While talking trade on CNN, the editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group and host and co-creator of the New Bazaar podcast, Cardiff Garcia, said President Donald Trump has given China an opening to our allies.
“So what's happening now is that there's just a standoff between the two countries?" Host Audie Cornish asked.
“I think each side is waiting for the other one to blink,” Garcia said. “And so that the de-escalation can start, right? Because in the meantime, it's going to hurt both economies. The thing to know, though, is that China has been preparing for exactly this moment since at least the first Trump term, developing a bunch of tariffs then on China. That's essentially when the trade wars really escalated. It was continued, in fairness, under Joe Biden, and now it's gone to a level that I think people just hadn't anticipated. China's been getting ready for this. It's been developing a lot of legal tools, economic tactics that it can use to harm specific American industries in response.”
Garcia later added, “So [China is] betting that they can ride it out longer than the U.S. can, and so in the meantime, there's a standoff, and yeah, people in both places are going to get hurt.”
ALSO READ: 'Dictatorship, not a town hall': Families 'distraught' as MTG disruptors tased and jailed
Cornish then said, “Also, it's interesting because unlike a smaller country, a Vietnam, right, or Italy or whatever, like people being like, okay, yeah, let's talk, let's talk. We heard that quote right about ‘drinking poison’ China is talking about the U.S. as a bully that they have to stand up to, which is not like out of the realm of how other countries are seeing [the tariffs]. I think that's like an added element to the negotiation here or lack thereof."
“Well, previously part of the American strategy was precisely to develop deeper relationships with traditional U.S. allies and then essentially confront China that way to try to get it to impose changes on the way that it trades with other places,” Garcia said.
“The problem now is that China sees an opening, and now it's China that's going to traditional U.S. allies and saying, hey, we're a big trading partner of yours, too, and you can see that the U.S. is not reliable. It has imposed tariffs on you guys as well. So now let's us get together and confront the U.S. instead. So, how far will that go? I don't know right. It really depends on what happens in the next few months, but that is the strategy that they're deploying.”
Watch below or click the link.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
