Over the past week, President Trump avoided a trade war with Canada and Mexico. But he escalated a trade war with China.His reasoning? China has become more powerful in domestic manufacturing than the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Britain combined.Keith Bradsher, the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, explains why China’s dominance as a trading partner has become a threat to Trump’s agenda — and asks whether America will ever be able to catch up.Guests: Keith Bradsher, the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: For China, President Trump’s moves bring pain, but also potential gains.China’s trade surplus has reached a record level: nearly $1 trillion.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of China's trade dominance?
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitro-Eff. This is The Daily. Over the past week, President Trump avoided a trade war with Canada and Mexico, but he actively escalated one with China. That's because when it comes to domestic manufacturing, China has become more powerful than the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Britain combined.
Today, my colleague Keith Bratcher explains why China's dominance as a trading partner has become such a threat to Trump's agenda and whether the United States will ever be able to catch up. It's Monday, February 10th.
Keith, I knew you were one of the OG economics reporters at The New York Times, but in preparing for this conversation, I learned a few amazing facts about you that I just want to share.
Okay.
You've covered dozens of trade deals, including writing 150 times about the negotiation of NAFTA alone. I want to call you the Bill Nye of trade. I don't know if they'll let me do that. You've been reporting in China for 23 years. You were one of the very few American journalists who stayed there through the pandemic. And for some reason, this is your first time on the show. So welcome, Keith.
Thank you. And by OG, you mean old guard?
Original gangster.
OK. I don't know the term. OK.
It's an honor. It's a distinction you've earned.
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Chapter 2: Why does Keith Bradsher consider China a threat to Trump's agenda?
But the United States just didn't have the ability to ramp up quickly or even slowly its own domestic production of masks. And so the concern is that the United States is relying on a country like China that is increasingly a geopolitical adversary for crucial supplies like, for example, the main ingredients of antibiotics and drones.
Warfare has been transformed in the last few years, as we've seen in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And China makes almost all of the world's drones and drone components. So there is a nervousness about having the United States rely on them for that.
Got it. So that's the background here, just how reliant the U.S. is on China for things that we might need in a crisis. Now let's get into the trillion-dollar trade surplus.
I think a lot of people might think of that Made in China label as being associated with some of the goods you already mentioned, toys and clothes, but not some of the more advanced products that, you know, you would think of as bringing a country to this level of dominance. Right.
That's right. A decade or two ago, China was exporting toys, clothes, furniture, and so forth. But you had a very concerted national policy of moving towards higher value products that would create a lot of better paid jobs.
Hmm.
And particularly in the last five years, that policy has taken off. And now you see them making huge quantities of solar panels, wind turbines. All but the fastest semiconductors are now made in vast quantities in China. But where you see China's most impressive progress is in the car industry.
What do you mean by that?
Well, five years ago, China only exported a few cars, and they were very cheap, junky cars that went to markets like Syria's market. They weren't competitive on an international market. Today, China has very quickly, just in five years, passed Japan, South Korea, Germany to become, by a wide margin, the world's largest car exporter.
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