direct challenge to its global economic dominance. In fact, the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. policy think tank, stated in 2018 that “[Made in China 2025] is a real existential threat to U.S. technological leadership.”… [Read More Here]