The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is questioning whether President Trump has a clear agenda on trade as the tariff war with China heats up.
“The reality is that Mr. Trump is making it up as he goes, and it would help if he had an actual strategy to deal with China in particular,” the Journal wrote in an editorial published on Thursday.
It is not clear, the Journal argued, what the president “wants from China” and what his strategy is to achieve it.
“If Mr. Trump is serious, the best strategy would be to rally allies to the cause of fighting Chinese mercantilism,” The board wrote. “But he shows no interest in that either. He squandered his best chance to isolate China on trade in his first term by walking away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership that didn’t include Beijing.”
“China then cut its own deal with many of the countries that the U.S. left in the cold,” they added in the Journal, a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
Economic tensions between the U.S. and China reached a fever pitch this week as both countries escalated tariffs on imported goods between the world’s two largest economies. Despite issuing a 90-day pause on reciprocal duties for most foreign trading partners, Trump notably left Beijing out of the deal.
China responded in kind to the Trump administration’s move to hike tariffs up to 125 percent, in addition to the standing 20 percent tax. However, Chinese officials said Friday that the nation would cap its tariffs on the U.S. at 125 percent — even if the U.S. increases its rates.
The trade war with China has sparked widespread concern about the impact the fight could have on consumer goods and the cost of living for American families. Fears of a potential recession and the volatility of the stock market in the wake of the president’s announcement of new tariffs last week have also raised red flags.
“By far the biggest problem in the global trading system is the abuse of free-trade rules by the authoritarian regime in China,” the Journal warned. “Mr. Trump’s ad hoc, scattershot tariff policy won’t solve that problem.”
“So far he’s hurting his own cause and country more than he’s hurting the Chinese Communist Party,” they added.