White House Calls China’s Maritime Policies Predatory Threat to Global Trade – But Not Trump’s White House
“China’s so-called ‘socialist market economy’ has evolved and turned decidedly predatory in nature” and “With China’s strong embrace of predatory behavior, it is apparent that the US strategy needs to evolve” sound like statements you’d expect to hear from the Trump Administration. After all, it was the Trump Administration that launched, in President Trump’s first term in office, a trade war between the U.S. and China. However, these statements came from the Biden Administration on President Biden’s way out of the office.
In a Journal of Commerce article, Laura Robb reported on a new White House report a week ago:
China’s manipulation of market policies and practices gives the country an unfair advantage in global trade, including control of 95% of the world’s shipping containers, according to a new White House report.
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Maritime trade is particularly impacted by China’s business practices, which have resulted in a boom for the country’s shipbuilding market, said the report. While Chinese shipbuilders contributed only 5% of global merchant tonnage produced in 1999, that figure leapt to over 50% in 2023, “increasing China’s ownership of the global commercial fleet to 19%, while securing control of 95% of shipping containers and 86% of the world’s supply of intermodal chassis, among other components and products,” the report said.
Just because the report on China’s maritime practices being predatory came from Biden’s White House doesn’t mean the Trump White House won’t agree and act upon it. In fact, China might be one of, if not the, top issue the Trump and Biden Administrations agree upon.
Despite Joe Biden being critical of Donald Trump’s tariffs on China when President Trump put them in place, when he became president, President Biden did not undo President Trump’s tariffs. It was a little surprising because when President Biden came into office, he unleashed a record number of executive orders, seemingly trying to undo every policy the Trump Administration had put in place.
Conspicuously, the tariffs remained. And by the end of President Biden’s term, he’d added to them.
While on the campaign trail, President Trump spoke often of highly utilizing tariffs once he returned to office, and on China in particular. However, after his inauguration this week, President Trump is using that tariff increase threat for leverage over China as his administration launches an investigation of its own.
“We’re going to have meetings and calls with President Xi,” Trump said, adding that he’d been invited to China without elaborating. The US leader signed an order for his administration to address unfair trade practices globally and investigate China’s compliance with a deal struck during his first term.
The deal struck during President Trump’s first term should have been the news story of the year: President Trump’s long trade war culminated in China agreeing to the Phase One Trade Agreement. And that deal was enormously in America’s favor! However, right after the trade deal was struck, COVID19 broke out in Wuhan, China.
The timing of the coronavirus could not have been worse. Not only did the story of Trump triumphing with a trade deal full of concessions by China get overshadowed by Covid, it’s clear that China didn’t comply with the Phase One deal in the wake of the pandemic. President Trump will likely want not merely a return to what the U.S. was supposed to get from China in the Phase One Trade Agreement but more.
What’s interesting is we now have statements of Chinese predatory trade practices from the Biden Administration and patience with the opening of new trade negotiations with China from the Trump Administration. Of course, President Trump has shown himself more than willing to wield heavy tariffs. I would expect tariff hikes on goods from China quickly if President Trump doesn’t get the kind of compliance he’s looking for from President Xi.
