Trump's talk with Xi will tell us which way the trade winds blow
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2017 in Beijing, China. The two are to meet in Argentina on Saturday. Credit: AFP/Getty Images/Jim Watson
President Donald Trump is due to meet again Saturday with President Xi Jinpeng of China.
The two men kept their earlier chats chummy. But with tariffs now imposed, with market players nervous, and with new ripples in the auto industry, pressure may be escalating for an agreement on trade.
The setting this time is Buenos Aires, where top officials of the so-called Group of 20 nations are gathering to discuss economic matters.
Even Trump critics do not dispute how fiercely aggressive the People's Republic has been on trade and how it steals U.S. technology. "On one big, fundamental point, Donald Trump is right. China is a trade cheat," one of his CNN nemeses, Fareed Zakaria, said in April.
Reports of befuddlement have emerged out of Beijing as to how the Chinese view the most recent White House moves.
From the American side, one strategic question is which school of thought will show up. So far, Trump has appeared to lean toward advisers who are among the more militant on foreign trade.
"Trump’s aggressive approach to China has been the most credible and consistent policy of an often-criticized White House," writes Greg Autry in Foreign Policy magazine. He happens to be the co-author with Trump adviser Peter Navarro of the book "Death by China."
"China is paying the lion’s share of America’s tariffs. While advocates of free trade have worked hard to scare consumers with threats of huge price increases, these have not emerged," Autry writes.
While Navarro and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are clearly driving things, others in the administration, such as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have emitted a softer tone — although even Mnuchin warned China recently on currency manipulation.
Notwithstanding tough talk when alone on the platform, Trump has shown little, if any, tendency during two years in office to confront powerful international figures one on one in an effective and factual way.
How does this affect his team’s chances of extracting concessions from Xi?
The president believes “there is a good possibility that we can make a deal” and he “is open to it,” Trump adviser Larry Kudlow said this week. If not, more tariffs will be imposed, he suggested.
That would certainly mean more use of the term "trade war" and whatever it implies for the long term.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
