debut: 12/22/15
8,220 runs
President Donald Trump just ignited a direct showdown with the one nation that might be able to beat the United States in a trade war.
Trump’s escalation against China — which is about to face tariffs of at least 104% on goods entering the US — is the most serious pivot yet in his global tariff onslaught and has the most potential to inflict severe blowback on American citizens in soaring prices.
The confrontation follows years of US attempts to address perceived trade abuses by China. It’s also the culmination of a decade or more of worsening relations prompted by an aggressive and nationalistic shift by a Pacific competitor turned hostile superpower that now seems itching to challenge US might.
And it’s a dark landmark in a diplomatic relationship that will help define the 21st century and a breakdown for a long US project to prevent tensions erupting into a full-on trade war — or potentially much worse — between two giants. On Wednesday, China responded by unveiling retaliatory tariffs of 84% on imports of US goods.
The US has been trying to manage China’s emergence for more than 50 years — since President Richard Nixon’s pioneering visit to Chairman Mao Zedong to “open” an isolated and impoverished nation and to drive a wedge between its leaders and their communist brethren in the Soviet Union. It’s been nearly a quarter-century since another milestone: when the US ushered China into the World Trade Organization in hopes of promoting democratic change and locking it into a rules-based, Western-oriented economic system.
Source: CNN
Trump’s escalation against China — which is about to face tariffs of at least 104% on goods entering the US — is the most serious pivot yet in his global tariff onslaught and has the most potential to inflict severe blowback on American citizens in soaring prices.
The confrontation follows years of US attempts to address perceived trade abuses by China. It’s also the culmination of a decade or more of worsening relations prompted by an aggressive and nationalistic shift by a Pacific competitor turned hostile superpower that now seems itching to challenge US might.
And it’s a dark landmark in a diplomatic relationship that will help define the 21st century and a breakdown for a long US project to prevent tensions erupting into a full-on trade war — or potentially much worse — between two giants. On Wednesday, China responded by unveiling retaliatory tariffs of 84% on imports of US goods.
The US has been trying to manage China’s emergence for more than 50 years — since President Richard Nixon’s pioneering visit to Chairman Mao Zedong to “open” an isolated and impoverished nation and to drive a wedge between its leaders and their communist brethren in the Soviet Union. It’s been nearly a quarter-century since another milestone: when the US ushered China into the World Trade Organization in hopes of promoting democratic change and locking it into a rules-based, Western-oriented economic system.
Source: CNN
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