China tariffs will 'certainly hurt' US consumers: Gordon Chang
President Trump’s strategy for dealing with China will not work, according to “The Coming Collapse of China” author Gordon Chang.
Just days ahead of a meeting between the U.S. and China at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he expects to increase tariffs on more than $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent in January.
“The impact is going to certainly hurt U.S. consumers because these are not going to be as targeted as the first $250 billion,” Chang said during an interview on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday. “But the point is, that the Chinese are probably not going to cave in on this because Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, now has all the incentives in the world to take China off the cliff with him.”
However, in Chang’s opinion, even if an agreement is reached, China will not deliver.
“You know there’s always a possibility of a deal, but I don’t think Beijing will honor one,” he said. “We saw that in the 2015 cyber summit between Xi Jinping and President Obama in the Rose Garden where they both promised not to hack the companies of the other country for commercial purposes. Well, China never stopped hacking our companies.”
Chang also said that Trump must take “stiffer measures” to protect U.S. intellectual property, including banning imports that have benefitted from IP theft.
“I don’t think tariffs are going to do it, certainly at the 25 percent level they are not going to be sufficient,” he said. “What we are really going to do is disentangle the U.S. and Chinese economies basically to stop IP theft.”