Does Trump even have an endgame in trade war with China?

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Cooler heads could still prevail, but it seems unlikely as Beijing and Washington up the stakes in a tit-for-tat spat that could play havoc with the world’s economy

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A Chinese-made industrial robot at the World Robot Conference in Beijing. President Xi Jinping is now focused on making state-owned enterprises stronger. Photo: AP

Keith B. Richburg

Published: 12:00pm, 7 Apr 2018Updated: 1:55pm, 7 Apr 2018

Back in 2003, at the start of America’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, then Major General David Petraeus, commanding the US 101st Airborne Division driving toward Baghdad, famously asked my Washington Post colleague Rick Atkinson: “Tell me how this ends.”

That phrase – both a question and a plaintive plea – came to capsulate the entire unplanned and ill-fated Iraq misadventure, from which the US is still struggling to extricate itself. But the question is equally applicable today, as America once again seems bent on blindly stumbling into a new conflict with inadequate preparation, unclear goals and with no clear exit strategy – a possible trade war with China.

Like all US presidents, Donald Trump has broad powers to effect trade policy. Photo: EPA

I say “possible” because, despite all the huffing and puffing, common sense could still prevail and the US and China could pull back from the brink. But that would require a remarkable public climbdown by US President Donald Trump, who has so far shown himself adverse to introspection, incapable of admitting error, and quick to claim credit even from the most ignominious defeats.

Remember the promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, the national health insurance programme? It didn’t happen. But didn’t stop Trump from proclaiming, “We have essentially repealed Obamacare.”

Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from majority-Muslim countries? Repeatedly watered down, repeatedly struck down in federal courts, and waiting for a final ruling by the US Supreme Court. The trillion-dollar infrastructure rebuilding plan? Dead in the water. Repealing the Obama-era protections for young immigrants brought to the US as children? Blocked in the courts.