How China came up with a game plan to survive a Trump 2.0 trade war

For Chinese officials, the preparations started well before Donald Trump was re-elected as US president.

Months before the US election in November, many employees at Chinese government departments and major state-owned companies were working on ways to counter potential fallout from a second Trump administration.

“We began diving deep into everything about Trump starting from the middle of last year,” a senior executive from one of the country’s biggest financial institutions said.

“We conducted research and studies on him from every possible angle – everything he said and all his past moves,” the executive said, declining to be named.

The officials were working around the clock in anticipation of another trade war – so much so all business trips had to be taken by the end of February unless they were related to trade issues.

The Chinese leadership anticipated Trump would be unpredictable and have a hawkish China policy, including high tariffs on Chinese imports.

  

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