On August 16th, Beijing time, Trump finally signed an executive order, instructing the US Trade Representative to launch an investigation into China's "unfair trade practices", that is, he finally waved the "31 big stick" in the mouth of the media. The reason is that "China enterprises are suspected of infringing American intellectual property rights and forcing American enterprises to transfer technology".
Trump named Wright Heze, the US Trade Representative, to initiate the investigation. The president's request is to "investigate whether it is necessary to start the special section 31 on intellectual property rights". That is to say, we should investigate first to see if it is necessary to start this clause for China.
Once Wright Heze decides that Section 31 needs to be activated, and the findings are confirmed within six months, trade retaliation measures can be automatically implemented within 3 days without the approval of the President and Congress.
Wright Heze, the trade representative, is a typical unilateralist. He once participated in the trade war of raising tariffs and imposing import quota restrictions on Japanese cars, motorcycles, steel and other products exported to the United States, thus forcing Japan to move some automobile industry production lines to the United States; In recent years, he repeatedly criticized China for "manipulating trade" to make manufacturing jobs flow into China.
At the signing ceremony of the administrative memorandum, Trump said categorically: "We should protect our patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual assets. This matter concerns our safety and wealth "; "I want to tell you that this is just the beginning. My duty is to protect the rights and interests of American workers. "
But this "memo" may itself be a retreat left by Trump.
the memorandum is not a presidential decree. The presidential decree is an official document, which should be published in the Federal Gazette and kept in the Federal Archives, and has a separate number, so that future generations can check the implementation effect of the presidential decree. For example, when Trump previously issued an order to study how to relax supervision and how to abolish the Obamacare Law, he signed all presidential orders.
in contrast, memos are much more casual. Although Wright Heze can also be used as an commander, the law does not require the president to publish the specific contents of the memorandum, and the federal archives have not filed it. If he does not mention it for a long time, no one may remember to investigate how it was implemented. Because there is a record to follow, the presidential decree can be used as a precedent in the future, and the effectiveness of the memorandum in this respect is far less than that of the presidential decree, and it is not easy to affect similar cases in the future. This detail alone is enough to see the shrewdness of Trump businessmen.
compared with the previous high-profile attack on the trade deficit with China, it is already quite different for the trade representative to investigate whether it is necessary to launch a Section 31 investigation, just as the American media described it as "an investigation for the sake of investigation".
why is trump so careful? The answer is not complicated: even those who are high-profile like Trump know very well that if China and the United States really start a trade war, it will definitely be a lose-lose situation.