The other major player here is Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is serving as the White House's point man in the talks with China. He's a former investment fund manager and investment banker, and cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs. Mnuchin doesn't appear to be as much of an ideologue as Kudlow, but his preferences clearly lean in the same direction. He'd prefer to de-escalate the trade fight with China.

Remember that for the bulk of big American businesses, the current trade setup with China is fine. It improves profit margins by suppressing labor costs here in the U.S., and lets American wealth owners shop for new investments and even cheaper labor in China. The country's myriad limits on foreign capital, its hardball practices on intellectual property, and its own protectionism and tariffs certainly complicate the picture. But these practices tend to anger specific sectors and industries rather than American business writ large.

Furthermore, all big business in the U.S. is knit together by the financial sector. Wall Street benefits enormously from the high profits and free capital flow of the current global trade regime, and has the biggest megaphone in Washington, D.C. Mnuchin comes right out of the finance world. And while Kudlow is more of a talking head, he takes the same sweeping, pro-big-business-in-the-aggregate approach.

Because center-right and center-left economists have mostly all signed onto the global trade agenda, the only serious China hawks the White House has been able to find in the economics world are oddballs like Peter Navarro.