China battens down the hatches for blustery trade winds as odds of Trump victory rise
- China appears to have accepted the inevitability of a protracted trade war with the US, taking precautions for a potential second Trump term
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China has made ample preparations for the tsunami of tariffs likely to reach its shores if former US president Donald Trump returns to the White House, analysts said, as its government and private sector have all but resigned themselves to a worst-case scenario.
“Another trade war seems inevitable,” said Chen Fengying, a researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) – a think tank with ties to the country’s Ministry of State Security.
Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election, was shot in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday – an attack that appears to have turned the tide in his favour in the short term, although the incident’s ultimate impact remains to be seen.
“It seems we are already adapting gradually,” Chen said. “We have been digesting the tariffs through supply chain relocation – there is no other way.”
After some initial panic following the first wave of tariffs in 2018, China has been restructuring its global trade patterns by tapping emerging markets like the Middle East and Central Asia and simultaneously striving to reorient the country’s economy around domestic consumption.