Also see: How Getting Tough on Chinese Trade Could Backfire/Trump Says Getting Tough on Chinese Trade Will Empower U.S. He Risks the Opposite.

by Peter S. Goodman @ NYTimes.com/Business Day, March 22

[....] In a broadening of the battle to electronics and clothing, the Trump administration is readying at least $50 billion worth of tariffs and penalties on imported Chinese goods.

If these demonstrations of muscle are intended to strengthen the American position in grappling with China, trade experts increasingly fret that Mr. Trump’s policies are doing the opposite: They potentially diminish the place of the United States in the world by alienating allies, undermining the potential for collective action among countries nursing shared grievances with China.

“It’s going to be far more effective if they go together,” said Meredith Crowley, an expert on international trade at the University of Cambridge in England. “The fact that the United States is doing all of this alone, it does seem to be weakening the U.S. position.”

China’s staggering economic development has indeed been propelled by trading practices that exploit gaps in international rules or breach them outright. The Communist Party government still subsidizes key industries, lavishes credit on state-owned companies and imposes barriers against foreign competitor [....]

Stock Markets Tumble Amid Heightening Tensions Over Trade

By Matt Phillips @ NYTimes.com/Business Day, March 22, 4:18 pm

Global markets shuddered on Thursday as investors began to take seriously the prospect of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Stocks in the United States fell for a second straight day, as President Trump imposed $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports, and investors’ concerns about the growing trade tensions mounted [....]