The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board panned President Donald Trump's efforts to strike a trade deal with China on Wednesday, accusing him of lacking any strategic plan.
This follows a series of articles in which the board has accused Trump of approaching China from a position of weakness and giving them the advantage.
With regard to the new deal purportedly in the works, wrote the board, "details are few, but the countries appear to be resetting their trade relationship to where it was a few months ago before a tit-for-tat escalation. Mr. Trump had agreed to reduce tariffs on China to 30% (55% including those he imposed during his first term) from 145% while China dropped its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10% from 125%."
Much of the debate centers on rare-earth minerals, which are essential to the development of clean energy technology.
"Beijing will ease its restrictions on rare-earth minerals and magnets for six months while the U.S. will relax its restrictions on the sale of jet engines and ethane to China. The U.S. will keep its export controls on advanced chips, which are a hindrance to Mr. Xi’s AI ambitions though some developers like DeepSeek are using work-arounds," wrote the board. "The Administration also agreed to rescind restrictions on Chinese student visas so the children of Communist Party officials can study at U.S. universities. Trump officials claimed the purpose of the visa restrictions was to protect national security, but they may have been a bargaining chip to get Beijing to back down on rare-earth minerals."
All of this seems like very little progress after months of market chaos and uncertainty, the board continued, especially since Trump has neglected efforts to establish partnerships with friendlier countries like Japan to obtain rare-earth minerals.
"This gets to the larger problem with Mr. Trump’s tariff strategy — that is, he doesn’t have one. His latest walk-back shows he can’t bully China as he tried to do in his first term. China has leverage of its own," wrote the board. "A smarter trade strategy would be to work with allies as a united front to counter China’s predatory trade practices. Instead, Mr. Trump has used tariffs as an economic scatter-gun against friends as well as foes."
This slapdash approach, the board concluded, "increases China’s leverage, and, like this week’s trade truce, that’s nothing to cheer about."