Gone is the early Trump niceties ……
The hardliners seem to be running the show for the Trump admin….
Remember….
Donald Trump likes to do beat downs to opponents before trying to wiggle a deal…
THAT has NOT always worked for him…
Most experts doubt it will work with China….
- The White House asserts that it is only seeking redress after a wholesale Chinese assault on the U.S. and Western economies through the theft and extortion of intellectual property.
- And some dangle hope that the relationship can return to what it was once trade and IP issues are resolved.
- But many experts say relations are forever changed — and that the risk of an outbreak of war is growing. “As confrontation increases, the path to conflict is very short because the space to talk has been reduced or even eliminated,” Gen. John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, tells Axios.
“As it turns out trade wars are not easy, as some have proclaimed. And when you have the two most consequential nations on the planet trading increasingly damaging blows, accompanied with increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, the race to the bottom will be harmful to Americans and Chinese alike.”
— Gen. John Allen
The bottom line: One worrying thing is that, while Trump has sought to force U.S. allies to join the offensive, it has failed to do the diplomacy to create that kind of united front.
- If Trump’s team is seeking “to out-compete China for global influence, it needs to reengage our allies and friends and gain their support for a common strategy. None of that is happening,” says Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and co-author of the forthcoming “The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership.”
- “This is all doomed to failure, not because China is strong, but because this weakens the U.S. and shifts the world economy away from us,” Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, tells Axios.
- “Those who will suffer will be emerging markets and U.S. consumers, with no military advantage gained.”….