This is a battle the US can't win
If the two countries get into a trade war, where the one has regular elections that can "throw the bums out" if they are blamed for the problems caused by the trade war, and the other is a dictatorship that is able to limit discussion of the problems, and those who manage to discuss the problems can't do anything to change the decision makers minds, it is pretty obvious who is going to blink first.
Trump will be forced to back down, but will undoubtedly come up with some sort of excuse for why he won, or that democrats were to blame for the US losing. Or both, somehow.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
