The U.S. – China trade war was a long time coming. Not just because Trump tweeted in 2011, “China is neither an ally or a friend – they want to beat us and own our country.” Or the comment made on the campaign trail by Trump in 2016 when he said, “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.” The U.S. – China trade war came along because it was inevitable. The two greatest economies of the world jockeying for position but also with economies completely intertwined.
It seems though the trend began when the U.S. did an investigation into certain business practices and government policies related to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation back in 2017. It wasn’t a mystery that China was stealing technology but a matter of who would stand up to them. The U.S.- China trade war is a result of these practices as well as the technological advances that have been made the past ten years that would put U.S. national security at risk. The ban on Huawei is part of this development. It’s a paranoia of state secrets to be given to China’s government.
In total US$250 billion in tariffs have been applied to Chinese goods and US$110 billion In tariffs have been applied to U.S. goods. On August 6th Chinese suspended buying new orders of agriculture products from the U.S..The trade war isn’t cooling down anytime soon.
So what’s the result of this? What is the goal? First the goal is not only to lash out at bad business practices. It’s to speed up the process of bringing manufacturing of goods back to the U.S. that it’s hoped to do. It also protects U.S. interests in developing further more technology that can be competitive at hope and abroad. It’s also benefiting Southeast Asian countries where Chinese investors are now moving manufacturing so they can still do business with the U.S.. We are starting to see this shift from China to places like Myanmar and Vietnam to name a few. China is scrambling to figure this out. But there aren’t a lot of good options. What will happen next? I predict a trade agreement will finally be made with China being on the losing end.