Hes coming at it from a position of strength, he knows it and all the other countries know it too, they can either negotiate it and try to lower the trade deficits or they can fuck off. What bartering chips do the other countries have? Every single one of them other than maybe Canada, are running huge trade surpluses against the U.S. What are they going to do? Torpedo their own economies? The bottom line is that Trump and the U.S. have all the power right now............ Its pretty easy to step away from a trade situation where you are losing money, all you have to do is say goodbye.
These other countries on the other hand are going to try to posture to hold on too as much of the trade imbalance as they can keep, but at the end of the day they all know it would be a disaster to quit trading or start a trade war with the U.S., cause they are the only ones who stand to lose.
Whats China going to do? walk away from a 500billion dollar surplus? There is a reason why this is getting hashed out now, for all the grandstanding everyone is doing, everyone knows the metrics, and so long as Trump keeps standing his ground, every other country will be the ones who lose, because they have a choice to either lose A SHIT TON, or else lose a little less.
I dont suspect any of these Trade imbalances will end up fair (i.e. 1 to 1) but if Trump can carve out a few billion from every country and 100 billion from China, its still a huge addition to the U.S. economy.
Trump knows this and so do all of them.