Trump has the upper hand in the trade war with China. He can't back down now

Editor's Note: (James D. Schultz is a CNN legal commentator and chair of the Government and Regulatory practice at Philadelphia-based law firm Cozen O'Connor. He served as senior associate counsel and special assistant to the president in the Office of White House Counsel during the Trump administration. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.)

China is in trouble -- its people know it and President Trump knows it. In fact, Trump knew all along that his hardline stance against China would eventually dent its economy.

Don't misunderstand. This is still a long play. There will be no partial deals or "meeting in the middle." Just because the Chinese have agreed to buy American soybeans and pork doesn't mean the president will soon be sprinting to the negotiating table. And that's exactly the right move.

China's trade shenanigans date back decades, spanning multiple presidential administrations. Instead of just going along like past presidents, both Republicans and Democrats alike, someone needed to stand firm and wait for the Chinese economy to slowly collapse in on itself. And we're starting to see signs of that happening. China's industrial production in July was the weakest it has been in 17 years.

China's weakening economy is due mostly to its trade war with the United States. China's leaders have only themselves to blame. They walked away from a deal in May, Trump's top trade negotiator, Peter Navarro, told Yahoo Finance. The centerpiece of deal, according to Navarro, was a 150-page agreement that addressed the so-called "seven verticals" or what Navarro calls China's "seven deadly sins": currency manipulation, cyberattacks, selling fentanyl to the US, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, product dumping and subsidized state-owned enterprises.

The deal was essentially done and the Chinese backed out, Navarro said. Now, they have a choice. They can watch their economy continue to tank or sign the deal that was offered. Whether they want to admit it or not, the latter is their best option today — and the same will be true six months from now.

Trump has united the country -- Republicans and Democrats -- on China. According to an August Harvard/CAPS Harris Poll, 67% of American consumers believe it's necessary to confront China over its unfair trade policies.

This is why Trump won the presidency in the first place. People in my home state of Pennsylvania, where President Trump won, in part, because of votes from Democrats who wear hard hats and carry lunch pails every day, cared a lot less about hot-button issues such as immigration and climate change than they did about their jobs moving overseas. The same goes for states like Wisconsin and Ohio.

In the coming months, passing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be a priority for the Trump administration. The trade agreement, which has bipartisan support, will replace the antiquated North American Free Trade Agreement and lead to fairer trade and economic growth for our country. It will also fulfill a promise Trump made on the campaign trail.

The USMCA will, among other things, support farmers who do business with Mexico and Canada, protect US intellectual property and, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative, will provide the strongest and most comprehensive enforcement standards of any trade agreement. It will also send a clear message to China.

"By bringing North America together ... [the USMCA] will only strengthen the President's hand as we demand that China end the trade abuses that have characterized the decades of the past," Vice President Mike Pence told an audience Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington D.C.

This is one of the most important negotiations in American history and Trump has refused to capitulate in the face of opposition from both Democrats and Republicans as well as Wall Street. All three are waking up to the fact that Trump is playing it right -- a once loud drum beat has quieted. As China's economy atrophies, Beijing is going to be more inclined to make a deal.

Still, negotiations with China are going to take time. It took decades for a president to finally decide that the Chinese had gamed the system long enough and it will come as no surprise that Beijing is holding out as long as possible. China might even try waiting Trump out in the hope that he loses the 2020 election and China can deal with a Democratic administration that will be more willing to compromise. That would be a considerable gamble by Beijing.

But a watered-down or half-cooked deal won't get it done. Are we willing to settle for allowing the Chinese government to hack our computers, steal our intellectual property or sell dangerous amounts of fentanyl to the US?

To answer those questions in the affirmative would be to ignore China's checkered trade history, to discredit the impact on those Americans who would continue to suffer most from China's misdeeds and to underestimate President Trump's negotiating power.