Rupert Murdoch-owned the Wall Street Journal ridiculed President Donald Trump’s half-baked trade “deal” with China, calling it a “truce that tilts in China’s direction” after months of wavering back and forth.
The Journal noted that the much-touted agreement brings trade relations back to the baseline before Trump started his tariff war. After ratcheting up tariffs on China incrementally in February and March, Trump imposed sky-high tariffs of 145 percent in May. He quickly walked them back after China said it would impose a retaliatory tariff of 125 percent; Trump lowered the tariffs to 30 percent, China to 10. The new tariff deal Trump touted Wednesday brings the number to 55 percent—the same rate they were during Trump’s first term.
“This gets to the larger problem with Mr. Trump’s tariff strategy—that is, he doesn’t have one. His latest walk-back shows he can’t bully China as he tried to do in his first term. China has leverage of its own,” the board wrote. “A smarter trade strategy would be to work with allies as a united front to counter China’s predatory trade practices.”
Trump hailed the agreement Wednesday, saying “our deal with China is done” and the “relationship is excellent” on Truth Social.
However, the Journal’s board and other commentators have noted that the “deal” merely brings trade relations back to what they were before months of dramatic escalations and de-escalations. Trump has earned the nickname “TACO”—short for “Trump Always Chickens Out”—among some Wall Street executives for backstepping on tariffs.
“Mr. Trump has used tariffs as an economic scatter-gun against friends as well as foes,” the board of the Journal wrote. “This increases China’s leverage, and, like this week’s trade truce, that’s nothing to cheer about.”
Under the new agreement, China will reduce its tariffs on rare earth minerals for six months—a major negotiating point given that the United States relies on Chinese imports of rare earth minerals and can’t source them easily elsewhere.
By setting a time limit on the reprieve, Chinese President Xi Jinping is “keeping the gun on the bargaining table.”
“That means if trade tensions flare again, Xi can resort to the same threat,” the board wrote.
The Journal’s scathing rebuke comes as reports surface that Vice President JD Vance recently flew to Rupert Murdoch’s Montana ranch, where he reportedly met with the 94-year-old media mogul and Lachlan Murdoch—CEO of News Corp and Fox News—on Tuesday, though the purpose of the visit remains unclear.
If it was an attempt to get The Journal to back off from its negative coverage of Trump, which has included frequent attacks on the trade war with China, the trip seems to have been in vain.
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