US President Donald Trump, who had imposed reciprocal tariffs on all its global trading partners on April 2 and later suspending it for 90 days, is reportedly planning to use the tariff negotiations with its trading partners to limit their dealings with China and isolate the latter in the financial world, a report by Wall Street Journal has claimed. The WSJ report, which cited people with knowledge of the conversations, claimed that the Trump administration is planning to utilise the ongoing tariff negotiations with about 70 countries and ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, and avoid Chinese companies from being located in their respective countries’ territory in order to avoid the US tariffs. The US government officials are riding on the idea to extract commitments from US trade partners in order to isolate the Chinese economy in exchange for the removal of trade and tariff barriers imposed by the US administration. These measures by the Trump-led government are to deteriorate the Chinese financial health which is already in doldrums and force Beijing to the negotiating table with less available options in the meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping. The report adds that US officials have already discussed the plan to isolate the Chinese economy with some potential countries. When asked by reporters about Panama deciding not to renew its role in China’s global infrastructure program, Belt and Road Initiative, Trump hinted at the reported strategy and said that he would consider making countries choose between the US and China. The Trump administration has put a moratorium of 90 days on the reciprocal tariffs which was imposed on about 70 countries, ranging from 10% to 50%. However, the Republican president has excluded Beijing and has imposed a 145% tariff on import of Chinese goods.
