In recent days, President Trump has voiced some provocative rhetoric when it comes to dealing with the issue of North Korea. As a result of trying to weaken the North Korean position in the world, Trump has sought to attack any perceived allies the communist nation has. As a result, he has begun targeting China, North Korea's largest trading partner. He demands that China impose strict sanctions against the North Korean government and is even threatening a trade war with China to accomplish his goal.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his contempt for China and despite trying to broker a deal with them his rhetoric only exacerbates an otherwise incredibly complicated relationship the United States has with China. This ordeal serves to further distance the United States from having any sort of possible successful and peaceful relationship with the Eastern powerhouse. Threatening China with a trade war would be disastrous for both nations, more disastrous for the United States, as I wrote in a previous article.
Using North Korea as the reasoning and rationale behind starting a trade war with China is one of the worst decisions a person of political power could implement with China. In order to solve the issue of North Korean aggression, the United States should not be seeking other political and economic enemies in this route. In some cases, threats do not serve as deterrents of behavior, but rather as aggressive taunts of behavior. As a result, in this instance the trade war Trump is threatening may indeed become reality simply because of his rhetoric and isolationist policies detailed in his Trumponomics. As such, this trade war would put us at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to dealing with North Korea in the future.
A trade war would leave the United States depleted of resources as we compete vigorously with China and cut off our biggest trading partner. A significant portion of our goods are imported cheaply from China and ensures that our industries can grow. Regardless of your ideas of outsourcing jobs and importing materials from abroad, the whole endeavor has benefitted the United States economically and squandering this key resource does not bode well for the future of the US economically, especially since because of the very same isolationist policies Trump has been arguing our list of allies grows shorter by the minute. In order to deal with North Korea, the United States needs to be as strong as ever economically and politically and needs to have as many allies as possible.