Quora: How is China hurting from President Trump's trade war? Is China hurting more than the U.S.A.?

Jamie Cawley, lived in China 2012-2018, now Hong Kong Answered

Let’s be clear: “Trade War” is a political/news artifact, like “The War on Drugs” and all other political wars - the “War on Poverty” etc. Economically it is trivial.

It is odd, because it is cried up by Trump’s opponents as much as anyone. 10% tariffs or even 25% make little difference and are easily evaded when necessary by ‘re-originating’ stuff via another country (largely Thailand and Indonesia when Obama put 25% tariffs on Chinese tyres 2009–2015). They shout ‘disaster’ and ‘Smoot-Hawley’ and make it all look real and Trump big. Newscorps do the same, especially through low news periods like August.

It also depends on vanity. The US takes for granted that it is a big dog and that its actions will have huge effects. Exports to the US account for 2.6% of the Chinese economy, which grew at 6.5% last year. Tariffs on half of this make no difference you can measure.

They have had a bad effect, tho’, particularly the attack on Huawei (currently ‘suspended’) which has told Chinese corporations not to source from the US as one tweet can, apparently, cut off supply. Talk about cutting off your nose. It has also sabotaged the USDA’s - long planned and constructed - attempt to compete with the Aussies for meat and fruit in the Chinese market. Trump must be the toast of Adelaide.

But it keeps the news agenda where Trump wants it, as this question and answer show - away from Russia, away from profiteering from the Presidency, away from paying off tarts, away from the fact this his lawyer is serving three years for doing what Trump told him.

AND will give him a massive win next year when he ‘sorts out’ the mess and ‘gets what he has fought for’, alongside the North Korea Agreement (tba) in the lead up to the election. (The reality is that the US will be granted the same terms of trade with China as the rest of the world got in 2018 but that is not how it will appear. The NK agreement has been in the bag for some time, delivered by China as it happens, but awaiting the right moment for release).

The USA is supreme in many things, but, above all, in providing entertainment people love. Hollywood stands head-and-shoulders and waistband above others, alongside HBO, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto, the Kardashians, etc. Trump has this nailed. The circus rolls on, filling the news channels and bar conversations.

And US citizens pay 6 times as much for medicines, imprison more citizens at vast expense than any other country has ever done, cannot sort out it shooter or Opioid problem and pours money into the largest Armed force ever conceived for no clear reason.