Trade war with China: Trump’s ‘boldest step’ has rattled Americans, says US media

US President Donald Trump's decision to continue imposing steep tariffs on Chinese imports might have marked his "boldest step so far" to execute his "America First" strategy by reducing a trade deficit worth $811 billion and bringing back the manufacturing jobs back into the US, but at the same time, the aggressive approach has also left the American corporate leaders and the president's Republican friends in the Congress rattled, for China has showed "no sign of capitulating", the Washington Post said in a piece titled 'With tariffs, Trump starts unraveling a quarter-century of US-China economic ties' (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-imposes-import-taxes-on-chinese-goods-and-warns-of-additional-tariffs/2018/06/15/da909ecc-7092-11e8-bf86-a2351b5ece99_story.html) on Friday, June 15.

The WP report came after Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese products worth $50 billion to penalise China for what he feels an unethical business practice.

China followed suit by imposing counter tariffs amounting the same. According to the Post report: "It took little more than an hour for the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing to fire back at the president with a late-night statement pledging to erect trade barriers of the "same scale and the same strength." China is targeting agricultural goods, cars and energy in a bid to hit the president's supporters in farm states and the industrial Midwest."

China's refusal to get intimidated by the US sanctions shows "it is difficult to see a path to a negotiated settlement that avoids a big hit to trade and investment flows between the two countries," the Washington Post quoted Eswar Prasad, former head of the International Monetary Fund's China division, as saying.

According to the report, Trump appeared to be taking a gamble over the imposition of the tariffs thinking it will corner China. Officials of the Trump Administration feel China has more to lose in the trade war with the US for it needs the American market more than it is the other way round and also because of the fact that China has a trade surplus.

Chinese experts, on the other hand, doesn't feel that way, said the report. "Unlike Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping does not have to worry about unhappy constituents complaining about the costs of a trade war. American businesses that experience supply disruptions and farmers who lose export sales as China retaliates will let their congressional representatives hear about it," the Post said.