He may be. But the political will is for tariffs and for making China follow international law. Europeans have already restricted Chinese access to their markets.
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Ok, so yah, China was the sick man of Asia for a really long time, but c’mon now… economic policy by grievance?
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I couldn’t help but think that could be the case… 
China needs to stop stealing sheyat until sheyat hits the fan and our businesses get wrecked, but yeah. 
Trump is an idiot b/c he doesn’t know how to create a win-win to let all parties save face. He just wants to nuke the other side. His legacy will be so toxic that his progeny will be forever shamed … especially after he passes.
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His nuke policy works. The Chinese are taking us seriously for the first time. No other president has made them listen to the US interests. A game of chicken that China has been losing.
I think you are underestimating the Chinese. They play the ultra long game. They have barely begun. They make us think that our nuke policy is working to buttress our ego … but we are already paying for it heavily in some future action … we just don’t know it yet.
It is best to keep your enemies close. Trump only knows how to alienate and drive behavior underground where we cannot see it.
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We don’t need Chinese goods. Europeans don’t need them either. China needs to reassess its world status. It only wants to wipe out its competitors manufacturing. But there are plenty of other cheaper competitors. It is time for China to follow rules of fair play. China will benefit the most from this shift.
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How did that hurt China?
I agree that China needs to follow the rules, but you and I are not debating that. I am arguing that Trump’s technique is short sighted, foolhardy, and will only lead to diminshed American soft power because we, as Americans, are culturally not dispositioned to play the long game.
Trump is an idiot because his opponent (the Chinese) hold the home court advantage when it comes to playing the tariff game, which is a long game.
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I think you’re forgetting what started this. China has more and higher tariffs on US goods than the US has on China. Look at car tariffs. China has a 10x higher tariff than we do. It’s 25% vs 2.5%. Do you think China is going to simply agree to match 2.5% or agree that we both eliminate them? They won’t.
The end goal is fair trade with no tariffs, but China already had a huge tariff advantage. They weren’t going to give it up for nothing. We needed to show we’re willing to use tariffs against them.
Arguing that fair trade existed before Trump isn’t even close to accurate or rational. Trying to claim that undermines any credibility on the subject.
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The way he is dealing may be Childish, but his end goal is protectionism (from open market system) which many countries have it.
That is why lot of people vote for him in spite of many political challenges either from Rep or Dem party members.
I don’t think Trump is an idiot. He ran on tariffs. The American people want tariffs and he has congressional support. He is definitely an asshole. But in the modern world nice guys like GHW Bush and Romney finish last
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I find the Chinese joint venture requirements and outright IP theft to be much more objectionable than tarriffs, But real estate is a “dumb industry” and IP is not within Trump’s wheelhouse. 
Open Door policy means whatever benefit other countries ripped from China, America needs to take part. An example is Boxer Rebellion. 8 countries (including America) burned imperial palaces, looted countless treasures and transported them back to their homelands.
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I don’t agree with your assessment. Maybe Im just less jaded. The UK and France went for maximum humilation following Germany’s defeat in 1918.
Look what that brought us … another world war, except even more disastrous than the first.
So we learned from that and made nice w/ Germany and Japan in 1945, which brought us Pax Americana for 7 decades…
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This is all true, but the world then felt guilty about extracting 330M in reparations from a weak China following the Boxer rebellkon and gave it (mostly) all back, n’est-ce pas?
I dunno … I am not old enough to remember. . Maybe Elt1 is.
Both of those items are topics of the negotiations. Imagine if the US tried to have the same JV rules.
The policy was about trade. I thought you support free trade?
Yeah but Trump keeps talking about tariffs and doesn’t say anything about JV or IP.
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I do support free trade. But here I’m specifically talking about China settling historical scores with America, regardless of trade.