During the campaign, Donald Trump Committed to use tariffs to revitalize American industry, bring work home and help make America great again. But in his administration, experts say the president’s trade war is increasingly replacing more traditional forms of diplomacy with political Kudger.
The President’s current goals, Indiawhich has been unable to reach a trade agreement, Trump seems ready to follow his threat to impose a 25% tariff on Delhi – which will total up to 50%, a common tax for any country, as well as Brazil.
This is a turnaround that causes whipping months agowhen the newly cast Trump administration appears to intend to continue bipartisan efforts to deepen ties with India as a geopolitical confrontation in China. This is part of the trend that highlights how tariffs can be used as a threat to countries considered stubborn. Trump is not a tool of economic coercion, but uses tariffs as a political weapon.
Five rounds of trade negotiations between the two sides have left India without a closer recognition from the United States, demanding it to open up its vast agricultural and dairy sector. Negotiations planned early next week are planned as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asks Trump to demand that India stop buying oil from Russia. The sales in the United States are saying are helping Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Demand – India itself departs from Russian oil, accounting for about 35% of its total supply – is inconsistent with the purpose of Trump’s initial statement: bringing manufacturing back to the United States and rebalancing the trade deficit.
“The purpose of tariffs is to protect domestic industries from competition,” said Dr. Stuart Rollo of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. “It’s not really what it means…it’s a tool of geopolitical coercion.”
Trump himself has admitted this. and threatened India’s additional 25% tariff In retaliation for continuing to buy Russian oil, the president has linked Canada’s 35% tariff to recognition of the Palestinian state.
As far as Brazil is concerned, there is a rare trade surplus with the United States, which means it purchases outweigh sales – Trump says The huge 50% tariff comes from the trial of his political ally Jair Bolsonaro, who was charged with planning a military coup after losing the 2022 presidential election.
Peter Navarro, the president’s top trade adviser, even got a new term for these clear political trade threats: “National security tariffs”.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is more outspoken Writing in the Financial Times In April, tariffs were not designed as economic policy, but “a means to force the president to be loyal.”
“This is a time when the United States is reducing its actual weight and gravity, and is forcing as much global leadership as possible to reorganize as possible,” Rollo said.
In some ways, this is nothing new. Biden administration’s use of trade restrictions Restricting China to enter the most advanced state of semiconductors At a time when geopolitical tensions are intensifying.
But Devashish Mitra, Professor of Economics at Syracuse UniversityThe threat to Russian oil purchases appears to be inconsistent to many in India, which has been well thought out and may bring India closer to China, said.
“India does see the United States as an ally,” Mitra said. “This country is the country that the United States relies on China’s rebuttals in the region. So it has a huge geopolitical importance, but it seems that Trump doesn’t seem to value that.”
Chinese Foreign Minister held talks in Delhi this week and Modi is expected to be in Shanghai by the end of this month; his first visit in seven years. This is part of the recent austerity relations between the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, accounting for 40% of global GDP – a response to Trump’s aggressive trade policy, experts say.
For the future U.S. government, winning the trust of some of these countries can be difficult, as Trump’s escalating trade war is at the same time his administration demolishes its tools for global equity deals. Shooting from a large scale State Council,reduce USAID’s Foreign Aid Programthe US diplomatic toolbox has been greatly reduced.
Rollo said tariffs have “replaced diplomacy.”
So, with his attention between crises at home and abroad, the president armed himself with only a hammer, and every global flash point was like a nail.
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