Behind Trump’s War on China
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By Jenny Clegg
Trump is overturning the international order, replacing what remains of multilateralism with the rule of the strong. His tariffs are causing the biggest disruption of global trade seen in nearly a century, sending financial markets haywire. But what are the real goals behind the bluster? What is Trump’s end game? Re-shoring manufacturing? Using tariffs to supplement tax cuts for the rich? Whatever: making America great again clearly requires that China’s growth be stifled.
Trump’s first administration managed to persuade US ruling elites to counter China’s rise first and foremost. Biden then took this to the world, to encourage US allies to take China as the greatest challenge to their own security too.
Biden successfully lined Japan, India and Australia up against China in the QUAD, and Australia and the UK similarly in the AUKUS military alliance. But the Europeans shied away from drastic ‘decoupling’, opting for a watered-down ‘derisking’, whilst US tech giants, with their large shares in the China market, kept to-ing and fro-ing to Beijing.
Meanwhile new South-South trading patterns continued to develop whilst the Asia Pacific emerged as the world’s most dynamic growth engine with China-Japan-South Korea-ASEAN economic links strengthening.
Ultimately Biden’s idea of an alliance of ‘democracies’ against the threat of ‘autocracy’ – Russia, China, Iran, North Korea – was to fail, spectacularly so: for all the arms poured into Ukraine at great cost, Russia hasn’t been defeated, meanwhile the moral authority of US world leadership was dying a death along with 52,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
So, Trump resorts to blatant coercion – to get key allies and partners to increase military spending, and further to advance military-industrial cooperation – joint production, shared innovation, joint command and control systems. Tariffs are a means to enforce delinking from China, locking economies instead into US-controlled supply chains so as to reshape global patterns around US economic, military and technological strengths. AUKUS Track 2 offers a new-style networking, integrating the three domains through cooperation on key war-fighting technologies: artificial intelligence, quantum science, biotechnology, and space.
However, as Trump launched into a trial of economic strength with China, the latter refused to kneel, the situation descending into farce with both sides upping the tariff stakes. A joint statement by ASEAN (the eleven countries strong Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Japan, South Korea and China against protectionism, committed to developing regional trade and financial infrastructures so as to reduce reliance on the US. Trump caved, and talks in Geneva agreed a temporary ‘ceasefire’ to great relief around the world.
So what now? As the clock ticks down 90-days, the Liberation Day scattergun approach is being sharpened to focus strategically on a few key framework agreements for example with Japan, South Korea, and India to shift momentum in America’s favour. The UK-US deal leads the way here, opening the door to further elimination of Chinese content in supply chains and restrictions on investments.
With US tariffs still higher than before, Chinese exporters face difficulties, now turning to alternative markets in South East Asia and the Middle East. Meanwhile China has control of critical minerals the US needs for weapons and electronics. And the average US household cannot do without Chinese goods.
What does China’s Government claim to offer amidst Trump’s storm? Essentially it says it looks to provide a stable harbour. Its market potential is vast but consumption will only be increased step-by-step, as problems of rural-urban inequality and service provision for rural migrants in the cities are addressed. In the meantime, China exports intermediate goods across the Global South facilitating over the longer term a leap into a green and digitised future.
Trump’s restrictions may, at best, slow China’s growth: but can he stop it altogether? Bearing down on China’s main trading partners – countries like Cambodia and Vietnam face the highest Liberation day tariffs – Trump will put the new trading patterns of South-South and East Asian cooperation to the test. But can he really hold back the global trend of world economic rebalancing from North to South and West to East?
China, people say, may be the main beneficiary as Trump so effectively alienates US allies. But the determination of the US powers-that-be should not be underestimated: they are not afraid of causing severe economic disruption as in the early 1980s when deep recession was forced globally, so as to unlock capitalist renewal.
With the world economy so disrupted, with the rules and institutions of international order under severe challenge, can the world beyond Trump find common ground to rebuild a new, better multilateralism? China’s stand against Trump’s economic bullying has not gone without notice.
The Chinese Government has proposed a coordinated EU-China opposition to Trump’s unilateralism and has made efforts to address some key European concerns, ratifying ILO conventions on forced labour and increasing commitments to environmental protection.
Ahead, lie weeks, months of fractious negotiations with years of uncertainty, confusion and fear to come. The only way back to order and stability is through painstakingly rebuilding international cooperation around UN principles, this time more inclusively embracing the world beyond the Atlantic. The Labour leadership is too far astray: it is for the wider labour movement now to shift the nation’s mindset, working with progressive forces in the Global South to construct new pathways to development and peace.
- Jenny Clegg is a peace campaigner and member of Manchester Withington CLP- you can follow her on Twitter/X.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
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