China-US trade war will escalate: US ex-negotiator

Bloomberg

The trade dispute between the US and China will continue for the foreseeable future and escalate, and is going to be painful for Americans, according to a former US trade negotiator.
“For the foreseeable future, we’re going to be in a tariff world and we’ll see escalation,” said Asia Society Vice President Wendy Cutler, formerly a negotiator at the US Trade Representative.
“We’re in for a long-haul with tariffs, but eventually there will be a negotiated solution as both sides will end up hurting too much as this tariff war escalates.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has continued to escalate tensions with China, announcing new tariffs this week in an attempt to force Beijing to negotiate over trade and economic practices that Washington has called unfair. So far, there is no sign of that strategy being effective, with China vowing to retaliate against the most recent US action.
Concerns about China’s unfair trade practices have been building for a while, Cutler said, adding that while she shared the angst of the administration about them, she didn’t support the decisions to impose tariffs.
The measures have “caught the attention of China and the world, but I believe they are hurting American workers, consumers and companies,” she said at the WEF meeting in Tianjin, China.
“Everyone forgets now that the $50 billion in tariffs has only been in place a month or two, and it’s a smaller number. Once you put the $200 billion in place, even at 10 percent, and raise that to 25 percent on January 1, those are big numbers,” she said.
“That’s affecting a lot of imports, both industrial and consumer. So I think that with time, we’re going to see Americans hurting from these tariff increases more and more.”
The idea that imposing tariffs on imports from China will lead to jobs and production returning to the US is not likely to pan out, according to Cutler.