Now that President Trump has proven his willingness to bomb U.S. and world markets in order to secure better terms for U.S. trade, with the result that many country governments have rushed to the negotiating table, for many countries Trump has slashed what he calls reciprocal tariffs to 10% for a three-month period. His post on Truth Social (April 9, 2025):
Based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.
It seems that the world will never get any relief from the president’s Idiosyncratic Capitalization, however.
As a result of Trump’s announcement of the tariff pause, markets have “jumped.” “Moments after his social media post, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 2,000 points after days of major losses on Wall Street”
China is not benefiting from the pause because the Chinese government is not one of the country governments which have refrained from retaliating “in any way, shape, or form against the United States.” Instead, in the same post, President Trump announced retaliation against China’s retaliation.
Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that…ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.
The description of the Chinese government as “ripping off” other countries in trade doesn’t quite capture the range and character of China’s aggression against other countries (or against its own people) or suggest how trade with China over recent decades has helped expand the Chinese Communist Party’s war chest. This fueling of the CCP’s means of aggression would continue even if the Chinese government—despite its public declaration that it will “fight to the end” against Trump’s tariffs if “the U.S. side is bent on going down the wrong path”—suddenly decided to accept loss of face and rejigger its trade practices to conform (momentarily) to standards more acceptable to the United States.
Decouple
No satisfactory resolution to the terms-of-trade standoff with China is possible. This means that the standoff should in some form continue indefinitely. And U.S. firms doing business with China and inside China should accept the grim realities of the case and accelerate, or finally begin, efforts to decouple from that totalitarian dictatorship.
