Taipei, Taiwan – As the President of the United States Donald Trump begins a new trade war with China, analysts say they will face a much stronger and more prepared opponent in Beijing compared to his first term in power.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has already imposed a 20 percent of tariffs on Chinese importquoting the alleged failure in Beijing to tear the export of deadly opioid fental in the United States.
Tariff comes at the top of previous duties imposed by Trump and former US President Joe Biden to more than $ 400 billion in Chinese goods.
After the condemnation of the latest American tariffs as “harassment” and “intimidation”, Beijing said Last week, announcing a 10-15 percent tariff on numerous American agricultural goods, including corn, beef, pork, dairy products and soy.
Tariffs, which came into force on Monday followed by Beijing Announcement last month Of the 10 percent of raw oil tariffs, agricultural machines, trucks and some cars, and 15 percent of coal tariffs and furnished natural gas.
“If the war is what they want now, whether it is a tariff war, a trade war or any other war, we are ready to fight all the way,” said the spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Lin Jiang to reporters last week.
While the Tit-For-Tat measures are reminiscent of Trump’s first trade war in 2018, both Washington and Beijing are facing very different conditions today than seven years ago.
The two largest economics in the world have been constantly separated in recent years, reducing their mutual addiction and belittling the influence of tariffs, analysts claim.
Christopher Beddor, Deputy Chinese Research Director based in Beijing, Delekal Deylonomics, said the latest cinema tariffs should be “quite controlled” and noted that they were significantly below the 60 percent rate that Trump threatened during his election campaign.
“I do not want to imply the impact – it is almost to double the effective tariff rates for Chinese goods coming to the United States, so it is big,” Beddor told Al Jazeera.
“But Chinese exports to the United States is a rather modest share in his entire economy,” Beddor said.
Declining the stake in the store
Chinese share of total US stores – measured as the sum of exports and imports – dropped from 15.7 percent to 10.9 percent between 2018 and 2024, Bloomberg states.
During the same period, the US share in the total store of Chinese dropped from 13.7 percent to 11.2 percent.
Lynn Song, a major economist for the big cinema in Ing, said Beijing is unlikely to panic over the tariffs – at least for now.
“Although the avoidance of this type of friction trade would be more desirable, it is something planned, so I wouldn’t say there is a panic feeling,” said the song for Al Jazeera.
“In addition, with any tariff escalation, there will inevitably be parts of trade that become inevitable and the companies that will affect.”
Another factor that alleviates the influence of the tariff, Lynn said, is that Chinese exporters like Shein and the topic found the success of sales of low -budget goods directly to customers, using the exemption from the tariff on shipments worth less than $ 800.
Beijing continuously developed measures to insulate the economy from any trade shocks.
At the meetings of “Two Sessions” last week in Beijing, the national National Congress-the world of state power in Kini-founded several fiscal stimuli measures, including an increase in debt level for local self-government and issuing $ 1.3 trillion ($ 179 billion) in the long-term cash register bonds.
Carsten Holz, an expert in the Chinese economy at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, said that the moves of domestic policy in Beijing gave a significant tampon against US demands.
“Even the effect of complete Trump bans on imports from China – barely realistic in an era where, for example, most iPhone products in China – may not make a recess greater than a bit of a percentage point in Chinese GDP,” Holz told Al Jazeera.
“For authoritarian leadership decisively projecting strength, this is unlikely that it will be enough to join what he could watch to the Chinese public like a” peacekeeping negotiations “with a foreign aggressor.”
Some analysts believe that despite a stronger position compared to 2018, Beijing still wants to negotiate with Trump – at least for a moment.
‘Avoiding escalation’
One of the strongest signals that Chinese officials are open to conversation is that their tariff opening was relatively mild and limited to a limited number of goods, suggesting a strategy “avoiding escalation,” even Rogers Pay, analyst of food and agricultural agriculture in a research group based in Beijing.
“The removal shows that, although the Chinese government does not intend to execute trade pressure, it will also not be stabbed in escalation of trade conflict, where an early reaction could make an excessive reaction be difficult,” Pay told Al Jazeera.
“Instead, applying moderate tariffs to a short list of key industries, Beijing increases political pressure in red countries that are the main exporters of corn, soybeans, cheeses and other agricultural products that Trump will lead to the table.”
Beijing can deal with the “second phase” in accordance with the “First Phase” contract struck by Trump in 2020 to end the first trade war, Pay said.
Under Agreement of the first phaseChina has committed to buying $ 200 billion in US goods and services, including agricultural products, over two years.
Beijing, however, fulfilled about 58 percent of this amount after the store overthrew the Coid-19 pandemia, according to the Peterson Institute for Economic Research.
John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, agreed that China can withstand pressure, but is also ready to negotiate.
“The government in China is, of course, worried, but they will not humiliate in a humiliating way. They would like to negotiate an agreement, but if he couldn’t, they would have” so be, “Gong told Al Jazeera.
In the meantime, some analysts believe Trump is at risk of overwhelming their hands.
During his last trade war, Trump has focused his focus exclusively on China, but since he returned to duty, he also knew other countries, including Mexico and Canada, in an attempt to reduce the US trade deficit.
The US president also moved at lightning speed.
In a period of approximately one month, Trump has performed a $ 1.4 trillion tariff tariff, compared to imports of imports worth $ 380 billion in 2018 and 2019, according to the analysis of Eric York, Vice -President of the Federal Tax Policy in the Tax Foundation, research with Washington.
However, it is unclear to what extent Trump’s tariffs will be held.
Just two days after imposing great tariffs of Canada and Mexico on March 4, Trump announced that he would delay his duties on many imports by April 2.
“There are many things that could now go wrong for Trump, and to be honest, there is some reasonable possibility that he is forcing himself to withdraw from many of these tariffs, because the domestic economic consequences are now so bad,” said Beddor Dyconomics.
“[China’s] The approach is: Let’s wait and see, apply more fiscal stimuli to relieve influence. “
