Yet the time for Trump to take a victory lap is not at hand as China’s global trade surplus has continued to swell to record highs. And now commentators judge from his new US National Security Strategy report that the president and his administration may be starting to come to terms with the poor prospects for winning the trade war anytime soon. Some of what Trump’s critics would call overconfidence was toned down when he released the report on December 4.
It’s not that Trump acknowledged any error on his own part. As usual he blamed his predecessors for US problems with China, saying that, although they had long believed that opening US markets and encouraging investment in China while outsourcing manufacturing would draw Beijing into a “rules‑based international order,” the outcome was opposite.
