Did Trump get rolled by China?

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping

(Image credit: AFP Contributor/Getty Images)

published 21 May 2018

Don't tell President Trump he got rolled by China. On Fox News Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump has put his $150 billion in proposed tariffs "on hold" while the U.S. and China implement a new "framework" in which China lowers tariffs on unspecified U.S. goods, buys more U.S. energy and food, and increase cooperation in safeguarding U.S. technology. Trump began his morning tweets with a defense of the preliminary deal:

"On China, barriers and tariffs to come down for first time," he added. Analysts, and many of his own allies, did not agree with Trump's rosy assessment. "Trump administration gets rolled by the Chinese," tweeted Wall Street Journal trade reporter Bob Davis. Fox Business host Lou Dobbs tweeted: "Chinese say 'No Deal' — U.S. must export like a superpower not an agrarian developing nation half our size!" Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) summed up the objections in one tweet:

China got Trump's team to drop the threatened tariffs and a specific $200 billion commitment for increased imports, and in return it pledged to buy more U.S. energy and food that it was almost certainly going to import anyway to feed its growing middle class. So "China appears to have the upper hand, but this is just the beginning," says Heather Long at The Washington Post. "There's hope on both sides of the aisle (and in many parts of America) that Trump will hold out for more."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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