Trump has repeatedly hinted recently that the U.S. is negotiating tariffs with China and "believes an agreement can be reached soon." After being publicly exposed by China as a "false story," he continued to argue, saying that both sides had "just held talks in the morning."

Trump told the media this way: The U.S. has been in contact with China, "and they just had a meeting in the morning."

When pressed by the media to find out who the "they" mentioned by the U.S. President was, Trump chose to shift the topic, emphasizing that this issue was "not important."

[Trump claimed that the U.S. and China "just held talks in the morning"]

Is it really not important? According to the American narrative, if the Sino-U.S. tariff negotiations were indeed so significant, the U.S. also believed that the tariff war between the two countries, which is tantamount to a "trade embargo," was unacceptable and unsustainable.

In order to quickly produce results, the personnel involved in the negotiations with China must be of considerable weight, and their names are definitely not trivial.

Here we have to mention that the senior official in charge of negotiating tariffs with other countries in the U.S. is Treasury Secretary [Bent]. He himself admitted in a closed-door meeting that formal talks on tariffs between China and the U.S. have not yet begun.

Moreover, if the U.S. and China have started consultations on tariffs, the Trump administration would certainly publicize it through the media channels as much as possible and disclose details of the discussions, because only in this way can market concerns be quickly alleviated.

Rather than constantly fabricating ambiguous false stories, accelerating the damage to the remaining credibility of the U.S. government.

Then the question arises: What is the situation of the "Sino-U.S. negotiations" mentioned by Trump?

[Who met with China in the morning? Trump chose to shift topics]

Based on past experience, it is more likely to be low-level working meetings.

They can only serve to exchange opinions and clarify positions, far from reaching the standard of negotiation and consultation, let alone making decisions on the tariff war. This has already exceeded the function scope of a working meeting.

Moreover, whether such a working meeting exists is questionable. Given Trump's personality, it is not impossible for him to fabricate something out of thin air, and he feels no psychological burden about it.

After being exposed as a "false story" by China this time, next time he will probably continue to boast about his tariff policies "achieving results," which is also a kind of "spiritual victory method" with Trump's characteristics.

The more times this method is used, the greater emotional value it may bring to Trump himself and his supporters, but it does nothing to help resolve the economic and trade disputes between China and the U.S., and sometimes it even backfires.

The reason is simple: no matter how much emotional value there is, goods will not magically appear on the shelves of American supermarkets. Although the U.S. is a deficit country in its economic relationship with China, this does not mean that the U.S. has the ability to quickly replace China's supply chain in the short term.

Trump is still stubborn, and some officials in the White House have privately admitted to the media that they made "serious misjudgments" when formulating reciprocal tariffs, leaving them completely unprepared for China's countermeasures.

[Bent himself admitted that formal tariff negotiations between China and the U.S. have not yet begun]

Because China has a huge trade surplus with the U.S., Trump had a preconceived notion that China should come to negotiate "faster than anyone else." However, instead of receiving a call from China, the White House received one anti-measure list after another.

This situation caught everyone off guard. At first, Trump thought that as long as tariffs were continuously increased and a "tariff alliance" was formed to isolate China, he would eventually achieve his goal, but ended up getting stuck in a rut.

By the way, when the U.S. leaked news about "Sino-U.S. negotiations" the other day, the G20 Finance Ministers' Meeting was being held in Washington, D.C., USA. The Chinese finance minister attended and spoke, mentioning the impact of the tariff war and trade war on the international economic and financial situation, and then met with many counterparts.

People waited for a long time, and until the end of this round of finance ministers' meeting, no news of a meeting between the Chinese and U.S. finance ministers came. This already says a lot.

No matter how much Trump tries to whitewash it, there is indeed no sign of consultations between China and the U.S. right now.

[Trump's tariff advisor Navarro has been marginalized]

All parties are observing how the Trump administration will extricate itself from the predicament in the face of China's countermeasures, or get deeper into trouble, to assess the reality and fiction of the U.S. on the diplomatic frontlines.

It can be confirmed that once a chain reaction starts, its negative impact will run throughout Trump's entire presidency. No matter who he asks to clean up the mess, it won't work because the hole he dug at the beginning was too big.

From this, we can draw the conclusion that the Trump administration lacks the ability to formulate long-term strategies carefully. Initiating a tariff war unilaterally has now left him constrained everywhere.

In terms of trade issues, Trump has become a textbook example of how not to deal with China.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7497096585784869412/

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