Trade war truce does little to boost public confidence in China due to lack of trust in ‘flip-flopping’ Trump

The trade-war truce agreed to by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Japan last weekend has done little to alleviate the concerns of online users, exporters and manufacturers in China, largely down to a mistrust of the American leader due to what has been described as his track record of “flipping and flopping”.

On Saturday, the two leaders agreed to pause new tariffs on up to US$300 billion of Chinese goods imported by the United States. Trump also confirmed that American suppliers would be able to sell components to Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which had been placed on a blacklist, as long as those components did not poses threats to national security.

But with China’s state-owned media reporting very few of the details, reaction from people in the mainland has been muted.

“I, as well as many shoe factory owners based in Dongguan, agree that although the tariff problem now is temporarily eased, the outlook is still uncertain. What if Trump reverses again? He is too unpredictable with little credibility,” said Wang Jie, who said his Yintong Shoes factory in Dongguan has continued to lose orders from the US in recent months.

“[Trump] is always changing, so we’re becoming more cautious than we were before. Anyway, given that the decline in orders is already a confirmed trend, we can only reduce our operating costs and wait and see.”