How can China crush America in the trade war?

Beijing is targeting American farmers to undermine their support for President Trump's economic war on China.

The OECD said in its September 19 report that the global economy is expected to grow at the slowest pace since the financial crisis, as investment and trade falter The escalating dispute between the United States and China, which could cause greater losses in the coming years.

He believes that the data could not be good news for President Trump, at a time when he faces many challenges during the year in which he will seek to win a second term.

Trump now seems to be contemplating a way out of his policy of harshly dealing with China. The question is: does Beijing have any enormous encouragement to help the US president get out of this impasse, or will it play patience to get a better deal with the Democratic candidate who might succeed Trump in the 2020 election?

Negotiation method
Trump's blunt negotiation policy has put him in a real dilemma. Although his supporters adore his attack on China, he may give up his support in light of the economic problems caused by his policy.

He explains that Trump's negotiating approach is to identify and focus on the opponent's weaknesses. It also follows a reckless and aggressive approach, pretending to push things to the brink, and then retreating at the last moment in the hope that it will succeed through threats to get the opponent to accept the agreement offered. Trump summed up this negotiating approach by saying, "My way of making agreements is very simple and clear. I set high goals, then I press, push and push to get what I want."

The Chinese negotiating style, which he himself observed when he worked as a diplomat at the US embassy in Beijing in the 1990s, seems quite different from the pressure that Trump referred to in his book.

Although communist leaders in Beijing can engage in enthusiastic revolutionary rhetoric, there is a cultural tendency to settle serious issues behind closed doors while drinking tea. Most Chinese negotiators are horse traders willing to accept the principle of mutual benefit to come up with an agreement that saves each side face. .

In contrast, Trump's style relies on tweeting, sharp fluctuations in positions and negotiating conditions, reminding the Chinese of what they see as Western barbarism and arrogance in dealing with China.

Chinese endurance
Chinese leaders seem to be confident that Trump can outdo his favorite game, which relies on pressure and threat when negotiating. Under this approach, Beijing adopts an old Chinese saying, "Dose the gallbladder." This idea means that when the world's two largest economic powers are engaged in a huge conflict after three decades of trade interdependence, the consequences of this break will be dire for both sides.

Chinese leaders seem certain that hundreds of millions of middle-class people in their country can bear the consequences of this war and bitter the bitterness of spoiled Americans.

This belief is based on the fact that the Chinese people have passed more than a hundred years of invasion, famine, civil war and revolution, after the economic conditions in China, which was the richest country in the world at the time of the American Revolution. Adding a trade war with Washington will not change much of the Chinese who have been struggling for years in agriculture and industry.

Strategic Blows
Beijing, for its part, has been able to deal strategic blows to Trump and damage his fortunes in the presidency, when he imposed counter-tariffs on the products of peasant supporters in states considered crucial in determining the outcome of the elections, such as Iowa and Wisconsin.

A second slice of Trump's main backers, mothers who rely on cheap shopping, is now facing a rise in prices for products not made in China. The reason for this is that Trump asked US companies to look for alternatives to China to supply these products, which led to higher prices affecting the purchasing power of the middle class.

Some of Trump's supporters, like Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have tried to reduce the political cost of the US president's trade war with China.

In a television appearance on May 13, Coton stated that "these tariffs will harm the Chinese and some Americans, and they will certainly hurt China more than America because the Chinese companies and government have been deceiving us for a long time. Of course there will be some sacrifices on our part. But I guarantee you that this sacrifice will be small compared to the sacrifices made by our soldiers around the world. "

Farmers' position
The writer wondered whether U.S. farmers would continue to accept the sacrifice for Trump, or they would retreat from supporting his policies, and would refuse to be the scapegoat in this battle, especially when they see soybean prices falling, after they had planted their crops in the spring before the election.

In August, a local US newspaper reported that the Republican and Democratic parties were closely following the attitudes of farmers and rural residents in the United States, as it would affect Trump's fortunes in the 2020 election.

Interestingly, in the title of this article, the newspaper cited "Trump definitions," a reference to his responsibility for this trade war, something the US president and his supporters must be wary of.

Without Wisconsin, which voted in 2016 for a Republican president for the first time since 1984, Trump's road to return to the White House seems in theory impossible. The same applies to the state of Iowa, which relies on soybean and pork production, which Trump won after Obama won for two consecutive terms, and so its loss makes his chances even more diminished.