The White House has repeatedly stated that trade negotiations with Mexico, Japan, the EU and other parties have made so-called "significant progress". But all parties have successively denied the US statement. How do you view the attitudes of all parties who have contacted the United States at present?

Picture-in-Picture
PauseCurrent Time 0:000:010:020:060:070:080:090:100:110:120:130:140:150:160:170:18
/
Duration 1:15
Fullscreen
Mute
Automatic playback
Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: At present, the attitudes of other economies and countries in the world can be roughly divided into three categories for the taxation policies implemented by the United States. Among them, China has a clear position and a tough attitude, confrontation and never gives in.

Most countries are unable to truly compromise with the United States when they wait and see it.

Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: The other two categories, one is relatively small economies. In the view of these countries, reaching some kind of compromise with the United States in the future may be an inevitable way out. After all, with their current size, it is difficult to compete with Trump's taxation policy. However, these countries are also continuing to wait and see. On the one hand, they are paying attention to the reactions of other countries in the world and expect that some countries can confront the United States head-on, forcing the Trump administration to change its policies; on the other hand, they are also paying attention to changes in the domestic situation in the United States. If the domestic economy has problems before the United States achieves its expected goal of taxing foreign countries, it may force the Trump administration to change its original intention.

Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: Another type of developed economies such as Europe and Canada adopts a strategy to implement countermeasures against the United States, but the purpose is to exchange for conditional compromise with the United States through countermeasures. Against this background, it is difficult for the United States to achieve its goal of taxing the world by relying solely on unilateral will or tough means .

The US promotes the "harmful theory of trade deficits" and is criticized by many parties

The White House has always posed as a "victim" attitude and promoted the so-called "trade deficit harmful theory", which has been criticized by many parties. We all know that globalization brings the world a win-win situation. During decades of globalization, countries around the world, including the United States, have benefited from international trade. So where did the money earned in the United States go?

The U.S. attempts to blame free trade for its own injustice

Picture-in-Picture
PlayCurrent Time 0:00
/
Duration 1:29
Fullscreen
Mute
Automatic playback
Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: The current series of policies implemented by the US government follow the typical logic of "internal diseases and external treatment", which is to blame the problem of injustice in domestic distribution on free trade. In fact, many Western scholars, including American scholars, admit that the US trade deficit has actually brought many benefits to it . On the one hand, the trade deficit consolidated the US dollar's financial hegemony to a certain extent; on the other hand, it also made the United States a financial center for many countries, attracting a large amount of investment and bond purchases.

Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: However, the United States selectively ignores these factors when evaluating the trade situation. Taking the bilateral trade between the United States and Europe as an example, the United States has blindly accused Europe of having a long-term surplus and taking advantage of the trade in goods. But Europeans have different views because in the field of service trade, the United States has maintained a long-term surplus with Europe, but the United States does not mention this at all.

Finding excuses for unilateral policies. The United States deliberately ignores its real profits

Cui Hongjian, professor at the Institute of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University: Nowadays, all arguments in the United States revolve around the Trump administration’s thinking, concocting the so-called “harmful theory of trade deficit.” If the United States cannot calm down and fundamentally solve the problem of domestic distribution injustice, that is, the current situation of a few people mastering the vast majority of the wealth of society, but repeatedly attribute the contradiction to trade, especially free trade, then in the end, the United States will not only be unable to solve the trade problem, but domestic problems will continue to exist and may even intensify further.