From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, April eleven, twenty twenty five. Peter Dutton is steering clear of Australia's CBDs in the run up to the federal election on May three. Exclusive new analysis by The Australian shows the opposition leader is focused on winning seats in the outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. You can check that out and all our election coverage
right now at the Australian dot com dot au. Donald Trump and Shijinping have a lot in common and that's why they're knocking heads in an earth shattering kind of way.
Today.
Our man in Beijing, North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow on how President she has mishandled the tariff war and how it can possibly be resolved. In the latest ad for Calvin Klein underwear, the Puerto Rican rap superstar Bad Bunny real name Benito Ocasio shows off his abs while dancing around in his Calvins. These cotton box of briefs are at the center of the trade war between the United States and China. That's because Calvin Klein's parent company PBH
has been blacklisted by the Chinese government. Blacklisting is one of the tools China users to influence global trade. Previously, its hit defense companies like Rayfeon and Lockheed Martin for selling arms to Taiwan. America accuses China of other tactics too, like pressuring US companies to give up their intellectual property or putting tight export controls on goods America wants like critical minerals. So what's the problem with bad Bunny and his calvins?
Do you have your carbin zone?
Well, China took great offense to PVH, declaring that, in line with the US government regulations, it would no longer buy cotton from China's Shinjang region, where human rights organizations say there is mass enslavement and forced labor of the local weaker population, something China denies. Black Bands and China's other tactics, plus a giant trade imbalance, are all part of the reason why Donald Trump slapped massive tariffs on China and it all escalated from there.
Sujan Pen and Donald Trump are both determined to be the strong man, to not look weak, to not back down.
Will Glasgow is the Australian's North Asia correspondent, and he's written a searing opinion piece that accuses Chinese President Shijinping of epic blunders in his handling of the situation.
They're both megalamaniacs, right, So advising each of them that you're doing the wrong thing or your strategy is not working is a very brave well, Frankly, it's a career ending decision in both the Trump court and in the She court.
So here's where we're at on China. After weeks of escalating tariffs, Donald Trump announced on Liberation Day he'd slap China with a fifty four percent tariff. China's Xijinping fired straight back with a thirty four percent tariff on American goods. Trump hit them with another fifty percent. She added fifty Then on Thursday, Trump reset tariffs in all countries to ten percent, except China, which went up even more to one hundred and twenty five percent.
President She he's a friend of mine. I like them, I respect him, but they haven't treated our country. Are sure I'd beat with him?
Donald Trump described Jijinping as a friend to someone he respects, a good leader. Do you think the feeling's mutual.
Well, I mean the insincerity is mutual, right, I mean in official exchanges, they each pretend right to be polite. Trump does this additional thing, and he's done this all the way through with Hihimpan buttering him up, publicly praising him, saying he's a great leader, a smart guy, a great negotiator, or a tough negotiator, all these things. But yeah, overnight Trump says nice things about she. He also ramped up tariffs again that doubles the costs of Chinese products into
the American market, the biggest market in the world. For a lot of traders have told me directly. This was last week. Many Chinese firms said there's no way we can deal with America, that we can trade to America, and they were very surprised at how high that level was. God, you know, that looks like the Sunny Times.
Now one week on, Biden allowed China to just take advantage of us. We had like a trillion dollar deficit with China, trillion dollar deficit.
The way mo foreign leaders deal with Donald Trump, he's just to capitulate. And we saw very graphically what happens when you don't capitulate the shouting match that Voladimir Zelenski got himself into in the Oval office when he chose not to just g nod and agree with what Jade Vans and Donald Trump was saying. Why isn't Hi Jinping choosing that course?
Yeah?
Well, you know, I think there's a third strategy, which is tried to not talk to him right.
And keep away.
Anthony Albernizi has mostly taken that approach. Some people on the Liberal Party have criticized him for it. Frankly, I think it's a pretty smart one. Just don't be on Trump's radar right, having his attention is very dangerous.
But she has taken Yeah, the third approach.
I mean, no one else has done this, of counterpunching, of being tough.
Why does he do it?
Hijinping sees himself as the leader of a country as big, as important, if not more than America. He thinks he should be treated as a peer, and he thinks he's being grievously disrespected by Donald Trump, by America, and he's made it very clear he won't tolerated. Now how successful it is, in my opinion, in this last week, it's
been an absolute disaster for China. They're a total outlier because Xijianping couldn't do what other world leaders did, which is either you know, he didn't need to butter a ma up like that is an approach for Vietnam and Japan and South Korea's leaders. They directly, they called and spoke to the president and whatever they think privately, they tried to deal with him respectfully, tried to charm him into giving them better terms.
Now their outlies too. Most people just didn't speak to Trump.
They waited to see if the markets would force his hand before these tariffs actually came into effect. As it was, he did his back down less than twenty four hours after they took effect because of a total meltdown on Wall Street and around the world and on.
