Trump’s back, but China must not go back to tit-for-tat tariffs, noted observer warns

China must be careful not to engage in another round of tit-for-tat tariffs when Donald Trump returns to the White House, a highly regarded Beijing-based analyst has urged.

“We need to be very careful not to fall into the tit-for-tat trap, that vicious cycle, again,” Da Wei, director of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, told a digital seminar on Thursday.

“It is difficult to avoid that trap, but I think we have to – we have no other choice,” Da said at the event hosted by the Centre for Globalisation Hong Kong, a think tank.

Since his re-election as US president last week, Trump has picked a string of loyalist China hawks for top jobs in his new cabinet, indicating a hardline stance beyond trade and tariffs.

During his campaign, Trump pledged to add up to 20 per cent tariffs on all imports and an additional 60 per cent on goods from China as part of his “America first” approach.

Trump’s first term saw the launch of the US-China trade war, with multiple rounds of tariff rises from both sides as the new president listed China as a primary threat to the United States. These included Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs on US industries that are important to Trump’s political base, like agriculture and manufacturing.

Da said there was a “strong sense of retaliation and revenge” in Trump’s camp as he seemed to “really believe it was because of China that he lost the last [presidential] campaign [in 2020]”.

The hardline approach to China is reflected in the composition of the Trump 2.0 White House. In recent days, Trump has nominated former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe to head the CIA, FOX News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defence, and Florida congressman Michael Waltz as national security adviser. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik will be the new UN ambassador and Florida Senator Marco Rubio will be the next secretary of state.