Analysis: Trump bludgeoned the EU on trade. Good luck doing the same to China

CNN

6 days ago

President Donald Trump isn't going to bulldoze China on trade like he did Europe.
Two days after the EU agreed to a framework trade deal with the White House that some of the bloc's national leaders regard as a capitulation, Trump's negotiators left talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping's team in Sweden with no breakthrough.
Following a flurry of trade deal announcements celebrated by the administration, China and the US are expected to carry on talking. But the lack of significant progress was a blunt reminder of China's power, the stakes it sees in standing up to Trump and how efforts to remake global trade will be incomplete without a deal with Beijing.
Instead of another win, Trump's negotiators on Wednesday will present him with a proposal to extend a pause on historic mutual tariff hikes, which would otherwise hit on August 12. The president has a choice: either approve more time for more talks, which would suit Beijing, or revive a disastrous superpower trade war.
It's hardly a choice at all.
'We're just going to give him the facts, and then he will decide,' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who along with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer led the US delegation in Stockholm, told CNBC Tuesday.
No one is denying Trump's on a roll with trade.
He can justifiably claim significant political victories with a series of framework deals with the EU, the UK, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines that favor the United States by imposing one-sided tariffs.
Trump's bet that other nations and trading blocs would have no option but to, in his words, pay more for access to the mighty American market has paid off. And, in his trade deals, he successfully opened up some previously closed markets to American manufacturers.
Trump has long regarded Europeans as freeloading off American power. He's made good on his promise to substantially reinvent the transatlantic relationship, securing a 15% tariff on the EU's exports while forcing NATO members to agree to steep increases in defense spending by 2035. His hunch that allies are so beholden to the US on security that they'd fold on trade was spot-on.
Trump is also flouting the conventional wisdom of most economic experts, and he's fractured the global free trade and low tariff system in imposing some of the highest duties since the 1930s.
And so far, the global economic disaster that many predicted has not materialized.
Most remarkably, he's acted to impose a personal obsession he's nursed since the 1980s — tariffs.
But it may only be halftime. Many of the expected consequences of this new radical US trade policy are yet to kick in, including higher prices for American consumers that could quickly sour voters on the president's approach. Goldman Sachs estimates that it could take up to eight months for price hikes to show up. Other consequences of Trump's trade romp will also take time to become obvious.
That's not stopping the administration's triumphalism.
'No one's moved as fast as the world has moved with respect to Donald Trump. He has moved the world in a way that no one can imagine,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBNC. 'He's done this in six months; this is amazing.'
But China is looming in the path of Trump's victory lap.
And the president may have met his match in Xi.
He faces none of the constraints that spiked the trade guns of Europe — which was wary of antagonizing Trump and risking its military umbrella and its need for US support on Ukraine.
And China's resistance is grounded in economics, sovereignty and politics that are existential for its Communist Party regime.
No Chinese leader — especially one like Xi, who built his power on nationalism and restoring what Beijing sees as its rightful dignity and respect — can capitulate to an American president in a trade negotiation. China's centralized political structure, unlike the often-fractious 27-nation EU, also gives it stability.
It also has cards to play that can hold the US economy hostage — including its dominance of the production of rare earth elements used in the manufacture of smartphones, smart weapons, satellites and aviation engines.
China reacted to Trump's initial declaration of a trade war by blocking the export of the vital elements. It has since reopened the market, but the Trump administration is still complaining that Beijing is taking too long to approve all rare earth applications for US companies.
But the fact that rare earths are a Trump card for Xi is not lost on anyone.
Decades ago, China's isolated leaders didn't understand US politics. That's no longer the case. And it would not be surprising if they've already concluded that if they stand up to Trump, he'll back down.
Calling China's bluff in these circumstances would be a massive gamble.
