Donald Trump has lavished praise on the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and blamed his own predecessors for the “huge” trade deficit between the world’s two largest economies, during his official welcome to Beijing amid an explosion of military splendour and staged adulation.

Speaking on Thursday at the the Great Hall of the People, the ceremonial heart of Communist party rule, Trump paid tribute to his “warm and gracious” host, and said he appreciated Xi’s support for recent efforts to rein in North Korea’s weapons programmes.

During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly criticised China, accusing it of “raping” the US economy and being the country’s “enemy”. But on the second day of his visit to Beijing as part of his 12-day tour of east Asia, the president struck a far softer tone.

“Trade between China and the United States has not been, over the last many, many years, a very fair one for us,” Trump told an audience of business leaders and journalists, describing the relationship as “shockingly” unbalanced and costing the US $300bn (£229bn) a year.

However, to an audible gasp from the audience, the US president went on to suggest that it was not China to blame, but the US itself.

“Right now, unfortunately, it is a very one-sided and unfair [relationship]. But – but – I don’t blame China. After all, who can blame a country for taking advantage of another country for the benefit of its own citizens? I give China great credit.

“But in actuality I do blame past [US] administrations for allowing this out of control trade deficit to take place and to grow. We have to fix this because it just doesn’t work … it is just not sustainable.”

Of particular importance was arguably the centrepiece of Mr Trump's tour, China, where the US leader was expected to finally tackle head-on some of the region's most critical issues — chiefly, trade and regional stability — with President Xi Jinping, whose country he had long accused of being a "currency manipulator" that does not pull its weight to rein in North Korea.

But while Mr Trump's Beijing visit was generally being portrayed in the west as one of an unpredictable man with low approval ratings tasked with settling the some of the region's toughest issues, the Chinese media remained largely blank-faced and stoic about the entire affair, keeping its focus on its own generous hospitality and global dominance, while adding that dealing with China would actually require some "real" diplomacy.

While trade and North Korea were most certainly prominent in the Chinese press, from the get-go the high-stakes meeting was depicted more as one of an American "delegation" coming to discuss "common interests," rather than the western spectacle of Mr Trump himself.

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“Trump 2020” and “Keep America Great” hats and flags manufactured in China are allegedly being held up at US customs due to the trade war between the US and China.

Chinese textile suppliers who export goods to the US recently told Chinese news agency Global Times that products have been held up at US customs. 

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The White House said it could tax another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Earlier this month, the US administration suggested it might further hike the tax rate on these imports from the 10 percent proposed last month to 25 percent.

The top economic adviser to Trump, Larry Kudlow, said Friday that China's economy was "lousy," and Beijing's proposed tax on $60 billion worth of US goods was "a weak response" to the US threat of levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

However, China's Ministry of Finance said Friday it was prepared to impose new tariffs of up to 25 percent on about $60 billion worth of US goods if the United States proceeded with the proposed $200-billion measures.

Moreover, China's state media said Saturday the government's retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion of US goods showed rational restraint and they accused the US of "blackmailing."

"The White House's extreme pressure and blackmail are already clear to the international community," according to China's state television commentary, quoted by Reuters. "Such methods of extreme blackmail will not bear fruit against China."

Trump said in June that the United States would introduce additional tax on the total of $50 billion of Chinese exports. Beijing denounced the measures and pledged to retaliate. On July 6, the US tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods took effect. China immediately responded with its own levies on the same value of US goods.

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China will agree to a trade deal with the US “because they have to,” Trump said on Monday, adding that new tariffs on Chinese goods will go into effect immediately if Xi does not attend the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan later this month. Washington and Beijing have been negotiating a new trade deal for months, without results.

“This is a new low in American diplomacy,” Sourabh Gupta, senior policy specialist at the Institute for China America Studies, told RT. “That an American president would advance and impose tariffs on a counterpart country if that country's president did not consent to a sit-down bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a multilateral summit is absurd, to the point of being almost comical.”

China may take its time to respond, but will most likely accept the meeting, Gupta told RT, predicting that the next 3 weeks will witness “nervous times” in economic diplomacy between Beijing and Washington.

Meanwhile, advocates of free trade are horrified by Trump’s use of tariffs as a preferred method of international engagement.

“Trump promised all of this during his presidential campaign, but no one took him seriously. Now he is showing how much damage one man can do provided he has power and some very bad misunderstandings concerning how economics works,” Jeffrey A. Tucker of the American Institute for Economic Research told RT. Trade between nations is a win-win situation for everyone, while Trump treats it as a game of winners and losers, he said.

Tariffs are a tool of impoverishment for everyone

“A nation is not a single business with a balance sheet. The whole thing is ridiculous.But no one can seem to get to him to explain this,” he told RT. Trump’s goal to turn US trade deficits into surpluses is “absolutely inconsistent with the dollar's status as the world reserve currency,” Tucker added. Moreover, Americans end up paying for the tariffs, not the nations getting targeted.

According to Gupta, the ultimatum suggests that Trump is not very confident in winning a drawn-out trade war with China, and might be trying to arrange a face-saving way to make a deal with Xi before the 2020 election.

“At the end of the day, China has significantly more to gain than lose from resolving the trade conflict,” Gupta said. “Being a country that is laser focused on its interests and not its grievances – unlike the US – I am confident that Beijing will sit down across the table from Mr. Trump and his team and make a good faith effort to resolve the tensions.”

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https://www.rt.com/news/461557-us-tariff-bullying-tactics/

Beijing will negotiate in goodwill. The US will huff and puff.... and the Chinese could not care less: Trump will be an asterix in history. Read from top.

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