The ‘big dumb guy’ and why a China trade deal will be a flop
- Watching the US inch toward a watered-down trade agreement is like watching the big dumb guy reach for a doorknob in a horror movie
- You scream – “Don’t open that door!” – but you know he’s going to open it and a guy with an axe on the other side is going to do what guys with axes do
“This time we really mean it. This time we’re going to change China. Honest. This time won’t be like the market access and intellectual property protection trade deals of 1992. Or 1995. Not to mention 1999 – or the 10 times since then that China’s leaders have promised to stop doing this or that trade practice we found objectionable and finally behave like we want them to. This time is different. This time, your president is our president’s friend. And even if he weren’t, our president is still the world’s greatest negotiator – just ask him – so you can take this one to the bank.”
That seems to be the message coming out of Washington nowadays, various optimistic words by Trump administration honchos that “an agreement” is almost here. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow pretty much always have upbeat assessments about the negotiations for anyone accompanied by a cameraman. Trump tweets superlatives about what he promises will be “the biggest trade deal ever made.” But will it be any different from those that preceded it? Or will Trump water it down?
The last line of defence for Americans against another toothless trade deal is US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is labouring with Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He on the structure of an “enforcement mechanism” to ensure Beijing keeps its promises. Lighthizer is paying enough attention to this missing dimension of negotiations past to indicate the US is finally getting serious about it. You don’t hear him making silly comments to reporters about anything, let alone the ongoing negotiation he’s leading. No doubt he wishes the others would pipe down while he does his work.
Enforcement has always been the tomorrow of US-China trade deals – it never quite arrives. It’s a peculiar American conceit that we still think we can change the behaviour of Chinese businesspeople when doing so depends on China’s leaders and a court system they control.
Beijing hasn’t shown much affinity for Western institutions since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. On trade, Xi believes that Beijing should play a larger, not smaller, role in managing China’s economy. That’s his prerogative, but it cuts against the grain of the WTO. If he doesn’t believe markets are best for China, then China should do its own thing. But that probably shouldn’t include participating as freely in western markets as today.
Trump mocks former US presidents when he says he doesn’t blame China for cleaning the US’ trade clock all these years. Which begs the question of what mockery index multiplier the next president should apply to mockery of Trump, if Trump ignores Lighthizer and the US ends up back at the same place. Double? Triple? 10x? Is jillion a real number?
Watching the US inch toward a watered-down trade agreement is like watching the big dumb guy reach for a doorknob in a horror movie. You scream – “Don’t open that door!” – but you just know he’s going to open it anyway and a guy with an axe on the other side is going to do what guys with axes do to both the big dumb guy and the naive gal who thought his muscles and bravado were going to save her.
You could see it coming a mile away. Why couldn’t the big dumb guy?
Robert Boxwell has worked and lived in the Asia-Pacific region since the early 1990s. He lives in Kuala Lumpur, where he is a director of the international consultancy Opera Advisors
