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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Ji Siqiin Beijing

Published: 10:00am, 17 Jul 2024Updated: 5:53pm, 19 Jul 2024

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.

In 2018 and 2019, his administration imposed tariffs of up to 25 per cent on hundreds of billions of US dollars of Chinese goods. During this year’s campaign he has already issued sterner threats, including duties in excess of 60 per cent on all Chinese imports.

“It seems we are already adapting gradually,” Chen said. “We have been digesting the tariffs through supply chain relocation – there is no other way.”