Trump on verge of 'error of world-historic proportions' — against aides' advice: report

Always one looking to make a splashy deal, Donald Trump is giving serious consideration to allowing China to make a massive investment in the U.S. — against the advice of some of his closest advisors, an expert warned Friday.

In a column for the New York Times, conservative economist Oren Cass reported the president, “May be on the verge of tying the United States to China irrevocably: Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping are reportedly considering a deal to allow China to invest $1 trillion in the United States, largely to build factories on American soil.”

Cass described that scenario as “an unforced error of world-historic proportions.”

The reported negotiations come as Trump prepares for a trip to China and seeks to cement his legacy as a dealmaker — even if that deal undermines the very trade agenda he championed.

While Trump's approach to China has frequently put him at odds with his own administration, his willingness to consider the investment stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship. Trump sees China as simply offering a bad deal — and believes the remedy is negotiating a better one, Cass wrote.

And he's proceeding despite concern from advisers in the administration.

"I don't blame China," Trump notably told business leaders in Beijing in 2017. "After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit."

According to the economist, this transactional worldview fails to account for the strategic reality that Chinese investment operates under fundamentally different rules than American capital flows.

A trillion-dollar infusion of Chinese capital would exceed the total direct investment in the United States made by any other country since the Declaration of Independence, he wrote before adding that even a fraction of that amount would devastate what remains of American economic defenses, weakening national security and supply-chain resilience while handing the Chinese Communist Party a powerful tool to subvert U.S. markets.

Unlike American companies that pursue their own goals with relatively little political interference, Chinese companies operate at the pleasure of the Communist Party. When the party decides to dominate an industry, it can offer virtually unlimited financial support and access to a virtually unlimited labor pool.

"Welcoming that model to our shores would be a catastrophe for the United States," Cass wrote.

In recent weeks, key administration figures including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik have cast doubt on accepting Chinese investment. However, with Trump, it remains unclear whether resistance represents a firm position or simply a negotiating posture.

If Trump proceeds with the deal, he risks becoming the president who did more than anyone to warn about the dangers of the China relationship — only to embed that relationship, and its dangers, into the foundation of the nation's economy, Cass warned.