Of all the Trump administration’s many foreign-policy missteps, its confrontational stance on China was perhaps the most ungainly. Spurts of negotiation on trade and intellectual property were followed by escalating tariffs on Chinese imports that were paid by U.S. companies. These provoked retaliatory Chinese actions that necessitated tens of billions of dollars of aid to U.S farmers decimated by the collapse of Chinese agricultural purchases. Tough talk by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, about Chinese human rights transgressions fell with a thud because of Trump’s inability to muster international support. His threats were made even more toothless by the U.S. withdrawal from the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Even if one agreed that the United States needed to stand up to China on some issues, Trump’s approach only succeeded in increasing animosity and reducing Chinese investment and purchases from the United States. It changed the basic parameters of the two countries’ relationship not a whit. The trade deficit remained astronomical (not necessarily a bad thing but which Trump cited as a reason for his policies), factories remained offshore, there was no end to China’s human rights violations, and China’s influence increased globally.