It's not that China wants a trade war or would not be hurt by one. Its economy is plagued by problems.
But its authoritarian system means Xi can impose more pain on his people than Trump might risk inflicting on Americans. It was almost alone among global trading powers in ignoring Bessent's admonition not to retaliate after Trump's tariff outburst in April.
Bruce Stokes, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, argued that Trump's desire to visit Beijing later this year for a summit with Xi could also be crucial.
'This is not just about economics. (Trump) wants to be tough on China, I think that's indisputable,' said Stokes. 'But I think he wants even more so to have the opportunity to go mano a mano in Beijing, both for the optics of it and he believes he's a dealmaker who can strike a deal.'
Stokes added: 'The Chinese experts I talk to think that the Chinese think that this guy can be manipulated. 'This guy, you can play him, and we'll see what happens.''
Trump's zeal for one-on-one dealmaking is antithetical to the protocol-laden approach of the Chinese. Chinese negotiators seek to shield their leader by ironing out agreements at lower levels. Trump's team seeks to set up theirs for grand photo-ops that fuel his 'Art of the Deal' ego. There's zero chance that Xi would fly to a meeting with Trump and improvise an agreement, then dole out sycophantic praise for his dealmaking as top European official Ursula von der Leyen did at the weekend.
Bessent told CNBC that there was extensive 'pregame' planning in Stockholm, starting with 75 Chinese officials, compared with the 15 in the US delegation. Eventually, the teams were whittled down for the nitty gritty involving Bessent, Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.
The Treasury chief insisted that the talks had made 'good progress' toward the US position on a 'clunky' Chinese system of controls on rare earth exports. Vice Premier He said that the talks were constructive and that the two sides would continue to push for a 90-day extension of the pause on reciprocal tariffs.
But Bessent cautioned that China had jumped the gun on the pause before Trump weighs in. Of course, presidents make the ultimate decision in foreign policy. But this may be mostly optics. Trump needs to be seen as the big guy. But it's also a measure of his chaotic volatility that nothing is for certain unless he signs off.
China's imperviousness to Trump's box of trade tricks is not the only reason why administration gloating is premature.
Trade agreements are usually complex, running to thousands of pages after exhaustive negotiations between trade lawyers. The superficial framework agreements released by the White House, by contrast, show that nettlesome disputes in deals with EU and other trade competitors are unresolved. Such skimpy agreements could easily fall apart.
Trump might also react to foot-dragging on details by lashing out with tariffs. And recriminations boiling within Europe mean it's not certain that the agreement reached on Sunday in Scotland will survive.
Trump's business, personal and political life has always existed in a perpetual cycle of postponing reckonings. It's therefore typical that while he's touting his winning streak on trade now, he has no idea what lies ahead.
It will take time to judge how the almost-certain rises in consumer prices will impact the economy. And the shock of tariffs will take months to work through supply chains and procurement schedules drawn up years in advance. This explains why Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is loath to slash interest rates despite Trump's fury.
Tariffs may not kill economic growth and cause a recession, and businesses may adapt to the new certainty of duties between 15% and 20%. Higher costs could be shared by consumers, companies and suppliers in a way that eases some of the impact on voters ahead of next year's midterm elections.
But while historically high, the tariffs probably aren't sufficiently punitive to force companies to undertake the massively expensive process of relocating production to the United States — an ostensible justification for Trump's trade wars. And Trump won't be in the Oval Office forever. CEOs may reason that his successor will likely temper protectionism, especially if the economy slows.
Other difficulties also loom. Canada, unlike the EU, seems in no mood to sue for peace after Prime Minister Mark Carney won power on visceral anti-Americanism in the electorate. A prolonged trade conflict would hurt Canadians more than Americans, owing to the relative size of the neighbors' economies. But Carney can make things difficult for Trump.
A sudden spurt of inflation early next year, perhaps triggered by the Federal Reserve chief Trump will appoint when Powell's term ends, could also undermine the fragile foundation on which the president's trade wins rest.
This all explains why a real deal with China is so important.
And Beijing knows it, so it's unlikely to fold.