What is Trump's China tariff strategy?

As Trump improvising. His stunning escalation in tariffs on China this week didn’t follow any meaningful formula. He’s acting, as he always does, like a real estate shark, raising the stakes to intolerable levels to seek leverage. It’s the latest manifestation of the “madman theory,” by which Trump conjures the most extreme of circumstances to try to spook his opponents.

Perhaps it will work and China, not eager to wreck an economy that no longer pumps out eye-popping growth numbers, will rush to the table. Many China experts believe that Beijing doesn’t want to go to the brink any more than Trump does.

But the risks are massive.

“We’re now in a huge (trade) war with China, and the tariffs that have been imposed on China are what I would call prohibitive,” former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Zain Asher and Bianna Golodryga on CNN International Thursday. “They’re going to result in massive impacts on the United States and the global economy. No one knows where these policies are headed.”

Trump’s tactics assume that the threat of massive consequences will force China into negotiations – as happened in his first term when the two sides reached a trade agreement that was never fully implemented even before the Covid-19 pandemic effectively shut down US relations with Beijing.

But coercing China could backfire, given its vast economic weight and its sensitivity to slights from Western powers it views as trying to thwart its rise. China’s population is unlikely to respond well to threats after years of nationalistic policymaking and propaganda aimed at superseding the United States.

After confirming Thursday that he’d raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%, Trump insisted that his personal chemistry with President Xi Jinping would be decisive. “He’s been, in a true sense, he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.

Trump often reminisces fondly about a visit by Xi to his Mar-a-Lago resort during his first term, when the two munched on “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen” and he informed his stunned guest about military strikes he’d just ordered in Syria.

Cake diplomacy is unlikely in Trump’s second term.

Chumminess isn’t really Xi’s style. China prefers negotiations to be conducted in grueling lower-level formal diplomacy. Leader meetings are highly scripted – far from the scenario of big guys getting together in a room and thrashing it out that Trump prefers.

“President Xi Jinping … is not a negotiator. His role is not to be engaged in a trade negotiation; instead it’s the working level, the bureaucrats, the functionaries negotiate the deal,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “From that perspective, I do see some short-term logistical challenges, even though the intent to de-escalate may still be there in China.

There’s also no chance China will expose its leader to a freewheeling Oval Office session when anything can happen. Just ask Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky after his dressing-down earlier this year. Or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was surprised this week when Trump said he might not lift tariffs in a return for the Jewish state eliminating its trade deficit with the US.

But as the global trade war quickly evolved over the past several days, the administration hatched a new idea: use trade agreements with allies to isolate and pressure China. This seems a long shot, however, since the president has alienated nations that he’d need for this, including Canada and those in the European Union. America’s friends have decided the US is an unreliable partner and they’ll have to go their own way.

CNN’s Alayna Treene asked Trump to identify his “endgame with China” on Thursday. The president shook his head when asked if he was waiting for Xi to blink and couldn’t say how he’d resolve the showdown. “Look, for years we’ve been ripped off and taken advantage of by China and others, in all fairness, but … that’s the big one,” Trump said.