The bomb market.
Had China just set in its hands and done nothing or done nothing more than rhetoric, I mean, it could have, as it always does, filled its papers with angry editorials about America. I mean, it's been making a lot of hay in all the upset from capitals around the world about America. There's a lot of opportunity for China in that, and it's still going to exploit that as much as it can. But what it did, it took actions as well as that, and that's what's created this problem for Trump.
And it just seems that by temperament cision Ping is incapable of not counterpunching, and frankly, in Donald Trump, his mirror image, Donald Trump is incapable of being hit and not counter punching. Right, they have a very similar world view and that their products. A very different political systems. But there's a lot of similarities between these two.
Coming up. So can this possibly be resolved? Being strong and acting like the biggest panda in the zoo has worked for China until now they are able to use their muscle to make sure that companies who want to do business with China have to play by China's rules. What's the worst case scenario for China in this instance? If the tariffs do remain, for example.
A week ago before Liberation Day, this current scenario would be the worst case scenario, frankly, if not worse. Like, you have ten percent reciprocal tariffs on every other economy in the world and over one hundred and twenty percent on China. So the logic of moving your supply chain outside of China now is profound right.
You know, Apple's quietly.
Done a lot to move supply chains, already reduce its reliance on China, moved to India at quite a pace, move into Vietnam. This current regime, this current setup the Trump's put in place, gives a lot of incentive for that to happen. And that's a very dangerous position for the Chinese economy. China has the option, which it did do in its first term, of not actually collecting the tariff.
So there's some things it needs from America, and what it does is it sets a tariff and then actually it's customs just let the product in because they need it. I expect that will be happening in case so they can't replace it, then they're scratching around for other tools, which you know, as you said in your earlier example, punished an American clothing company for not using shinjung cotton or having an opinion on that.
They can do that.
They can cause a lot of terror for American multinationals operating in China. But seen from Washington, isn't that just nudging the process they want? Isn't that just going to scare American multinationals out of China. China's in a buying there. It's certainly got a lot of tools to make I'm very painful for American or any other multinational in China. But that has a consequence, you know, and weighing that up's tricky for it.
Both Donald Trump and the person who was until today his premier advisor on tariff, Pitt Navarro, have said that the issue is not so much tariffs or even unfair practices, it's the deficit, the fact that America buys more from China than itself that this comes into more of a balance. Is that the only way we'll go to see any kind of resolution here.
Well, I think the US China showdown or superpowered tussle goes so beyond trade. Right, Let's just say in some magical future there was a perfectly symmetrical trade relationship between China and America. The build up by the People's Operation Army, it's not going to stop freaking out the Pentagon. It's not going to change in any way. China's ambition to reclaim Taiwan bring it under its control. Same with the territorial disputes in South China. See again, that's just in
that domain. And then you go into the cyber world. I mean, China's huge cyber capacity that just keeps growing and it's become very sophisticated in recent years. Well that doesn't go away with that kind of scenario either. So you know, just name the domain. China causes anks to America and America causes it back to China, right.
I mean, there is definitely a lot.
Of psychology going on between these two leaders with huge egos, but there is also a big ideological component to this. America sees itself as a country of manifest destiny. It's destined to lead the world. It sees its system as one that others should follow. And you know, Shijinping he's the President of China, but before that, he's the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and they see America and its political system as potentially an existential threat to it.
What she's top KPI is not trade relations or economic growth. It's keeping the Chinese Communist.
Party in power.
One thing she has got is a clear enemy, right, and he's got he runs a Leninist dictatorship. His party state.
Media will be making it very clear that Donald Trump and Imperial America is to blame for all this, and if you feel hardship, blame America right I mean the Chinese internet right now, the reactions to what America has done, the reactions that you see online are just venomous.
People are talking about we need to beware for biological attacks from America. They could send another coronavirus. Like there's a lot of paranoia swirling around China. There was already before all this happened about America's intentions. Everything that's happened in this last week and overnight just completely confirms that conspiratorial idea that America is out to contain China.
And frankly, I mean, is it a conspiracy?
You know, Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said just after the greatest Chinese CounterPunch, We're going to work with our allies to work against China. Trade was the kind of last buttress in this relationship. She had already got the American business community really offside. It was a very dangerous thing for him when he lost that. China had always had America's business community making the case for China within the American political system. Privately, many in that American business
community wanted Trump to get tough on China. She he didn't address any of those concerns from the Americans. So quite a while ago, both sides have sort of singled out the other as a threat, as something that needs to be dealt with, And you know, I think we're just living through a really historic part of that story.
I think he's going to want to get to a deal. I think that's going to happen. We'll get a phone call at some point and it'll be off to the races. It'll be a great thing for them, it'll be a great thing for us. It's going to be a great thing for the world and for humanity.
Will Glasgow is The Australian's North Asia correspondent. You can read all his coverage right now at the Australian dot com dot au