He does not finish being clear, given the constant bands in the decisions of its president, Donald Trump. However, at the beginning of the negotiating marathon with dozens of countries, an idea begins to emerge with more and more strength: to concentrate the commercial war with China and try to isolate the Asian country through agreements with other commercial partners. In some cases, I could be tempted to put countries in the position to choose between China and the United States.
The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, who then disseminated a hard and cold communicated on, appears as the architect of that strategy. The first step took the partial truce of the so -called reciprocal tariffs. Trump left China on the sidelines of the same, which imposed tariffs of 125% that add to those of 20% that they already had with the excuse of the fentanyl and other additional protectionist measures.
The exemption of import tariffs of mobile phones, computers and other technological products would not be so much a concession to Asian power and technological giants such as Apple or Dell, to whom such rates punished hard. Nvidia, meanwhile, has been beaten by the export restriction of its integrated H20 circuits, powerful microprocessors, but less than others from the firm, which had specifically designed to avoid previous prohibitions.
At the same time, the Trump administration has hardened its message with Beijing this week. After the president himself held out the negotiation, the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, was very hard at his press conference on Tuesday when reading a statement from the president himself. “The ball is on China’s roof. China needs to reach an agreement with us. We don’t have to reach an agreement with them,” he said. “There is no difference between China and any other country, unless it is much larger. And China wants what we have, what all countries want: US consumers. Or, in other words, they need our money,” said the spokeswoman.
The Secretary of the Treasury also pointed out last week in that direction, although without saving criticism from other commercial partners. “They have been good military allies, but not perfect economic allies,” said Besunt, who was optimistic about the possibility of reaching agreements and “then addressing China as a group.”
The weak point of this argument is that Trump has difficult to repair the confidence of his allies. Put the bow to China to surrender to the United States, more than ever, as a high -risk operation. Although Spain has been avant -garde with the, the approach to China as a strategic partner is a European strategy.
Trump, however, seems willing to resort to coercion and force countries to choose from between the two superpowers. Trump referred precisely to whether Latin American countries could be forced to leave the Chinese initiative known as the Silk route to reach agreements with the United States. Before the question of whether they could be forced to choose between them, the president replied affirmatively with a conditional: “Yes, it is what Panama has done, what others are doing and what they may be thinking of doing others. Yes, perhaps, they should do it.”
Trump has already achieved certain in his first barrage of tariffs to these countries. One of the US concerns is that the Asian country is indirect products to the United States after exporting them to other commercial partners of the world’s first economy. The same reasoning could be extended to negotiations with Southeast Asian countries, to which Trump’s government accuses of acting as an extension of Chinese industrial power. Countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand have facilities that serve as final assembly points for products made of Chinese components, including solar panels, object of Trump’s tariffs in their first mandate.
“For our part, we want dumping. Because these Chinese products will end somewhere. I don’t think it is much to convince them if their largest export market is cut, ”Besent said this week in an interview on Bloomberg TV.
“Great progress” with Japan
In the same way that Japan was in the 1980s, when Trump – who was then a real estate promoter – began to advocate imposing strong tariffs on imports from that country. Now, Japan is seen as an allied potential in that battle to isolate China. In fact, Trump himself decided to go this Wednesday in person at the first meeting on tariffs with Japan. The Asian country appointed its Minister of Economic Revitalization, Ryosei Akazawa as a negotiator.
This Wednesday is the first negotiating meeting to which the president has decided to attend, who did not participate in the meeting of the Vice President of the European Commission, Maroš šefčovič, with the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. “Japan today comes to negotiate tariffs, the cost of military support and ‘commercial loyalty’. I will attend the meeting, together with the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce. Hopefully we can reach an agreement that is good (excellent!) For Japan and USA!”
Then, at the end of the meeting, he highlighted the meeting on the same way. “It is a great honor to have met with the Japanese delegation on trade. Great advance!”
