Hundred Days of Sino-U.S. Trade "Dark War"

The duel between strong players is often off the court

On July 7, the United States imposed 6% tariffs on US$340 billion of Chinese goods, and China’s countermeasures took effect immediately. This is just one of the results of this unprecedented Sino-US trade war.

From when Trump declared war on China on March 3 this year to when the two sides called each other, from sitting at the negotiating table together to now officially "war", this extended and protracted trade war has lasted 23 days.

In the past 100 days, as the world's number one and second economic power, China and the United States have had their face-to-face battles and back-to-back wrestling. This is far more worthy of attention than the result itself.

In fact, this is an expected war. The rapid expansion of China’s economy has already made the United States feel threatened. In the past one or two years, many domestic “experts” have over-expanded, and the “China first” theory has been raging, which has aggravated the United States. fear.

Many people use terms such as trade protection, populism, trade hegemony, and the battle of national movement to describe this trade war, but I don't think they can accurately summarize the nature of this trade war.

Regarding the essence, Ren Zeping, Dean of Evergrande Research Institute, said in the analysis. "The United States believes that China is political authoritarianism, economic state capitalism, mercantilism in trade, and neo-expansionism in international relations. This is a comprehensive challenge to the Western world led by the United States."

For example, the rise of China's economy challenges American economic hegemony, China's advancement of high technology challenges American high-tech monopoly status, Chinese mercantilism challenges American free trade, China's "One Belt One Road" challenges American geopolitics, and China's development model challenges American ideology and Western civilization. .

Therefore, in essence, there must be a battle between China and the United States in the economic field, but I did not expect it to come so suddenly and so quickly.

 Tentative 

On March 3 this year, Trump formally signed a memorandum of trade with China at the White House. He announced on the spot that it would be possible to impose tariffs on US$23 billion of goods imported from China and restrict Chinese companies’ investment and mergers and acquisitions in the United States.

At that time, there was a video in which Trump appeared to be "aggrieved", which probably meant that China had taken advantage of Sino-US trade, and Chinese companies had also obtained a lot of technology from the United States. In short, the United States did not get any benefits.

China obviously did not approve this conclusion. The Ministry of Commerce responded immediately, believing that the US's huge trade deficit with China was not caused by China unilaterally, but also by the US itself (excessive consumption).

In addition, China also organized media (mainly official media) and experts to conduct a large-scale public opinion counterattack, highlighting that it is unpopular for the United States to initiate trade. It not only hurts China's interests, but the American people will not agree to it.

However, these "public opinion interferences" seem to have no effect.

A week later, on the afternoon of April 4, the Office of the United States Trade Representative published a 3-page list of tax recommendations on China on its website, including approximately 58 independent tariff items, with a recommended tax rate of 1300%, and a total of approximately US$25 billion. China exports goods.The content of the list mainly involves aerospace, information and communication technology, robotics and machinery, medicine and other industries.

After reading this list, many people suddenly realized that the Americans were not good, and the main purpose was to crack down on "Made in China 2025" related industries.

为了达到“同等规模同等力度”的反击，中国在第二天（4月4日）就决定对原产于美国的大豆、汽车、化工品等14类106项商品加征25%的关税，额度也是500亿美元。

According to the state media at the time, “snake attack requires seven inches”, so soybeans are naturally the first choice. Soybeans are China’s largest import of agricultural products from the United States, and the soybean-growing areas in the United States are also Trump’s ticket warehouses.

But to be honest, imposing tariffs on soybeans also has an impact on China's related industries, so China has adopted two measures: one is to expand imports from Brazil, Russia and other countries. Although the price is higher than that of US soybeans, it is because of the trade war. It cannot be considered solely from the economic aspect.

Another measure is to call on farmers in Northeast China to expand soybean planting area and increase soybean planting subsidies.In the past, the Northeast has always been the main soybean producing area in China, but in the early 90s, under the impact of American soybeans, the soybean planting area in the Northeast dropped sharply.

The above can be regarded as the probing stage of the Sino-US trade war. At this stage, China has no intention of showing weakness, and the United States has also seen this clearly. This laid the foundation for the continued bidding of prices between the two sides.

 Outcry 

On April 4, Trump asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative to consider imposing additional tariffs of $5 billion on Chinese goods.This marks a further escalation of the Sino-US trade war.

