China's Political Strategy Against President Trump Has Failed

FOX News

Marc Thiessen, FOX News/The Washington Post: China tried to strike at Trump – and missed the mark entirely

"When you strike at a king you must kill him," Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. Well, this year China tried to strike at President Trump for daring to launch a trade war with Beijing -- and missed the mark entirely.

After Trump imposed massive tariffs on Chinese goods earlier this year, Beijing responded in June with what appeared to be a clever strategy: targeting retaliatory tariffs against Trump voters in rural farming communities across the United States. China is the largest importer of U.S. soybeans, buying $14 billion of them in 2017. Three of the biggest soybean-producing states, Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota, not only voted for Trump, but also in the 2018 midterms had Democratic senators, Joe Donnell, Ind., Claire McCaskill, Mo., and Heidi Heitkamp, N.D., who were up for reelection. If Beijing imposed painful tariffs on soybeans, Chinese leaders likely calculated, they could create a rift between Trump and rural voters who put him in the White House, give Senate Democrats a boost and force Trump to back down.

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WNU Editor: President Xi is under pressure by China's business elite to make a deal. My prediction .... it will take much of 2019 but China will make the necessary compromises to reach a deal. The Chinese have done the same mistake that President Trump's opponents in the U.S. have made in the past 3 years. They underestimated him.