Stanford's Fingar calls Trump tariff policy a complete failure ahead of Xi summit

Former US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Fingar called the Trump administration's tariff policy a "complete failure" on Wednesday, telling delegates at the Shanghai Forum 2026 that Washington has become an unpredictable actor on the world stage.

Fingar, now a fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, delivered the assessment in a keynote speech followed by a group interview with Yicai. The remarks land a week before President Donald Trump is due in Beijing for a two-day summit with Xi Jinping.

The criticism focused on outcomes. Fingar said the administration set out to cut the US trade deficit, lift domestic manufacturing investment and build what officials described as a fairer trade environment for American firms. None of those goals have been met, he said.

"Unless his goal is to disrupt the global international trade order, the policy is a complete failure in terms of its effects," Fingar told Yicai. He said the tariff regime had pushed up import prices, raised production costs at US firms and added to the cost of living for households.

The legal foundation for the policy has also collapsed. On February 20 the US Supreme Court ruled six to three that the large-scale tariff hikes imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unconstitutional. Customs and Border Protection began processing refund applications on April 20 through a new system known as the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries. Officials estimate refunds owed at $166bn to $176bn, with payments due within 60 to 90 days.

The White House has signalled it will retry the policy on a different legal basis. Fingar said external conditions are working against that effort. Higher commodity prices driven by the Iran war have lifted oil, gas and fertiliser costs, feeding domestic inflation. He said members of Trump's own cabinet have begun pushing back against further tariff increases on the grounds that they would worsen price pressures.

Phillip Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office, warned on April 27 that recent tariff changes could add about $1.1tn to the federal deficit over the next decade. The CBO said it could not produce a precise estimate because the policy direction remained unclear.

What the polls show

The political backdrop has darkened. Multiple national polls in late April put Trump's approval rating between 33 and 36 per cent, his lowest since the start of his second term. Disapproval has climbed to between 58 and 63 per cent. The midterm elections are roughly six months away.

Fingar said analysts who track US domestic politics closely view a Democratic recapture of both chambers as a realistic outcome. Flipping the House would be the easier task, he said. The Senate map remains a tougher contest for Democrats.

If Democrats take both chambers, Trump would enter what Fingar called an early "lame-duck" phase, with most of the legislative agenda exposed to congressional veto. Tariff escalations and aggressive foreign military operations would be among the first targets, in his reading.

A flipped Congress would constrain rather than redirect foreign policy, he cautioned. The White House retains the lead on diplomacy. Congressional power runs to oversight and refusal, not to formulating an alternative grand strategy.

Soft power and the China file

The broader cost of the past year is reputational, Fingar said. The United States once acted as a predictable partner. That predictability has gone, and allies have started looking for ways to route around Washington to limit their own exposure.

He framed the China relationship as narrower than it was a generation ago, with fewer pillars of cooperation and weaker industry ties. The clearest shift, in his view, is reduced appetite among American companies to do business with Chinese counterparts.

The diplomatic calendar this year is unusually heavy. China hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting. The United States hosts the G20 summit. Xie Feng, Beijing's ambassador in Washington, said at a forum on April 20 that head-of-state diplomacy remained the "compass" for the relationship.

Fingar drew a continuity between the two most recent presidencies. The Biden administration, he said, framed China policy as "avoiding deterioration and maintaining the status quo." Trump in his first term was confrontational on tariffs and on technology export curbs. In the second term, Fingar said, the China line has become more restrained as the president devotes political capital to the domestic agenda.

That domestic focus runs through everything. The consensus inside Washington now favours conserving energy for the home front rather than spending it on bilateral negotiations abroad, Fingar said. Even a Democratic Congress would tilt that balance further toward domestic spending and away from external dealmaking.

The next test arrives quickly. Trump lands in Beijing on May 14 for talks with Xi covering trade, regional security and the Hormuz crisis. Fingar's argument suggests the visit will reveal less about strategy and more about which constraints matter most once the president gets there.