Instead, Trump ordered a study on whether Beijing had complied with a deal signed during his first term, and the next day said his team was discussing a 10% tariff on China starting Feb 1. “We tend to think of Trump as a tariff man, but [Joe] Biden basically followed up [Trump’s first term] and doubled down on exactly what Trump did. So, Biden had the opportunity to undo it. He did not undo it; he actually doubled down on it. So, it’s not so much a Trump policy as it is [an] alleged bipartisan US policy right now,” says Sethuraman.
Although it is “tempting” to believe that Donald Trump’s second term as US president will be a “continuation of what we got the first time around”, the coming four years could be “quite different” under the controversial leader, says Mahesh Sethuraman, CEO of Saxo Singapore.
Despite the market pricing in threats of harsh tariffs on China — upward of 60%, according to Trump during his campaign trail — that was not the first thing on his agenda, says Sethuraman to The Edge Singapore on Jan 21, the morning after Trump’s inauguration in the US.
