Donald Trump will inevitably claim Monday’s temporary truce in the US-China trade war as a victory, but financial markets seem to have read it for what it is – a capitulation.
Stocks were up and bond yields were higher after the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s early morning press conference in Geneva, where he has been holding talks with China.
As with the UK “trade deal” last week, the US is not reverting to the status quo before Trump arrived in the White House.
Instead, tariffs on Chinese goods will be cut from 145% to 30% – initially for a 90-day period. In return, China has cut its own tariffs on US imports to 10%, from the 125% it had imposed in retaliation against the White House.
That still marks a big shift in the terms of trade between the two countries since before Trump came to power, but falls far short of what was in effect a trade embargo.
Instead, the statement hailed “the importance of a sustainable, long-term and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship”. The language was rather different to Trump’s Liberation Day speech, about the US being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far”.
In other words, the president has caved. He may have been swayed by market wobbles but it seems more plausible that dire warnings from retailers about empty shelves – backed up by data showing shipments into US ports collapsing – may have strengthened the hands of trade moderates in the administration.
China said they wouldn’t negotiate until tariffs came down. They didn’t, now tariffs are paused, and negotiations are starting. China is clearly in the driver’s seat and they just shoved trump’s binky in his mouth.
China’s not negotiating. This is the best result for China. As long as USA is going to continually be belligerent with tariffs to all nations, China actually would not benefit with preferential treatment.
China wants to let the tariffs slowly but persistently eat away at USA’s economy. 30% is just about right as Mexico and Canada are at 25%. China doesn’t need to be the cheapest, just affordable enough that Americans will still buy. So while trade will decrease it won’t stop. This gives China the breathing room they need to build up supply chains everywhere else. All the while Americans will afford less and less as tariffs eat away at their income. This will lead to less business creation activity and destroy manufacturing as the manufacturing inputs being tariffed makes USA products unaffordable.
If this looks like China is capitulating, all the better. Though most people realize it’s Trump that blinked. Since their counter actions aren’t really tariffs to begin with. China can order their companies who they buy from and more importantly who they don’t.
I think there’s also the impact that the US Treasury is going to be pulling in a hell of a lot of money for these Tariffs, which will bankroll the mass deportation that he seems to want to really get going on.
So that’s the dumbest thing Trump is doing. Deporting low income workers when he’s trying to bring low income work back to America. It’s literally the opposite of what you would want to do. Yet here we are. The stupidity I feel is the most stunning thing about all this. I knew Trump was insane, but completely idiotic was not something I thought was part of the deal.
It’s cause dey tuk ur juurrrrbs
The problem is he somehow found even dumber assholes to surround himself with than his first term and that was a high bar.