The American -Chinese trade war is rising. But China may have more thought in the United States

With the escalation of the trade war between the United States and China, the biggest questions are any side that has more influence that wants to withstand more pain.

China exported more than $ 400 billion to the United States last year, more than American companies sold to China. For this reason the Trump administration claims to have all the leverage.

“The ball is present in the Chinese court. China needs a deal with us. We do not have to make a deal with them,” said White House press secretary Caroline Levitte on Tuesday.

“China wants what we have, every country you want what we have: the American consumer. Or to put it in another way, it needs our money,” she told reporters in Washington.

But the commercial scene is more complicated than that. Experts say China believes it can cause more damage to the United States and bear more pain from the tariff war.

“China has a lot of cards to play. It has a lot of influence.”

Change in China’s response

The US -Chinese trade from the United States is dominated by products and technical electronics, everything from iPhone to computers to batteries.

But Wang says that there are huge exports of decisive industrial inputs that it will be very difficult for the United States to replace it because China controls a lot of the world’s production. For example, in a revenge management, the exports of some critical minerals were banned earlier this month.

The ban is covered by seven rare and magnetic Earth elements used in defense, energy and cars technologies.

“This will really harm American industries, and it can fill very few countries of this gap,” she said. “There is not enough time for other suppliers to quickly reach the market and provide the amount that the United States needs … so it is a very strong card that China can play.”

Wang also referred to the fact that China is the second largest foreign creditor in America, It holds about 760 billion US dollars In treasury bonds from January.

Unlike the trade war in 2018 when China quickly sought to negotiate the breakfast break, this time, Beijing takes a more aggressive approach.

“If the United States really wants to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation, it must stop exercising extreme pressure, stopping the threat and extortion, and speaking to China on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a press conference.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping is a tour of Southeast Asian countries to intensify economic relations and support China as a more reliable partner than the United States

American exports are only one part

China has already spent years diversifying its commercial partners.

“China’s exports to the United States are flat over the past 13 years,” he says. But during that same period, he says, her exports increased to the rest of the world by more than 80 percent.

Even during the first Trump presidency, he says China was more exposed to American definitions. Today, China’s exports to the United States are 400 billion US dollars on a total of 20 trillion USD.

“This is two percent of their economy,” he said. “Yes, so this is painful, but when you have an economy growing by five percent and you have a single time loss by 2 percent, it is not as much as you really think.”

He says China has a long -term strategy and a clear plan for what it would have been doing by imposing American definitions.

Compare this, as he says, with the chaotic approach of Washington, which continues to be a tariff tariff for China. When the markets fell last week, Trump blocked things unilaterally with comprehensive exemptions. His highest choices in the cabinet offered the logical basis differently for the definitions, and sometimes it contradicts each other. Some said that the definitions are permanent and aimed at increasing revenues, while others said it was a point of raising micro -commercial concessions.

“I am an American, I support my country, I want the Americans to win this trade war, but I must be objective as well, because I am a world asset manager and this is my job. It is clear that the Chinese are more willing to do this.”

High pain tolerance

Two Chinese experts published a research paper in Washington’s quarterly and clarifying Beijing’s emerging strategy.

Ivan Mediros and Andrew Polk wrote about what they called “accurate economic munitions” directed by China, which go beyond critical metal controls. This includes considering anti -monopoly investigations for foreign companies. In the aftermath of the last American trade war, China submitted a ruling called the list of unreliable entities, which may make it difficult for the target companies to do business in the country.

Above all, China has higher tolerance of pain in a commercial war.

Wang says that the Chinese Communist Party should not worry about many angry consumers who are upset with the economic impact of the trade war caused by the American administration.

“Given all the chaos in the United States, it is still an electoral system. So President Trump and the Council of Ministers are still have to see how opinion polls will respond to the situation.”

Put all this together, and the Chinese approach begins in the trade war in crystallization. Chinese leadership believes it can cause real pain, although it uses the crisis to enhance relations with neighboring countries.

The difficult part of any conflict is to find a way out. It seems that the United States has believed that it could force China on the table and exact concessions on its terms. Just weeks after this trade war, this is proven more complicated than a lot of thought.