Crusher
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2019
- Messages
- 2,431
- Reaction score
- 3
- Country
- Location
I agree with your assessment.
I think Xi Jinping and much of China's leadership became arrogant and also complacent, assuming the US depended on China, valued the business relationship too much, that US corporations will forever steer US policy and they overreached. They overreached in the South China Sea, they overreached in announcing their ambitions even though China was still far behind in many extremely important core technologies like semiconductors, precision manufacturing, engine technology, AI, etc etc. But they never expected a wild card like Trump who disrupted everything. That's why they are trying to downplay everything now and trying to backtrack, but it's too late, they showed their cards too early. If they were smarter, they would've shown their cards after they actually equaled or surpassed the US.
Trump is just passionate about reducing "trade deficits", he has been against trade deficits of US with other nations even as far back as 80s when he used to channel his anger on trade deficits towards "Japan",
After getting elected as the president of USA in November 2016 his sole focus has been on "trade deficits" and he has been trying to "correct" US trade deficits against China, Mexico, Canada, India and EU.