Someone have to find a way to back down in a trade war: US legal expert

“Max Baucus, is for example the former US ambassador to China. I noticed he was looking at it saying that the American farmers are being harmed by this. Not all the Americans are certainly behind this and Max Baucus is from a different party. It seems that American farmers would be the first casualties and an escalating trade war would not be beneficial to middle America which is where Mr. Trump is at appeal to, in the highest form. I’m not sure this is positive to him and overall outcome. I’m not sure everybody wants this trade war but I think someone’s gonna have to find a way to back down, for sure.”

——Edward Lehman，legal affairs commentator & managing director of LEHMAN, LEE & Xu Law Firm.

Edward Lehman，legal affairs commentator & managing director of Lehman, LEE & Xu Law Firm.[Photo:cri.cn]

The Office of U.S. Trade Representative has published a list of Chinese goods subject to potential additional tariffs

The list came into being amid strong opposition from China and U.S. business groups.

Earlier, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai warns that China will take countermeasures of the same scale in response to the tariffs imported on Chinese products as a result of an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.

CRI's Zhaoying earlier spoke with Edward LEHMAN, legal affairs commentator & managing director of LEHMAN, LEE & Xu Law Firm.

Q: So what message do we get from the ambassador’s remarks what countermeasures of the same proportion mean?

A: Well, what we’ve seen so far is China’s starting its retaliation against US aluminum and steel tariffs is as of yesterday basically announcing that it’s imposing tariffs on a list of 128 US products that are mostly in the farm commodity sector. So there’s benefit of wrangling as you heard with the ambassador speaking and talking about the technicalities under words particular laws, policies and regulations and they are meeting with measure for measure. There is a bit of confusion for the general public but what’s happening is there’s a lot of posturing and they are immediately looking like they would like sell 3 million dollars or the tariffs, talking about Chinese on US fruits wine and other products, and what the US agricultural sector sees kind of next step on the escalation of trade and aggression of both sides.

I think it doze appear to be a lot of posturing at this point of time and there’s even though yesterday so called start day from Chinese point so they sort of struck earlier there really hasn’t been any is being done immediately to stop or how those thing coming into the country that I know even as of yesterday. It’s unclear.

There’s a little bit of negotiations which is a good thing. You know a lot of this has to do with a larger picture between US and China relations.

Q: We’ve seen response from the white house. It criticized China after it imposed tariffs on a range of US products by saying that China should stop on fair trading practices while will harm US national security and distorting global markets. What is your take on that? Do you think they are fair accusations?

I think Mr. Trump has a very rock schedule coming up with 2018. I mean it’s an enviable task of 2020 elections and with a change that’s happening in his own administrations and a number of investigations that are coming up the age-old fought back and this is always to kind of look to the sort of enemies abroad and to blame. It will draw attention to another thing which is abroad which is not domestic policy. I think this is also part of his policy, campaign that he’s going to be tough with China. I could also say Mr. Trump is not a politician but a business. And this is kind of a negotiation stand point

Max Baucus, is for example the former US ambassador to China. I noticed he was looking at it saying that the American farmers are being harmed by this. Not all the Americans are certainly behind this and Max Baucus is from a different party. It seems that American farmers would be the first casualties and an escalating trade war would not be beneficial to middle America which is where Mr. Trump is at appeal to, in the highest form. I’m not sure this is positive to him and overall outcome. I’m not sure everybody wants this trade war but I think someone’s gonna have to find a way to back down, for sure.