As longtime Kissingerian Michael Pillsbury wrote in his 2015 book, "The Hundred-Year Marathon," China's leaders weren't interested in following this script.
Michael Pillsbury, a sometime advisor to Trump on China, told Foreign Policy he firmly believes that the president is not in favor of a complete divorce from China, and that Trump still wants a trade deal.
Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who informally advises the White House, said that Mr. Trump had been considering more draconian options, but settled on the higher tariffs in hopes that negotiations with China would proceed.
Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who sometimes advises Trump, said the president’s move on Friday reflected the fact he had grown increasingly frustrated with China’s response to his escalating tariffs in recent months.
“The president has been increasingly frustrated in the last three months’’ with China after the May breakdown of talks that he believed were about to yield a deal, said Michael Pillsbury, a China expert with the Hudson Institute in Washington with whom Trump has consulted in the past.
Michael Pillsbury, a China expert at the conservative Hudson Institute who informally advises Trump, said he has detected an “increasing arrogance” among the Chinese delegations in recent months.
“The U.S. government has to be careful not to do things that could be portrayed as inciting riots,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China expert at the Hudson Institute and an informal adviser to the president.