Does Trump Have a China Trade Strategy?

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-tariffs-donald-trump-trade-markets-scott-bessent-tiktok-b30bce47?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

It’s all going according to plan, says the White House, and you almost have to smile at this spin in trying to sell President Trump’s partial tariff reversal this week as a triumph. The reality is that Mr. Trump is making it up as he goes, and it would help if he had an actual strategy to deal with China in particular.

Stocks staged a relief rally on Wednesday, but a day later fell again. What investors know is that the trade war is far from over and damage persists. Even with the 90-day pause, the tariffs that continue are the largest tax increase since 1982. They’re bigger than Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase and George H.W. Bush’s in 1990. Taxes are anti-growth.

Then there’s the trade-war escalation with China, the world’s second largest economy. The White House said Thursday that the U.S. tariff on all Chinese exports to the U.S. will now be 145%. In 2024 the U.S. imported $439 billion in goods from China, so apply 145% to that and you get a sense of the hit to U.S. consumers and businesses.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the U.S. trade goal all along has been to isolate China as a main offender. There’s good reason to treat China differently given its often predatory trade practices. These include cyber attacks on U.S. companies and government; intellectual property theft; unequal treatment of U.S. firms in China; and Covid lies.