Reference News Network reported on October 27 that the CNN website published an article entitled "Trump promised to win the trade war with China, but he failed" by author Gil Disis on October 25, the full text The excerpts are as follows:
US President Donald Trump launched a trade war with China. But as the president lobbied hard for his re-election, he did not have much to show off in terms of this tricky trade war.
Trump vowed to reduce the US trade deficit, but on the contrary, the US trade deficit has reached a historical high. He wants China to buy more American products, but China does not buy as much as Washington hopes. In addition, he has made almost no progress on the major structural issues that American companies are most concerned about.
Although Trump promised to reduce the US trade deficit by imposing heavy taxes on Chinese goods, the amount of US imports exceeding exports in August expanded to more than 67 billion US dollars, the highest level in 14 years. According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. trade deficit with China in August dropped by about 7% from July, but it still reached about $26 billion.
The increase in the overall US trade deficit is more related to the new crown epidemic than to US-China relations. As countries shut down their economies, the epidemic caused foreign trade to stagnate. Even before the outbreak, the gap between US imports and exports was larger than when Trump took office.
With the reopening of the Chinese economy, the country’s imports and exports have been increasing rapidly. Data from China Customs shows that although China’s trade has been hit by the new crown epidemic, China’s trade surplus with the United States in September was approximately $31 billion. The Sino-U.S. trade war also caused severe damage to American farmers at the beginning, although the recent recovery in U.S. soybean sales has begun to ease some of the pain of American farmers.
William Reinsch, an expert at the Center for Research on Strategic and International Issues, said: "The most important point is that tariff measures have caused a lot of collateral damage in the United States and failed to achieve the intended purpose. "
At the beginning of 2020, Trump and China reached a limited trade agreement: the two countries agreed to cut some tariffs, allowing Beijing to avoid the US imposing additional tariffs on approximately $160 billion in Chinese goods. China also agreed to purchase US$200 billion worth of American products in the next few years.
That was before the new crown epidemic disrupted the global economy. Although the White House’s senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in August that Washington’s trade relationship with Beijing was “good,” the talks aimed at reconsidering the aforementioned temporary trade truce and discussing future agreements in detail appear to have been postponed indefinitely.
Reinsch said: "The reason why Trump will fail is clear. You can see this from his failure to make progress on so-called'structural issues', which are the top priority of (the government's) actions. basis."
At the same time, China is getting rid of the new crown epidemic and becoming one of the few major countries that seem to have stabilized their economy. As China contained the new crown epidemic, the country's economy grew 4.9% year-on-year last quarter, achieving positive growth for the second consecutive quarter. The International Monetary Fund predicts that China's economy will grow by 1.9% this year, while the US and European economies will shrink significantly. The International Monetary Fund predicts that China will be the only major economy that will achieve economic expansion in 2020.
The escalating tensions between China and the United States have not even stopped American companies from trying to expand business with China. In addition to China’s recent strong trade data, US direct investment in China in the first six months of 2020 actually increased by 6% year-on-year. In addition, China has just raised US$6 billion through international bond issuance directly to US investors. This is the first time China has opened relevant bonds to US investors in more than 10 years.