The Sino–United States (US) trade war since 2017 has triggered Sino–US confrontations in the economic field and also intensified geopolitical competition. From a historical perspective, the current Sino–US trade war is a continuation of the conservative US trade policy, rather than a dramatic development. From a global perspective, the trade dispute between China and the United States is only part of President Donald Trump’s grand global economic strategy that aims to stabilize the economic hegemony of the United States. Trump’s economic diplomacy targets both China and its Western allies, with the goal of achieving a comprehensive and complete solution. The developmental status of the United States shows that its economic strength is increasingly insufficient to support the status of global hegemony, as well as being increasingly incapable of meeting the global requirements for providing public goods. Therefore, trade wars are essentially trade policy adjustments made by the United States to consolidate its hegemonic foundations and fight against potential opponents, e.g., the trade wars against Germany in the 1960s and Japan in the 1980s. Based on the timeline of the current trade war, Trump was obviously well prepared. Trump’s behavior now clearly violates the basic rules of WTO and his policy does not focus on technology and innovation, which is key to future economic growth. Whether Trump’s well-planned and aggressive economic strategy will work, it will fundamentally change China’s US policy from cooperative to more independent.
