No they don't.
Most goods from China can be sourced elsewhere, moreover, America has the surpluses to handle some extra cost.
China doesn't. They are at the end of their last boom, and in trouble, it's really bad, and this comes at a bad time.
This is why China's response to Trump's most recent massive tariffs are much smaller.
The US has the upper hand in this, though not blatantly.
The sticking point right now is verification: both sides agree that China should stop with the IP theft, but the US does not believe China will actually do anything after the agreement has been signed, and so wants China to change it's laws. China sees this as a breach of sovereignty. So there's a huge face saving problem on China side, and to some extent on the US side with Trump.
I think they will work it out actually, a deal will be signed, China will take 'some steps' but they won't really care, Trump will be gone in a few years. I don't think that much will change in the end.
But these tariffs are really bad for China.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-makes-8-46-from-an-iphone...
Are you sure you aren't misunderstanding the situation?
In one, international trading has built a web of mutual dependencies between countries. When your economic well-being depends on another country, you're less likely to go to war with them. The more inter-dependencies exist, the less likely armed conflict becomes.
Countries outside the trading bloc are then suspect: they have nothing to lose in attacking. Attempts to bring outsiders into the bloc via trade agreements, development, loans, etc, are all really part of a defensive security strategy.
This is nothing new: rulers have been marrying their children to those of their enemies for the same reasons since forever.
The other point of view, which seems dominant within the current US administration, looks at the inter-dependencies of international trade purely as a liability.
When the US relies on China to provide it with lots of manufactured goods, that is seen mostly (or solely) as a risk for the US, not as a stabilizing link in a web of mutual dependency.
Which is not to say that China (for example) won't try to leverage those dependencies to improve its position, nor to say that the US shouldn't encourage more widespread dependencies so that there's resilience in the system to bad acting on the part of any single player.
The point being that detaching from the web of mutual dependency makes you both weaker (in that you can only rely on yourself), and more threatening (since you no longer have anything to lose by attacking).
The US, by virtue of its size, can probably most afford to be isolated, but it's not clear to me that it's a good long-term strategy.
But I have been having more and more doubts when it comes to China. Free trade has not made China a more free place. It looks like they are just using their economic power to hurt freedom everywhere.
Because of China, Taiwan is barred from attending WHO.
Trump is betting that low interest rates will prop up the US economy through the next election cycle. China is betting they won’t. The GOP is betting they can get Trump to “own” any economic fall out from the trade war.
(Edit: and you can stop him by voting)
I don't want him to do this. I don't want these tariffs.
Does this mean the Republican Party is compliant in this nonsense?