Pulling the strings of Trump's trade war
It is an ominous sign that the White House adviser most closely associated with President Donald Trump's latest assault on free trade is the author of Death by China, a 2011 diatribe that accused Chinese exporters of unfairly flooding US markets.
Trump stunned international markets on Thursday when he formally signed proclamations to impose a 25-percent tariff on imported steel and 10-percent on aluminum. Earlier he wrote on Twitter that "trade wars are good, and easy to win".
China, which is far from being the only exporting country in Trump's sights, has so far responded with restraint. Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, told journalists that China did not want a trade war with the US, "but if the US takes actions that hurt Chinese interests, China will not sit idly by".
