Donald Trump's decision to threaten massive tariffs on China only to retreat risks making the U.S. a “paper tiger” and encouraging Chinese aggression against Taiwan, a former U.S. ambassador to Beijing and a former CIA chief and defense secretary said.
“We have a very tough, tough position on Taiwan,” said Nicholas Burns, who was ambassador to China under Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025, referring to U.S. support for the island nation whose independence Beijing does not recognize.
“If [Chinese President] Xi Jinping concludes from a tariff negotiations that the United States is in essence a paper tiger, that it doesn't mean what it says, that it blinks first, that's not what you want to have in his mind on something even more serious, which would be Taiwan, for instance, and a cross-strait invasion by the People's Liberation Army.
“You want the other person on the other side of the table to know that you are credible.”
Burns was talking to One Decision, a world affairs podcast co-hosted by Leon Panetta, who was White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton and CIA director and secretary of defense under Barack Obama, and Christina Ruffini, a CBS correspondent.
Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his economic and foreign policy, claiming a means to bend other countries to his will but in practice repeatedly retreating or allowing carve-outs.
Earlier this week, Trump announced an agreement with Beijing under which US tariffs on Chinese goods will drop from 145 percent to 30 percent and Chinese tariffs on US imports will drop to 10 percent, while negotiations continue.
Burns told One Decision: “War and peace negotiations end up relying more or less on that very difficult-to-explain concept that the other guy or woman is credible in these negotiations. And we may have lost that.
“President Trump might be able to gain it back. But even before [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent got to Geneva [for talks with China], President Trump had announced he might reduce the tariffs to 80 percent. Why give them a concession before the talks have even started?”
Trump named that figure last week. The White House said it was “a number the president threw out there.”
Panetta said he also worried that “credibility problems that are being created,” but thought Beijing would “watch it closely and they'll take their time.
“… It's Trump's position in other parts of the world too. I mean, he threatens, but then there isn't a real follow-through as a result of the threat. And I think that this image of a paper tiger is becoming prevalent. And if that's the case, it really does create a concern as to whether or not we'll be there.”
Burns said: “Xi Jinping's China is a much more powerful economic, technology, and military adversary than even the Soviet Union was … now we're dealing with a power that is really, in a way, our peer technologically, our near-peer economically. And if you look at certain industries, steel, robotics, electric vehicles, lithium batteries, solar and wind power, they're actually exceeding us in effectiveness.
“This is a major challenge for the United States. And they've got a leader who's very experienced, very intelligent, and he is focused on making China the strongest power in the Indo-Pacific, wants to surpass the United States. And you know, I left out … their cyber power, and their power in space … this is the strongest adversary we've ever had in both of those domains.”