Which is why the Chinese will fold and will be pressured by others to make some shitty deal with Trump that gives him almost nothing but good ratings. Because as a developing super power they can't handle such a massive economic crisis yet.
Asymmetrically the only weapon the Chinese have is North Korea and Trump would bomb the fuck out of them if it went too wild especially with John Bolton whispering in his ear.
If the Chinese say fuck it and ban say Apple from making iPhones in China Trump can brag he brought the jobs 'home'. What worries me more than Trump is that corporate America seems to on-board with his fuckery.
Supporting his policies by handing out bonuses after the tax plan was passed. Giving him discounts on planes, building factories, Elon Musk calling on Trump to sanction China more etc. . American companies seem to think the lunatic is a competitive advantage.
If and after he wins this feud with China he will go after others the same way. Because it will proof that his tactics worked. German automakers better prepare for the revenge of the Donald.
You should do some looking into on the collective humiliation of UK/Chinese Opium wars and how that has shaped Chinese nationalism toward external trade wars going forward. A collective sense of "Never again" is basically the TLDR of it.
The idea China will easily bend the knee because of measures affecting only 18% of their exports and a small fraction of their GDP is incredibly presumptive. I've read estimates that the full brunt of our measures(when making good faith estimates of where China will look toward as substitutes) could maybe shave off only 1/10th of a percentage point of their annual growth. I think you are falling into the American exceptionalism mindset some Trump people are falling into in over-estimating our impact on their economy. Undervaluing how Xi's authoritarian grip on the country allows him a lot more room to weather storms and maintain posturing. Unlike in America, a large number of major employers are state owned, as are Chinese banks, which Xi can control to minimize layoffs and capital crashes. Not so much in America. And unlike America, China is not beholden to the pressures of our political system and their interest groups.
There are a lot of assumptions in this post and I am not sure many are correct or well supported. For instance it is just not true that China lacks many unconventional retaliation pathways, 25% of all US semiconductor revenue is reliant on China, China has a large supply of cobalt which could be used to severely harm a number of US industries, there are countless billions of US revenue tied up in Chinese assets. Like I mentioned Sheldon Adelson and his casinos on the last page as an example. I think you are severely undervaluing the amount of self-harm it would take to even get to a point where you break China's resolve.
There is also the assumption that by putting barriers around the lowest market exporter somehow means America defaults to being the next producer up. Which is just not true in a lot of cases. Like we saw under Obama, you can enact barriers around an export market to encourage American production, but most companies just shift to the next lowest bidder, which is often not America. In Obama's case, it can just be Chinese goods sold through shell companies in non-tariffed countries.
