Why Trump is scrambling for allies in his trade war with China

Does America need its friends back?

Does America want its friends back? After three months of insulting, tariffing and even threatening to annex some of its best allies, the Trump administration suddenly needs some help. The US President has now escalated a full-on trade clash with China that he doesn’t seem to know how to win. So the administration is rushing to work out how to build leverage against Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is in no mood to cede to Trump’s bullying. But there’s one thing that might work. It would bring to bear America’s strength and global power and could perhaps build pressure on Beijing to act on consistent US complaints about market access, theft of intellectual property, industrial espionage and other issues. There’s only one problem: This approach would conflict with Trump’s “America first” mantra. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed out on Fox Business this week that US allies such as Japan, South Korea and India would soon be in trade talks with Washington, as would Vietnam. “Everyone is coming to the table, and basically China is surrounded,” he said. Bessent added that a topic of talks should be a joint goal: “How do we get China to rebalance? That is the big win here.”