Todd Bishop
The US House of Representatives began a bombing investigation of Donald Trump, which means that a large part of Trump’s thinking for the future will be spent on the Democratic investigation.
What impact will this have on the China-US trade negotiations that will take place during the same period? Trump, who is in China, will face a trade war with a tough stance in the face of re-election in 2020. In order to neutralize the domestic weakness and establish a strong leadership image to voters, he will resolve external trade disputes with reconciliation. Transfer domestic sights and serve their own domestic political interests?
The House of Representatives launched the impeachment investigation, which does not mean that Trump was impeached. Only the House of Representatives was officially impeached by detailing the article of impeachment of the impeachment charges, and then by the Senate all the members of the Supreme Court Chief Justice. Under the trial. If at least two-thirds of the senators (69) believe that the president is guilty, Trump will be dismissed and replaced by the vice president. Such a process takes about 2 to 3 months or even longer. During this period, Trump will inevitably focus on the Congress, escalate allegations of political persecution of the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party members defend themselves and boycott the impeachment case promoted by the Democrats.
In the process of the Democratic Party pushing the impeachment clause, Trump will also deal with the trade war with China. How to fight this trade war, or how to carry out trade negotiations, depends to a certain extent on the degree of party struggle between Trump and the Democratic Party.
Although the US Constitution has an established design for the impeachment process of Congress, there are many complicated factors in the actual operation. In particular, the legally blurred space is often filled with “politics.” This means that the US bipartisan party struggle will become more intense.
On the issue of trade war with China, the Democratic Party has a supportive attitude toward Trump. This is a rare consensus between Trump and the Democratic Party. If Trump wants to reach a short-term agreement with China, it will inevitably lead to a rebound in the Democrats. Democrats have been worried that Trump and China have reached a deal that is undermining US interests. Therefore, any concessions made by Trump in trade negotiations will be taken as a handle by the Democratic Party.
Of course, the direction of the China-US trade war is also accompanied by the evolution of Trump’s internal crisis. When the Democratic Party increases domestic political censorship or checks and balances, Trump will turn to diplomacy, focus on reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula issue, and at the same time resolve trade disputes with China. However, under the help of the ultra-conservative forces in the United States, Trump has frequently changed his attitude toward trade with China through the assessment of personal political interests.
On the surface, Trump’s trade war is to return the US manufacturing industry and bring US employment back to the country, also to force China to change some unfair trade initiatives or policies, even as the ultra-conservatives expect. Contain China’s overall rise in the technical, economic, and military fields. In addition, Trump has another “convenient” purpose, which is to transfer domestic gaze by means of trade wars, ease internal pressures of governance, and establish its own leadership position by packaging China threats, thereby consolidating its voters. .
In addition, the Democratic Party’s impeachment investigation cannot circumvent China’s ties.
For the current Democratic Party investigation, the White House has prepared two counterattack programs, one is to announce the call records of Trump and Zelensky, and the other is to investigate the leaker of the call. The White House suspected that the leakers were out of political discrimination and published a black material that was not conducive to Trump, thus benefiting the Democrat Joe Biden. The mainstream media in the United States even appealed that, in order to be fair, the Democratic Party should also investigate the foreign business interests of Biden and his son, and may even have to delve into the similar links of Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine.
Among them, Giuliani has been collaborating with former White House strategist Steve Bannon and US investigative journalist and conservative writer Peter Schweizer to support the Biden family’s business activities in China and Ukraine. The Trump campaign team also seems to be interested in magnifying Biden’s contacts as a weak leader in China.
Therefore, in order to counter the Democrats’ allegations of impeachment, Trump may also dig more of Biden’s Chinese ties and continue to package himself as a tough leader.
Regardless of how the impeachment case advances, or whether it is finally passed, this will leave an imprint on Trump’s tenure and may even define Trump’s presidency. Any president, once impeached, whether successful or not, will be written into history. This is a shame for self and conceited Trump. Therefore, he will definitely try to attack the Democratic Party’s investigation. There will be no big difference between the tactics and the methods of dealing with the Democratic Party’s investigations in the first two years.
However, if the election is hurt because of the impeachment process, this is the most uneconomical. The analysis believes that the Republican-controlled Senate will ultimately not be able to pass the impeachment, so Trump and its surrounding campaign teams will definitely focus on the general election. In this case, Trump will still look at the China-US trade war from the perspective of the general election. When to reach a trade agreement and what kind of trade agreement will be reached will ultimately depend on this consideration.
