Donald Trumpʼs return to power brings up three key questions about US-China relations. The president-elect wants tough measures — but economic reality might get in the way
The first big issue is trade: Trump talks about 60% China tariffs and wants his trade-expert Robert Lighthizer back (who worked with him about 4 years ago). Some folks close to him want to cut all China ties‚ which seems hard since China is Americas biggest stuff-seller
- Indonesia could make cheaper things
- Vietnam might help too
- But Trump wants 10-20% tax on everyone
- Prices might go way up
Business ties make things tricky. Steve Wynn has money in Macau casinos‚ and Elon Musk — who watched election results with Trump — needs China for his Tesla cars: hes been nice to Beijing about stuff like Taiwan
Kind of pro-China
The next question is about Taiwan defense. Mike Waltz‚ whos gonna be security advisor‚ and likely future Secretary Marco Rubio dont see eye-to-eye with Trump on this one; they care more about democracy while he thinks Taiwan isnt doing its part
Last summer a fun bike trend started in China — students rode 40-miles from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng for soup-dumplings. It got super-big (like 100k riders) but officials shut it down fast; they didnt like so many young people doing stuff together
Taiwan tried to get on Trumps good side right after election with a big arms deal idea — they want F-35 jets and missiles (worth about $15-billion). Meanwhile Chinese cops are looking into some insurance company problems: they grabbed some Evergrande Life Insurance big-shots