Regarding this, the term used by the domestic official media in their reports is "intensify its efforts", which means that the United States is doing well and is a little bit ignorant of praise.

At the same time, the Ministry of Commerce responded as soon as possible. China's position is "we don't want to fight, but we are not afraid of fighting."China will accompany to the end, and will resolutely fight back at any price.

This statement became China's basic stance when the two sides talked about "calling prices". The meaning is very clear. As long as the United States does not fight, we will not fight. The implication is to hope that the United States will stop asking prices.

On the one hand, China has shown strong enough attitude, on the other hand, it has also shown enough sincerity. In early April, China’s position at the Boao Forum became an obvious turning point. After that, China also announced a series of tangible Open policy.

The "step" given by China was successfully found by the United States. Trump then stated: "I will not call it a trade war, because this is really a trade negotiation."

Trump also said that if China is willing to further open its market to American products, the two countries will be able to avoid a trade war.

However, unexpectedly, on April 4, the U.S. Department of Commerce suddenly ordered that U.S. companies be prohibited from exporting telecommunications parts and components to ZTE for a period of 16 years.

This is the only trade sanctions implemented by the US during the "outcry" stage. Looking at it now, the US mainly wants to tell China that the US is not just talking.

In response to the sanctions on ZTE, the Ministry of Commerce made a symbolic response at that time: "It will closely monitor the development of the situation and is ready to take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies."

 negotiation 

In the previous stage, the contest between the two parties was more complicated, and the reality was elusive, but the main purpose was to test the other party and find the weakness of the other party, so as to obtain a result that was beneficial to oneself at the negotiating table.

On April 04, U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said that he was considering going to China to negotiate trade issues and was "cautiously optimistic" about the possibility of the two countries reaching an agreement to resolve the dispute in the future.

The Ministry of Commerce also made a courtesy response: China welcomes this.

Judging from this response, China’s hopes at that time may not be high, because in the "price-calling stage," the United States did not show sincerity to talk, but China cannot refuse to talk if the United States wants to talk.

On May 5, the first round of Sino-US trade negotiations ended in Beijing. After two days of talks, a rough consensus was reached: the development of healthy and stable Sino-US economic and trade relations is very important for the two countries, and the two sides should work to resolve them through dialogue and consultation. Economic and trade disputes.

More than ten days later, on May 5, Liu He, Vice Premier of the State Council and the Chinese leader of the China-US Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, led a Chinese economic and trade delegation to the United States for the second round of negotiations. Compared with the first round, the results were more concrete. The cycle is also longer than the first time.

In the early morning of May 5th, China and the United States issued a joint statement on bilateral economic and trade consultations in Washington. There are six items in total. I have done a detailed analysis before. For details, please refer to "Sino-US Trade War "Suspended". Who is the biggest winner?" ".

In general, China has shown sufficient sincerity, such as "it will take effective measures to substantially reduce the US goods trade deficit with China", increase imports of American agricultural products and energy, and China will advance the revision of the Patent Law.

In addition, China is also creating a positive public opinion environment, praising the significance of the statement to both China and the United States. The article "Expanding Imports Is Conducive to People’s Livelihood" published by the People’s Daily stated that my country’s initiative to expand imports will help promote economic growth. Quality development.

Just when everything is going to develop in accordance with the results expected by China and the United States, on May 5, Trump suddenly changed his face. The White House issued a statement saying that the United States will still impose a 29% tariff on 500 billion Chinese goods. The specific list of goods will be 25 Announced on the 6th.

Late that night, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce issued a statement: We were surprised by the strategic statement issued by the White House, but it was also expected. This is obviously contrary to the consensus reached by China and the United States in Washington not long ago.

From the content of the statement, there are three key messages worth noting:

1. Defining the White House's statement as "strategic" means that the United States still wants to continue the talks, but has just begun to "ask prices" again.

2. "Unexpected, but also expected", the former is true, it is indeed somewhat unexpected, the second half of the sentence is mainly to soothe emotions.

3. There is another sentence to soothe the emotions: "No matter what measures the U.S. side introduces, China has the confidence, ability, and experience to defend the interests of the Chinese people and the core national interests."

