Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow is playing down the potential of a trade war, saying China has not played by fair trade rules for a long time.
“Every country in the world know this, every analyst knows this is the case, somebody's gotta deal with it and President Trump is going to deal with it,” Kudlow said Thursday.
Gordon Chang, columnist for the Daily Beast, has written books on the Chinese economy and says the communist nation is all hat and no cattle when it comes to trade tariffs.
“Last year, 88.8 percent of China's overall merchandise trade surplus related to sales to the United States, so that means they really need access to the U.S. market,” he says.
Chang says even if China cut off U.S. beef, pork, cotton and soybeans, those products will be sold elsewhere.
“What happens if they don't buy it? They go and buy Brazil's. So, if Brazil won't have enough soybeans to sell to its traditional customers, U.S. producers will be selling to Brazil's customers.”
He insists that same logic also applies to airplanes, adding it's their economy which is shrinking, not ours. “The Chinese can huff and puff, but at the end of the day, I don't think they have much of a lever in that regard.”