Kristof: Brace yourself. Trump’s trade war with China will get uglier.

Voters elected Donald Trump in part because they demanded a fighter But increasingly it seems that in international transaction he s good at shaking his fist for the cameras but utterly outclassed when he measures into the boxing ring Indeed Trump may be more dangerous to his own side of a arrangement war than to the other guy Even after Trump s climb-down declaring a -day pause on a multitude of of the Liberation Day levies that sent the stock sphere reeling America s tariff rates remain the highest in more than years They amount to an enormous tax hike on consumers with researchers previously estimating that they might add something like in costs per year to a middle-income American family They re a reason multiple economists fear that the United States is slipping into a recession The the majority heated transaction war is with China and it s there that I fear Trump has particularly miscalculated He seems to be waiting for President Xi Jinping to cry uncle and demand relief but that s unlikely instead it may be the United States that will be majority desperate to end the contract conflict China does have serious internal economic challenges including widespread underemployment and a deflationary loop with no end in sight The agreement war could cost China millions of jobs and that raises particular risks of political instability Yet it s also true that China has prepared for this agreement war I m guessing a few Chinese factories are already printing Made in Vietnam labels and preparing to ship goods through third countries And China will fight with weapons that go far beyond tariffs America is vulnerable China buys agricultural products and airplanes from America and it can almost certainly get what it requirements elsewhere But where is the United States going to get rare-earth minerals essential for American industry and the military-industrial base These days we rely on China for of the metals known as rare earths used in everything from glass to ceramics to catalytic converters And in the subcategory of heavy rare earths China is the sole world producer of six China has already communicated that it will limit the export of those six heavy-rare-earth minerals as well as rare-earth magnets of which it controls of the world supply In effect China is the OPEC of rare earths Without them we d struggle to produce drones cars planes wind turbines and more A single F- fighter plane contains various pounds of rare earths and a submarine may use more than four tons of them In when China and Japan were caught in a maritime dispute after a boat collision in contested waters Beijing halted rare-earth exports to Japan The end was a mad scramble in Japan to find sufficient rare earths to keep factories open and Japan hurriedly became conciliatory and pleaded for a resumption in the commerce Perhaps Trump thinks he ll find alternative sources of rare earths We should But because rare earths are polluting to mine and process it can take nearly three decades to get permission to open and operate a rare-earth mine in America so finding substitutes won t be easy Rare earths aren t all that rare in nature despite their name and they offer a window into the vulnerability of the West s military-industrial base and our dependence on China Until they were produced mostly in the United States But then China began refining them inexpensively and the United States couldn t compete and didn t seriously try to Trump s concerns about China are in countless techniques legitimate It has manipulated arrangement He s right that our weakness in manufacturing and supply lines is a critical precaution deficiency especially given China s strengths in areas like drones and batteries I d be delighted if Trump tackled these issues seriously with targeted tariffs a crackdown on transshipments to evade tariffs subsidies for critical industries at home and cooperation with allies abroad Instead it s not quite clear what his aim is and the United States has gone out of its way to antagonize allies Flashing lights One alarming sign Even before the latest tariffs a poll in Southeast Asia discovered that for the first time a majority of people there would choose China over the United States if forced to align with one side or the other China has other tools available in this bargain war with America beyond stopping most of exports of rare earths It could stop its limited cooperation on narcotics and turn a blind eye to its greedy private companies that would like to export fentanyl to America or fentanyl precursor chemicals to Mexico Conversely it could tighten shipments to the United States of cardiovascular or cancer medicines that Americans rely on China could also dump U S Treasuries for a inadequate days panicking the bond region and weakening the dollar I doubt China would do this for long because it would lose as well but it might be satisfying for the Politburo to remind Trump who he s messing with Related Articles No sweat Humanoid robots run a Chinese half-marathon alongside flesh-and-blood competitors Seven rare earth metals that China is weaponizing against Trump s tariffs Letters San Jose s threats are no help to the homeless Apple was on brink of emergency before Donald Trump s tariff concession China s Xi Jinping says there are no winners in a tariff war as he visits Southeast Asia While all that s going on the People s Liberation Army might cut multiple undersea internet cables leading to Taiwan It could hold more military drills off Taiwan the Philippines or the Senkaku Diaoyu Islands It has already burrowed into American infrastructure as part of its Volt Typhoon cyberespionage campaign and could try turning the lights off in a small American city or creating havoc for a day in the banking system A commerce war may well be devastating for China as well as for America But economic forecasters think a recession is far more likely in the United States than in China And Xi may now have a scapegoat for his economic underperformance calling on his citizens to resist what he will portray as one more chapter in a two-century history of Western bullying All in all Xi may be better positioned to ride out a downturn than Trump There s nothing wrong with picking the right fight and taking a stand and China s contract policies are a legitimate target But Trump s campaign seems destined to fracture our alliances and magnify American weakness He is taking a tariff to a gunfight Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist