How Trump’s China Trade War Played Out in His First Term | FRONTLINE

over the last 40 years China's economic growth has been eclipsing that of the United States growing at an average rate four times faster China dominates Global Supply chains and it holds nearly 1 trillion of US debt China is a peer country with the United States today if we use purchasing power parity its economy is larger than the US economy and if anyone believes that they can stop China's steady rise as an economy it's probably indulging in fantasy one thing I have to do is economically take on China because China has been ripping us off for

many years somebody had to do it I am the chosen one somebody had to do it so I'm taking on China in fact Donald Trump's predecessors have employed measures to restrict China Trade Practices they're taking our business they're taking our jobs they're making our product but in 2016 Trump made China a major campaign issue we can't continue to allow China to rape our country and that's what they're doing it's the greatest theft in the history of the [Applause] world days before Trump's Inauguration in 2017 she wanted to make sure the incoming president president knew where

he stood on trade he sent a warning from his Podium at the world economic Forum in Davos Less Than 3 months later she would fly to maralago to test the waters president Trump's most important foreign meeting yet greeting the leader of the country he's previously called our enemy behind the scenes Trump's advisers were advocating bold new measures president Trump understood that we had failed to compete with China and I think because of his business back General HR McMaster served as president Trump's National Security adviser one of lines that President Trump would use with xiin ping

periodically is he would say you I don't blame you I blame us and so I think that that Summit communicated to kind of a shocked xiin ping that the Trump Administration was determined to compete and to and to no longer pursue this kind of flawed strategy of cooperation and engagement I don't blame China I blame our leadership they should have never let that happen I wrote a lengthy maybe a 12-page provisional strategy in a sense but it really started out by saying how many of our assumptions had been wrong Matthew poer was one of the

architects of Trump's China strategy one of the things that I've learned over the years first as a reporter and later working on National Security on China is that the more comfortable China gets the more comfortable that the Chinese Communist Party leaders are the more aggressive and the grander their Ambitions and and I actually think that a more confrontational approach something more reminiscent of uh key periods of the Cold War is what we should be looking to right now as examples you always want the enemy to be worried about what you might do the first line

item on the agenda was to clamp down on China's effort to steal intellectual property from Western corporations CEOs of our most successful and our largest companies would come to me and say let me tell you how our company is being victimized by Chinese Communist Party economic aggression and they would lay out the story of you know forced transfer of intellectual property words you can't do business here unless you give us your secrets exactly and then also the false promises of access to the Chinese market as soon as they rip off your intellectual property and pick

a state champion to produce those goods at an artificially low price because of the subsidies they close you out of their domestic market and then guess what they dump that hardware and equipment on the International Market and drive you out of business sen Ashley the Chinese government repeatedly denied stealing intellectual property and XI Jen Pang ordered his diplomats to tap their quote fighting Spirit adopting Trump's more aggressive style of communicating they were unleashing what they themselves called wolf Warrior diplomacy and it was pretty objectionable frankly they were quite John Bolton was another National Security adviser

under President Trump but in a way I think it was beneficial that they did that they took the mask off there's no more concealing what their Ambitions were 60,000 factories in our country closed shuttered gone 6 million jobs at least gone Trump was exaggerating come but less than a year after welcoming shei to America Trump was ready to take off his own mask so we've spoken to China and we're in the midst of a very large negotiation we'll see where it takes us but in the meantime we're sending a section 301 action I'll be signing

it right here right now he was firing the first shot in a war that had been building and would last for years to come this is number one but this is the first of many trade War worries igniting after the president signed this order to slap tough tariffs on China punishment he started with a 10% tariff on Chinese aluminum 30% on solar panels and electric vehicles 25% on steel and nearly everything else made in China surprisingly China's not happy already threatening retaliation what China did was move its exports to other countries and move its imports

from other countries as well so it shifted the purchase of soybeans for example from the US to Brazil so that wasn't a useful policy president Trump has just slapped tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese exports igniting the biggest trade war in economic history Trump's trade War would consume the remainder of his presidency China is now punching back with an equal amount of tariffs on American exports after several tit fortat tariff increases the trade War which continued into the Biden Administration actually increase the trade deficit the trade deficit has skyrocketed to $891 billion the highest

ever cost increases also led to a decline in US manufacturing jobs destroyed the industry in the United States intellectual property theft continued and the costs imposed by tariffs were simply passed along to Consumers of imported products and now Trump has promised to impose even higher tariffs once he is back in office tariffs were put in place because China's Economic Policy was hurting us factories and workers that's a belief uh on the part of the some people in the US especially by the people of the Trump Administration the Biden Administration has even extended those but if

you talk in private many don't agree with such kind of policy why because it hurts the US economy there is the argument you have the high inflation where do you get it in part because of this tariffs