Bulwark Takes - China Just EMBARRASSED Trump and MAGA

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Remember when Trump’s China trade war was the MAGA movement’s big new thing? Andrew Egger walks through how that tough-on-China stance fell apart in just a few weeks—and how MAGA influencers didn’t miss a beat.

Hi, this is Andrew Egger with The Bulwark. Whatever happened to that glorious clash of civilizations we were supposed to be about to launch against China just a few weeks ago? Two superpowers enter, one superpower leaves. I mean, you probably have butter in your fridge that you bought back when this was the line on the trade war.

This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet, not the Europeans, no administration for decades. As someone who actually does business there, I've had enough. The government cheats and steals. And finally, an administration, you may not like Trump, you may not like his style or his rhetoric. Finally, an administration that puts up and says enough. That was Kevin O'Leary. You might know him as Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank,

talking about the absolute need for the U.S. to go to total economic war against China like yesterday. China's a bad economic actor. China can't be trusted as a business partner on the world stage. China lies and cheats and steals, and the world has been putting up with their shit for too long. And thank God the Trump administration is finally here on the scene with the stones to make them pay for it. That clip of Mr Trump administration is finally here on the scene with the stones to make them pay for it. That clip of Mr. Wonderful went super viral on the MAGA right last month after Trump's first post-Liberation Day pivot. When he refocused his message from Trump takes on everybody to Trump takes on China, he dropped most of the massive tariffs he had placed on

basically every nation in the world, and he ratcheted the tariffs on China up to 135%. Donald Clipp Jr. shared that clip with some 100 emojis. Libs of TikTok tweeted it out approvingly. Charlie Kirk played it at the top of his radio show. MAGA influencer Benny Johnson posted that China is the testing ground for the World Economic Forum's vision of a future totalitarian state. China must fail. Trump knows this. This is more than just a trade war. MAGA influencer Andrew McCarthy, he's also a failed congressional candidate, called it the hardest shit I've heard in the 10 years of MAGA. Now, at the time, there was actually pretty good reason to believe that the spirit of that Mr. Wonderful clip was

pretty much the White House's actual plan, their actual trade policy on China. The day that Trump refocused those tariffs on China, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant told reporters this had secretly been Trump's plan from the very beginning. All this was, again, this was driven by the president's strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along. And that you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They responded, they have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors. And we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate. It wasn't a hard message. Don't retaliate. Things will turn out well. A few days after that, the Wall Street Journal reported that a keystone of the White

House's trade strategy was, quote, to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China's economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House. So there it was. The U.S. was done getting pushed around by China. We were finally going to get tough and make them pay for their crimes. Donald Trump was the only guy with the will to do it until he wasn't. This week, the White House has essentially said, actually, just kidding about all that. Here was Trump in Switzerland just a couple of days ago announcing a total reset in relations with China. In addition, yesterday, we achieved a total reset with China after productive talks in Geneva. Both sides now agreed to reduce the tariffs imposed after April 2nd to 10 percent for 90 days as negotiators continue on the larger structural issues. So after a month of heavy tariffs and zero concessions from the Chinese, those trade barriers were coming down. All that stuff about wielding U.S. economic power to isolate China,

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick waved it off this weekend as fake news. By the White House, the idea being not to let China flood these other countries with their products or to relocate things to these areas where they would avoid U.S. tariffs. Are those part of your conversations, those themes? No, no. You know, that's again, that's fake news. I mean, honestly, this is all pretty much fine with us at the bulwark, right? We were we were never into the whole pointless trade war in the first place. Turning off the tariffs bigot means no more pointless economic devastation, no more annihilation of U.S. small businesses, no more idling ports, no more threats of empty shelves,

no more telling little girls, you know, that they, they might have to scale back their expectations for Christmas this year. I mean, all of this, all of this stuff is good, even though, you know, Trump obviously has not rolled back the tariffs all the way against China. We're still looking at a certain amount of economic friction. But after a full month of the US government beating the US economy with a stick, it sure feels good to have them stop. But wait a minute. It was just weeks ago, again, that the White House, the whole MAGA influencer ecosystem, was calling us all to battle stations against China, promising that no economic cost was too great to pay in order to bring that whole evil empire, the red dragon in Beijing, to heal. Again, you really can't overstate this point here. Again, one more clip of Scott Besant just a week ago, less than a week ago, calling on the nation's children to embrace the possibility of a little material pain in the form of fewer and more expensive toys in order to

secure a bright, brave future. This reporter behind me was quite snarky the other day when President Trump talked about the girl having two dolls. And he said, well, what president didn't take the question, but he said, what would you tell that girl? I said, I would tell that young girl that you will have a better life than your parents, that you and your family, thanks to President Trump, can now be confident again that you will have a better life than your parents, which working class Americans had abandoned that idea. Your family will own a home. You will be able to advance. You will have a good education. You will have economic freedom. That's what we are advancing. So supposedly, again, just days ago, the White House fully in on this idea, the whole MAGA influencer ecosystem

totally in on the idea. So I guess it's fair to speculate. Do you think we have seen dismay from MAGA posters since Trump pulled the plug here? Do you think that the Benny Johnsons of the world feel a sense of betrayal that the great trade war with China, which again, is absolutely critical for our national health and well-being, they said, but which nobody before ever had the stones to launch. Nobody really ever had the will to bring China to account. Do you think that they feel a little rug pulled that that trade war has been called off

with zero concessions from Beijing? Well, lives a TikTok right here. Exactly what I voted for. Benny Johnson, markets roar after China bows to Trump. These people couldn't be happier. It's yet another win. Thank you, Mr. President. They loved the trade war when it went on. They love the trade war when it comes off. Look at these major gainers, some stocks up 30 percent. Jeez, 25, 24, 22.

None of this is surprising. I mean, we know these people know on what side their bread is buttered, right? They like Trump. Their audience likes Trump. Everything Trump does is an act of genius. It's the next step. It's the 4D chess. But it's still striking to see it all kind of laid out like this. None of these people really meant it when they were telling us, again, just weeks ago, that no economic pain was too much to pay because of the glorious shining vision on the other side of that pain. We know they didn't mean that because they folded at the first signs that economic pain was actually underway. Again, this was one month back that we launched this whole thing and we're already getting this reset, this beautiful big new reset with China relations. So I think it's fair to ask and fair to, you know, bring up to the MAGA people

in your life. If the media sources that you trust are willing to trade your trust so lightly on this, what bill of goods wouldn't they try to sell you? We can stop there. Thanks for watching. Thanks for subscribing to our channel. Head over to thebullwork.com to check out our reading. There's a lot of this same stuff in Morning Shots, my newsletter with Bill Kristol this morning.

Thanks, and we'll see you next time.