Judging from the subsequent actions of the United States, China’s estimate is still correct. Before the third round of negotiations, the United States will put pressure on China and force China to make more concessions.

From June 6nd to 2rd, Liu He led the Chinese team and the US team led by US Secretary of Commerce Ross conducted the third round of consultations in Beijing.

Similar to the topics negotiated in the United States, the core concerns of the United States are still: 1. Expand imports; 2. Import energy and agricultural products; 3. Expand opening up; 4. Strengthen intellectual property protection.

On June 6, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce of China stated that China will implement the consensus reached in Washington; and the details of this Sino-US economic and trade consultation have yet to be confirmed by both sides; China does not want the Sino-US trade friction to escalate.

It can be seen from this statement that the negotiations have made little substantial progress and consensus has been reached, but on some details, the two sides still have not negotiated, and the United States is concerned about the details.

 Go to war

6月15日，美国政府发布了加征关税的商品清单，将对从中国进口的约500亿美元商品加征25%的关税，其中对约340亿美元商品自2018年7月6日起实施加征关税措施，同时对约160亿美元商品加征关税开始征求公众意见。

On the same day, with the approval of the State Council, the Tariff Commission of the State Council issued an announcement and decided to impose 659% tariffs on 500 items of about 25 billion US dollars of imported goods originating in the United States, of which 545 items such as agricultural products, automobiles, and aquatic products are about 340 billion US dollars. Commodities will be subject to additional tariffs on July 2018, 7, and the implementation time of additional tariffs on other commodities will be announced separately.

This means that the results of the previous negotiations between China and the United States have been burned, and the trade war between the two sides has officially started.Later, the United States also threatened to draw up a list of 2000 billion U.S. dollars in taxes.

In this regard, on the one hand, China resolutely fought back by adopting comprehensive measures combining quantitative and qualitative measures to counteract it. At the same time, it tried its best to avoid the real start of a trade war. For example, it used "have to" in many statements.

According to the news on July 7, the General Administration of Customs once again emphasized that the additional tariff measures on some imported goods originating in the United States will be implemented after the additional tariff measures by the United States take effect.This means that as long as the United States does not shoot, we will never shoot.

But later facts proved that all this was in vain.

At midnight on Thursday, U.S. time (12:01 Beijing time), the U.S. announced the effective increase of taxes on US$340 billion of Chinese imports. According to the previous “setting” of the State Council’s Tariff Commission, China’s retaliatory actions against the U.S. also took effect.

At this point, the trade war between China and the United States has officially "fired", and imports and exports between China and the United States will be greatly affected. The Peak Pegasus that galloped on the ocean last Friday and ZTE's replacement of the senior management team are both the best. Footnotes.

In addition, those who have been "seriously injured" in this trade war include American soybean farmers, aircraft manufacturers, oil giants, and Chinese companies large and small.

In fact, all the negative effects of the trade war have begun to appear in the past 100 days, and many people or companies that have been trapped have been attacked for one round. "Under the hood, are there any eggs?"

The following are China's imports and exports to the United States in the first five months of 2018.

It can be seen from the graph that since March, the haze of the trade war has begun to affect Sino-US trade. China’s imports from the United States began to decline in March. From a month-on-month point of view, although the decline is not large, the trend has been compared. obvious.

The picture below shows the growth rate of China's imports and exports to the United States in the first May of 2018. This picture more clearly reflects the impact on Sino-U.S. trade.

As can be seen from the above figure, since March, both import growth and export growth have seen a significant decline. Among them, the import growth rate was only 3% in March, and then there was a slight rebound, but it was still at a low level.

According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on July 7, China’s exports to the United States increased by 4% in the first half of this year, a decrease of 5.4 percentage points from the same period last year.Among them, exports to the United States increased by 13.9% in June, and the growth rate dropped by 6 percentage points.

Obviously, the growth rate of China's exports to the United States has slowed down significantly. On the one hand, it may be related to the poor economic environment, but the impact of trade frictions is also very large. In order to avoid risks, many traders actively reduce imports and exports.

Looking at it now, the additional tariffs imposed by China and the United States on US$340 billion of imported goods are only the "first shot" of the "trade war". The scale may increase in the future, and the impact on Sino-US trade may be even greater.