CHINA WINS BIG IN AMERICAN TARIFF TALKS

Written by Michael Thervil

Photo by Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP

Despite what appears to be a big deal for the Trump Administration when it comes to striking a small deal with China on tariffs this week, it seems that China and many other countries within the ASEAN communication have “moved on”. With the Trump Administration backtracking and slashing tariff rates by 30%-80% on various imported goods and products from China, China has only sought to impose a 10% on all imported American goods and products. The world has seen the economic diversification trend before back when the Ukraine’s war of provocation on Russia started that resulted in the Americans seizing the personal belongings of Russian oligarchs and locking Russia out of the SWIFT banking system.

When America and the Collective West embarked on this, it gave the rest of the world a “wake up” and sent the message that they could be next if they decided not to play ball the way the Americans wanted them to. In a countermeasure for countries to preserve their assets, they diversified their economic portfolios and outlook. The same thing has happened again in the case of China and the newly struck 90-day deal, which is more of a “pause” with the Trump Administration this week. China foresaw that another economic war with America could happen again although they simply didn’t know when. So as a countermeasure, Chinese President Xi Jinping went on an Asian tour in a successful effort to rally the countries of ASEAN together.

If you’ve never heard of ASEAN, you could think of the ASEAN collective as a sort of NAFTA for Asian countries. ASEAN was created in 1967 and currently consists of 11 member Asian countries that make up ASEAN; those countries are China, Timor-Leste (newly added 2022), Laos, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia, Darussalam, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. While this looks like a good cast, many geopolitical analysts and pundits are very skeptical about the Philippines and its roles within the ASEAN bloc. This is because of its perceived willingness to be used by America as a proxy to counter China and its national interest in the region.  

As what Chinese President Xi Jinping calls “One Big Asian Family”, The goal of ASEAN is to foster a community of socio-economic growth and development regarding commerce and trade amongst the Asian member nations. In short, what we are telling is that China has turned a large part of its back away from America in favor of not only being competitive in the global economy as well as being economically and technologically self-sufficient; but finding ways to insulate itself from abusive economic powers and policies of countries like America. Some Sociologists take the position that President Trump doesn’t understand the symbolic interaction and messaging that China has delivered to him after the result of this trade deal. That message is “we’ll deal with you but not deal with you.”

What they mean by this is that China will cut a deal with America for the sake of keeping peace and stability as far as trade in the global market is concerned. But China will not deal with America from a standpoint of economics and trade like we used to. China has further decided to further strategically diversify its portfolio again in terms of international trade by focusing more on the growth and development of other Asian trading partners within the ASEAN bloc. The question is how will America survive as the world factory significantly decreases its economic dependency on the American consumer?