Trump Should Keep China Addicted To Cheap Exports Via Low Tariffs: Economist

President Donald Trump’s approach to U.S.–China trade has been to impose prohibitively high tariffs.

The shock from Trump’s trade war is predicted to push China to divert more resources into higher-value, advanced technologies that compete with U.S. products.

While he recently gave key tech imports a temporary reprieve, most of China’s producers still face tariffs of 145%.

But if Trump wants to slow China’s technological progress, that’s the opposite of what he should be doing, according to one economist, Jason Ma reported for Fortune.

The White House has signaled that shrinking the U.S.–China trade deficit and reshoring manufacturing are top goals.

But if the aim is to slow China’s tech advances and ensure U.S. dominance, then a completely different strategy is needed, said Keyu Jin, an associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics and author of The New China Playbook.

In an op-ed for the Financial Times, she noted that technological leaps often emerge during times of conflict—and that Trump’s trade war could unintentionally ignite a surge of Chinese innovation.

“Tariffs don’t just alter trade flows—they redirect resources and reshape industrial structures,” Jin wrote.

“If Trump’s goal was to curb China’s technological progress, he would keep tariffs low on the bulk of Chinese exports to the U.S., locking the country into low-margin basic manufacturing.

He would encourage high-tech exports to China, ensuring that progress in its advanced components stalls.”

Instead of U.S. exports gaining easier access to Chinese markets, they’re hitting a wall. Trump’s tariffs have been met with similar retaliation: China has imposed 125% duties on U.S. goods.

At those levels, trade between the world’s two largest economies could grind to a halt.

Jin predicts the shock from Trump’s trade war will push China to divert more resources into higher-value, advanced technologies that compete with U.S. products.

“Beijing has drawn its conclusion: innovation and core technology control is the only sustainable defense against tariffs,” she explained.

“Companies with proprietary technology—like Huawei and BYD—are more insulated from tariffs and supply-chain shocks. China envisions a new tech supply chain model: regional production, tech sovereignty, and global supply-chain redundancy.”