US President Donald Trump said that he would not mind a complete disconnection of the American economy from the PRC. He said this in an interview with Fox News.

“No country has ripped us off more than China ... We are losing billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. We get nothing from China. Yes, certain goods come to us, which we ourselves could produce ... (but. - RT ) we do not receive anything. We only lose money, ”the American leader said.

As the head of the White House noted, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was doing "better than ever" with China.

However, against the backdrop of the worldwide outbreak of coronavirus, Trump sees the state of affairs "differently now." According to the head of the White House, Washington will "distance itself" from the PRC and will not "do business with it" if the republic "does not have a proper attitude" towards the Americans.

“I will definitely go for it,” he said, noting that he didn’t want to “stir up a commotion” now.

At the same time, according to the head of the White House, if former Vice President and Democrat Joe Biden is elected in the upcoming presidential elections, China will "take over" the United States. Trump also pointed to warnings from US intelligence officials about Beijing's alleged plans to intervene in the upcoming elections in Biden's interests.

"He (Biden. - RT ) is their man, and they really want me to lose," the American leader said.

Intensity of emotions

Recall that in January 2020, Washington and Beijing signed an agreement on the so-called first phase of the trade deal. According to the agreement, in the next two years, the PRC was to purchase American products for a total of $ 200 billion. According to Washington's plan, this was to significantly reduce the trade imbalance between China and the United States. The trade deficit in 2018 was $ 419.2 billion, according to the US Trade Office.

However, relations between the two countries deteriorated after the American side issued a series of accusations against the PRC related to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump himself has repeatedly stated that China is to blame for the spread of COVID-19 across the planet.

In mid-July, the head of the White House said that the American side considers China "fully responsible for concealing the virus and spreading it throughout the world."

“They could stop it, they had to stop it,” Trump said.

Beijing, on the other hand, has repeatedly rejected such attacks against itself, emphasizing that the virus is "the common enemy of all mankind, which can show its face at any time and anywhere in the world."

At the end of the same month, Trump reiterated his accusatory thesis, stressing that the increased unemployment in the United States due to the pandemic is the fault of the PRC.

Against the background of aggravating relations between Washington and Beijing, the United States on July 21 demanded that China close the consulate general located in the state of Texas.

  • White House
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  • © Samuel Corum / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA

In response to these actions, the Chinese authorities demanded the closure of the US Consulate General in Chengdu, located in southwestern China. As noted in the message of the PRC Foreign Ministry, "the current state of Sino-American relations does not meet China's wishes, and the United States is fully responsible for this."

A few days after Washington demanded the closure of the PRC diplomatic facility, Trump announced that he had lost interest in a trade deal with China. He told this to reporters during a press conference.

Further proof that Trump is determined was the presidential decree of August 7, prohibiting any transactions with the owner of the popular TikTok app, the Chinese company ByteDance. The document comes into force 45 days after it was signed by the American president. As stated in the White House, the application allegedly poses a threat to US national security. 

On August 18, speaking in the state of Arizona, Trump said at all that he had postponed trade negotiations with China, once again pointing out China's guilt in the spread of COVID-19 around the world.  

"More aggressive measures"

President of the ANO Russian-Chinese Analytical Center Sergei Sanakoev called Trump's statement about the complete severing of ties with China "pre-election rhetoric."

“Now the US President does not think much about what he is saying. For him, the main thing at this stage is to mobilize his electorate, but the head of the White House does not yet see the need to take into account scientific analysis or elementary statistics, "the expert said in a conversation with RT.

A similar point of view is shared by Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Political-Military Studies of the Institute for the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“There are almost two months left before the elections, both candidates from the leading political parties in the US are head to head, and anti-Chinese rhetoric is part of the election game. After all, such statements are favorably received by Trump's nuclear electorate and even by some of the Democrats. But representatives of the working class of the United States from the so-called rust belt, who are suffering from the fact that American transnational corporations have been actively transferring production to China in recent years, are especially pleased with such statements, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

As Batyuk clarified, Trump promises to return these jobs to America, "however, to what extent he will succeed is a big question."

“Such theses sound good during election rallies, but putting them into practice is a completely different matter. After all, the economies of the United States and China are very closely interconnected. You just have to go to any American supermarket and see how many products there are labeled “Made in China”. Washington, to put it mildly, will not benefit from a complete severing of ties with Beijing, ”the expert said.

According to Sanakoev, both sides will suffer in this situation - not only China, but also the United States.

“Moreover, the entire world economy will feel the damage from such actions,” he said.

  • Flags of the USA and China
  • Reuters
  • © Yuri Gripas

At the same time, analysts agree that, in addition to "pre-election motives", Trump's new anti-Chinese statements "contain an element of blackmail."

“The head of the White House tells Beijing directly that if he does not act in the interests of the United States, Washington will take more aggressive anti-Chinese measures. At the same time, Trump does not take into account the fact that China is not the country for a long time that they can blackmail in this way, ”Sanakoev said.

Beijing "in any case" will not follow the lead of the United States, the analyst is sure.

“China will act in a mirror-like manner, including responding to sanctions, attacks against specific companies. In Beijing's arsenal there are such tools as the ability to sell off the US national debt, replace the dollar with the national currency in payments with other countries. Therefore, it is possible that the United States, without implying it, is driving itself into a corner with its anti-Chinese policy. The expansion of the trade war with the PRC will hit the United States hard, not to mention the complete severing of ties between the two countries, ”Sanakoev said.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that the United States has already begun to gradually sever ties with China, since they are not satisfied that Beijing is challenging American leadership in the military-political, geopolitical spheres, as well as in the economy. 

“Through anti-Chinese measures, Washington is trying to conduct a kind of systemic containment. At the same time, a partial rupture of ties is actually already taking place before our eyes. However, this is being done gradually, otherwise it would immediately lead to the collapse of the world economy, ”the analyst said.

At the same time, Blokhin does not exclude that in case of re-election, the head of the White House will indeed toughen up his anti-Chinese actions.

“This will be a step-by-step and gradual process. They will gradually move away from China and reorient their financial flows to countries that, according to the American side, should be engaged in containing China. These are, first of all, India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, which are designed to form a hostile anti-Chinese belt of states, "the expert said in a commentary on RT.

China, in response to such a policy, "is already reorienting" from the United States to Eurasia, Africa and Latin America, Blokhin added.

In addition, according to Batyuk, such Trump's rhetoric contributes to further rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow. 

“Naturally, the current policy of the United States, which is simultaneously directed against the PRC and against Russia, inevitably pushes both of these countries towards each other in a political and economic sense,” the analyst concluded.