By Vivian Salama and Ken Thomas
WASHINGTON -- President Trump has worked to sell voters on the
idea that he can negotiate better trade pacts. Now, as talks drag,
he says only he is tough enough to walk away from a bad deal.
Democrats jockeying to face him in 2020 are making the opposite
argument as talks with China hit an impasse -- that the
administration's performance on trade demonstrates why Mr. Trump is
the wrong person for the job.
Mr. Trump on Friday sought to ease tensions over trade with
allies such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union. But he
continued to criticize what he sees as unfair trade practices -- by
Canada in particular -- and said he would put an end to any such
imbalance.
"Aren't we tired of being ripped off?" he said.
Mr. Trump is also casting the standoff with China as a
cautionary tale for what would happen if Americans voted anyone
else into office, after recently accusing the Chinese of reneging
on their commitments during trade negotiations.
"China is DREAMING that Sleepy Joe Biden, or any of the others,
gets elected in 2020," Mr. Trump wrote recently on Twitter,
referring to the former vice president, who launched his
presidential campaign last month. "They LOVE ripping off
America!"
Democrats have assailed Mr. Trump for his handling of the trade
negotiations, pointing to weakening commodity prices for Midwest
farmers and the ramifications of what they see as breakdowns in
international alliances.
"He has so alienated the rest of the world. I don't know how you
think you're going to be able to fundamentally change China going
it alone," Mr. Biden recently told reporters in Concord, N.H. "We
poke our friends in the eye and then we say we are going to get in
a trade war with China?"
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently warned against what
she calls "tariff negotiation by tweet."
"The Chinese are bad actors on trade," Ms. Warren said in
Kermit, W.Va. "That means that our best way to fight back is with
strength and with a coherent plan -- not with hands."
The yearlong trade dispute with China escalated earlier this
month as talks deadlocked. On May 10, the U.S. imposed duties on
$200 billion of Chinese imports. In response, China said it would
raise tariffs on roughly $60 billion worth of U.S. imports on June
1.
Many voters appear wary of Mr. Trump's approach toward China. A
Fox News poll conducted May 11-14 found that 34% of registered
voters believed increased tariffs on imports from China would help
the U.S. economy, while 45% believed they would hurt. And, by a
four-point margin, the survey found voters believed that Mr. Biden
would do a better job than Mr. Trump at protecting U.S. interests
with China.
While Mr. Trump has said an agreement with China could be
reached soon, he has political incentives for the impasse to linger
deep into the 2020 campaign. His path to re-election, in all
likelihood, rests on his performance in industrial states he
carried in 2016 such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
-- potentially fertile ground for a message that the president is
fighting China.
In his 2016 campaign and since, Mr. Trump has touted his
business savvy. He has criticized previous trade deals with Canada,
Mexico and China and promised to cut better deals with some of
America's biggest trade partners.
Mr. Biden, the leading Democratic presidential contender, has a
lengthy record from his 36-year tenure in the Senate, including
votes in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993
and normalizing trade relations with China in 2000.
During a campaign stop in Iowa earlier this month, Mr. Biden
spoke of his optimism for America's economic positioning across the
globe, declaring, "China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,"
he said, later adding that China was "not competition for us."
That drew a response from one of Mr. Biden's chief rivals,
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who tweeted that it was "wrong to
pretend that China isn't one of our major economic competitors,"
pointing to the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs since
2000.
The president has also branched out with his critiques. At a
recent campaign rally in Florida, Mr. Trump joked that he would
love to watch Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigeig, the mayor of South
Bend, Ind., take on the Chinese.
"We have a young man, Buttigieg. Boot-edge-edge. They say
'edge-edge'," he said, sounding out the mayor's last name. "He'll
be great representing us against President Xi of China," Mr. Trump
said to laughs from the audience. "That'll be great."
Mr. Buttigieg dismissed the president's "name-calling," telling
reporters in California that Mr. Trump's comments made him think
"of a Chinese proverb that goes, 'When the wind changes, some
people build walls and some people build windmills,'" Mr. Buttigieg
said. "You've got to recognize that we need something completely
different than what we've got in this White House."
Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com and Ken Thomas
at ken.thomas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 19, 2019 07:14 ET (11:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.