White House Preparing For Chinese Trade Crackdown

The Trump administration is planning to roll out some tariffs on Chinese imports:

“President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to unveil an aggressive trade crackdown in the coming weeks that is likely to include new tariffs aimed at countering China’s and other economic competitors’ alleged unfair trade practices, according to three administration officials.

Trump is tentatively scheduled to meet with Cabinet secretaries and senior advisers as soon as this week to begin finalizing decisions on a slew of pending trade fights involving everything from imports of steel and solar panels to Chinese policies regarding intellectual property, according to one of the administration officials. …

“Broad restrictions would almost certainly be met with retaliation and potentially challenged at the World Trade Organization. It could also trigger copycat actions, with other countries closing their markets to American goods in the name of national security. …”

This is good news.

Like the ban on transsexuals in the military though, it remains to be seen what will ultimately come of this. We’ve ceded authority over our trade policy to the WTO:

“Second, and relatedly, broad retaliatory tariffs under Section 301 would almost certainly be challenged by China at the WTO and could actually result in a WTO panel ruling that both the tariffs and the law itself were inconsistent with the United States’ WTO obligations. …”

Is this going to be another base hit followed by an out on second base? It really depends on how far the Trump administration is willing to go to reassert American sovereignty.