Top Trump advisor: China is on the 'wrong side of history' if they reject trade deal

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by JAMES ROSEN, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Thursday, July 18th 2019

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FILE- In this Dec. 3, 2018, file photo White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow talks with reporters about trade negotiations with China, at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

WASHINGTON (SBG) - Aides to President Donald Trump say they are close to nailing down the date and time for the next round of talks with China aimed at ending the trade war that has roiled relations between the world's two largest economies.

Ahead of those talks, a key man on the president's team is warning China that failure to reach an agreement will carry profound long-term consequences.

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I think if they keep moving the way they’re moving, they’re on the wrong side of history,” said Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council. “They’re not the Soviet Union; but this kind of government control, statism, never works for long.”

The comments came one day after Beijing posted China's lowest quarterly growth numbers since 1993, the nation feeling the sting from tariffs imposed by President Trump on some $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. Kudlow suggested this is a telling sign about the state of the country's economy because he doesn’t tend to trust the reliability of their released GDP numbers.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Congressional Democrats have warned that the president's prosecution of the trade war with China is causing pain here at home, too.

“It has not hit directly the consumer, I don't think, just yet, with the tariffs, but it's gonna happen,” said Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala during a committee hearing earlier this week. “We're seeing now that in the short term, we're going to see tariffs that are going to cause a depletion in supply of things like Bibles and artificial fishing lures, which are fairly standard staples in Alabama.

Privately, aides to President Trump acknowledge the trade war with China is also hurting American companies. But they claim tax cuts and deregulation are cushioning that impact, and that the president, in his determination to win against China is, as one senior official told Sinclair Broadcast Group, "in it for the long haul.”