White House Says China Has More to Lose in Trade War

"I think that the other side may have underestimated the strong resolve of President Donald J. Trump," Mr. Navarro said. "If they thought that they could buy us off cheap with a few extra products and allow them to continue to steal our intellectual property and crown jewels, that was a miscalculation. We hope going forward there are no more miscalculations."

Mr. Navarro said a trade clash would hurt China much more than the United States, given that the value of China's exports to the United States was nearly four times the value of what the United States exports to China.

For weeks, the United States and China had appeared close to a deal that would have forestalled tariffs. Top advisers like Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, had advocated a deal that could avoid the devastating effects of a trade war, and spent hours in negotiations with Chinese officials.

But after the Chinese refused to commit to a target for reducing their trade surplus with the United States or limiting industrial subsidies, Mr. Trump rejected those proposals. And his resolve to punish China only hardened after lawmakers, including Democrats, criticized him as being weak on China when he agreed to help ease penalties on ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company accused of violating American sanctions.

That decision has triggered a huge fight between the White House and Congress. On Monday, the Senate passed legislation that would reinstate penalties on ZTE and rescind a deal, reached by the Commerce Department, that allowed the company to stay in business in exchange for paying a large fine and agreeing to a series of management and compliance changes. The White House has said it will work to remove that provision before the bill becomes final, and Mr. Trump is expected to meet with lawmakers on Wednesday to discuss the fate of ZTE.

The decision to proceed with tariffs is a victory for hard-liners in the administration, like Mr. Navarro and the trade negotiator Robert E. Lighthizer. They had argued that the United States should not back down from trying to force China to make more fundamental changes to its economy, even if such measures would cause short-term pain for American businesses and consumers.

On Tuesday, Mr. Navarro minimized the divisions between administration officials, saying the United States' negotiating process had not wavered and was "linear." He said the idea of dropping the trade case in exchange for purchases — something the Chinese had offered the Americans in negotiations — had always been a "nonstarter."

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