Following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory, Chinese netizens said they expect the U.S. to increase trade tensions with China while analysts say Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion might weaken under a second Trump administration.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump has vowed to impose tariffs, between 60% to 200%, on Chinese products on several occasions. During an interview with Fox News on February 4, Trump said he would impose more than 60% tariffs on Chinese imports but emphasized he wasn’t going to start a trade war with China.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he would tax China at 150% to 200% if Beijing decides to “go into Taiwan."
Some Chinese internet users expect Trump to follow through on the campaign promise to impose huge tariffs on Chinese products but have mixed views about how the tariffs will affect the Chinese economy and their livelihoods.
Amid China’s ongoing economic downturn, some Chinese social media users worry that Trump’s return to the White House could exacerbate the economic pressure on many Chinese citizens.
“It’s hard to look at Trump’s victory with pure joy, because he is going to launch a trade war with China when he comes into power, and our economy will suffer further,” a Chinese netizen in the capital, Beijing, wrote on the popular microblogging site Weibo, which is similar to X.
“How will the lives of normal citizens change? I’m feeling a sense of unease about the unpredictability of the future,” the person added.
Others say the 60% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States that Trump proposed during the campaign will push Chinese companies to redirect exports from the U.S. to other markets, including Southeast Asia, South America and Europe.
"Trump’s approach of being [an] enemy with the whole world may make some left-wing regimes in Europe disappointed, and this development may lead to a de-escalation of trade tensions between China and Europe,” Niu Chun-bao, chairman of Shanghai Wanji Asset Management Co., posted on Weibo.
Some Chinese netizens predict the immense pressure that Trump is likely to impose on Beijing will enhance China’s domestic unity, and his transactional approach to resolving tensions may offer more room for negotiation and bargaining.
“As long as there are no major internal problems, no external pressure can overwhelm China. So, I think the overall situation may still be positive,” another netizen in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong wrote on Weibo.
'Significant hit’
While Chinese netizens hold mixed views about the potential tariffs that Trump has vowed to impose on Chinese imports, analysts say this move would be “a significant hit” to the Chinese economy, which has been troubled by an ongoing property crisis, high youth unemployment and weak domestic demand.
If Trump decides to impose 60% tariffs on all Chinese products imported to the U.S., “This would be a return to a big-picture trade war rather than a narrow tech war. And it would have a much deeper impact on China’s export-driven growth potential because he is hitting the entirety of China’s exports to the U.S.,” Jacob Gunter, an expert on China’s political economy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA by phone.
In Gunter’s view, Trump may use the tariffs to force China to make more concessions on trade. After imposing up to 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods imported to the U.S. in 2019, the Trump administration and China reached a trade deal that saw Beijing promise to increase purchases of American goods to at least $200 billion.
“We could see a return to the deal-making Donald Trump, where he wants to strike a deal and be viewed as this great negotiator, because that’s who he imagines himself to be,” Gunter said, adding that it remains to be seen how Trump might position the tariffs during his second term.
Other experts say one thing to look out for is what concessions Trump might make during a potential negotiation with China.
“One big question is whether Trump will soften the position the Biden administration has maintained on Taiwan in exchange for more exports and more U.S. investment into China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, told VOA by phone.
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a VOA request for comment regarding his administration’s trade plans with China once he takes office in January.
In response to potential tariffs that the incoming Trump administration could impose, analysts say China could impose counter-tariffs on U.S. agricultural products from states controlled by the Republican Party.
“Economic and political tensions between the two countries will inevitably rise, while the global economy and global supply chains will be thrown into chaos,” Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University, told VOA in a written response.
Weakened coordination with allies
While trade and economic tensions between China and the U.S. are expected to rise during Trump’s second term, Zhu said Trump’s return to power may also be good news for Beijing, as Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion of its influence in the Indo-Pacific region may be weakened due to Trump’s isolationist approach in international affairs.
“Trump is more likely to push ahead with his agenda without consulting allies and partners or seeking their support, and this might be good news for China,” Zhu told VOA.
“China can take a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy to dilute the effectiveness of Trump’s foreign policy, especially the Indo-Pacific strategy, and we may see improvements in China’s relations with its neighbors, particularly Japan, South Korea and India, as well as U.S. allies in other parts of the world,” Zhu added.
In his view, bilateral relations between China and the U.S. will be dominated by competition under the second Trump administration, but there is also room for diplomacy and cooperation.
“Competition itself is not necessarily harmful, because if the two countries can manage the competition in a healthy way, both sides can benefit,” Zhu said.
