31 May 2025

What Trump Gets Right About China

YI FUXIAN

When Donald Trump complains that Chinese exports have contributed to the decline of US manufacturing, he has a point. But no one has paid a higher price for Chinese overcapacity than China, which is now staring down the barrel of demographic collapse.

MADISON, WISCONSIN – US President Donald Trump’s embrace of tariffs has been met with considerable criticism, and for sound reasons. But Trump’s diagnosis of the global trading system – and, specifically, its impact on US manufacturing – may not be entirely wrong. The problem, instead, is the treatment: rather than using a chainsaw, which would probably kill the patient, he should reach for a scalpel.

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