Trump’s Flailing Makes Xi Jinping Stronger at Home

JM Ashby
Written by JM Ashby

I've speculated that Trump's recent actions -- from linking his trade war to sanctions on Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei and Chinese President Xi Jinping's handling of protests in Hong Kong -- have made it easier for Jinping to oppose him and pushed an elusive trade deal even further out of reach, but what do I know?

You could just as well assume that I know nothing and take it from the Chinese.

Sources within the Chinese government tell Reuters that sentiment among the public and within China's ruling party has turned sharply against dealing with Trump and toward Jinping.




But right now in China, the rising consensus is that the U.S. is trying to contain China no matter what we do.” [...]


It is worthless to negotiate with Trump. Trump doesn't negotiate and he doesn't make deals. He didn't even write The Art of the Deal.

To call something a "deal" implies that both sides got something out of it, but Trump does not believe that anyone but himself deserves to get anything.

Trump's decision to arbitrarily move ahead with tariffs on all remaining Chinese goods after declaring a "truce" with Xi Jinping, followed by his decision to delay about half of those tariffs until December, was both a sign of weakness and incoherence.

Trump and his lackeys have publicly speculated that China is going to wait them out and make a deal with the next president but, as I said before, if that's true, it would only be true because dealing with Trump is virtually impossible.

It's incredibly difficult if not impossible to work with people who cannot even agree to the meaning of words.





  • Sadly, Trump has done exactly what he said he’d do in his original campaign: thrive on chaos. It’s what he does, it’s what he loves. Making everyone around him go crazy because he won’t stay with one idea at all. It makes him feel powerful when he can force everyone to scurry around like a kicked anthill. He’s an overgrown spoiled rotten brat.

  • muselet


    No foolin’.

    Donald Trump is on-course to destroy the world economy because his ego made him try to bully the Chinese into … something which remains obscure to me even after all this time. Open the Chinese market to US goods? Stop dumping Chinese-made goods on the US market? Both? Something else entirely?

    Since Trump’s has a child’s understanding of economics—with apologies to children everywhere—he has no idea what exactly he wants or why or how to achieve his goals.

    Things will only get better when Trump is out of office, and then only after years of hard diplomatic work.


  • Nefercat

    Gee, elect a fucking dunce with no governing, diplomatic, political science, global trade, or economic knowledge, experience, or talent, with an established record of business failures, corruption, conflict, and racism. What could go wrong?

    • Draxiar

      Aaw c’mon Nefercat! He tells it like it is…except for the 12,000 times (and counting) he didn’t…