TRUMP TARIFFS ARE A GIFT TO CHINA. The biggest economic mis-step of this century is happening right now. By launching tariffs on the entire planet, America is not liberating itself or anyone else, but isolating itself. And giving China the world. 川普關稅是送給中國的禮物
本世紀最大的經濟失誤正在發生。透過向全球徵收關稅，美國並沒有解放自己或其他人，而是孤立了自己。並讓中國走向世界.
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"Make no mistake: Trump just handed the world economy to China on a silver plate," said Professor Jostein Hauge, a top economist at Cambridge University in the UK.
The US has built a barrier around its 4.25% share of the world's consumers, forcing the other 95%-plus to increase trade among themselves.
Some other economists agree with Hauge. "The world has been gifted an invitation from the US President Donald Trump to distance itself from the American political economy and accelerate its decoupling from the US dollar dominated trade settlements and finance system," said Professor Warwick Powell, a China-focused academic based in Australia.
In Beijing, the leadership agrees. "China's door will only open wider," leader Xi Jinping said yesterday.
US IS NOW A WALLED COUNTRY
Trump is making the same mistake the Biden Administration made. By bullying the world to stop selling high-end chips to China, it forced Chinese scientists to work on finding new answers. Similarly, by putting tariff barriers around the US, the Trump administration is forcing China, and every other country, to increase trade outside the newly walled nation.
Commentators may be right in saying that the huge tariffs will immediately dent China's economy, which includes a lot of manufacturing for the US market, but they are missing the fact that the world is a big place and 19 out of 20 humans don't live in the US. China sells more outside the US than inside, as the chart shows.
So while China's exporters are taking a hit by losing a batch of customers, it will gain customers in the rest of the world, where the growth is.
FLIP A SWITCH
Clearly some amateur economist in the Trump administration told Donald Trump that he could flip a switch called "tariffs" and bring manufacturing back to the US.
“We want to onshore garment factories from Vietnam and Cambodia to the United States,” new Labor Secretary Chavez DeRemer told a TV interviewer.
But in truth, multinational businesses, mostly from the rich west, moved their factories to Asia in a gradual, organic process that literally took decades.
This writer wrote about the western move to source goods from China in the late 1980s: almost 40 years ago. To imagine that a single list of tariffs will reverse that is the epitome of over-simplistic thinking.
Ironically, the name "Liberation Day" may prove to be prescient. From now onwards, the world's manufacturers will definitely upgrade their efforts to free themselves from dependency on a rich but troublesome customer.
The introduction of tariffs by the Trump administration has reshaped the landscape of global trade, compelling countries to seek alternatives outside the U.S. market. While immediate impacts may inflict some pain on China’s economy, long-term adjustments are already taking shape as China diversifies its customer base. Recent analyses reveal that a significant majority of China’s exports now target markets beyond the United States. This strategic pivot is driven by necessity, as the U.S. implements barriers that restrict economic integration. Economists like Professor Jostein Hauge argue that this will ultimately diminish U.S. influence in global trade. Moreover, as tensions escalate, nations are likely to solidify trade relationships among themselves, reducing reliance on American markets. This decoupling trend highlights the fundamental shift in manufacturing and trade as more countries reevaluate their economic dependencies. As evidence suggests, China's exports to other regions continue to rise, emphasizing the country's capabilities to thrive outside the U.S. economic framework. This dynamic presents a critical insight for businesses and policymakers alike: adapting to a world where trade barriers may increasingly define the economic landscape.
