‘If Trump and the US withdraw from the global economy, we will carry it on, new style’

Seen from China, Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs are misguided and self-defeating, proof that liberal democracy is an ailing system. But it’s not enough for Beijing to just wait for the storm to pass.

Amid the Trump storm that has swept the world since his return to the White House in January, European leaders have at times resembled cruise-ship passengers, queasy from the swell, clutching the handrail. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), meanwhile, has adopted quite a different stance: that of a seasoned ship’s captain, eyes on the horizon.

When, on 2 April, Donald Trump invoked ‘threats to national security’ to bypass Congress and impose tariffs on nearly every country in the world, the move, unprecedented in its scale, caught nearly everyone off guard. Not the CCP, though, according to an editorial in the People’s Daily on 6 April: ‘Although international markets generally believe that US tariff abuse exceeded expectations, the Party Central Committee had already anticipated this new round of US economic and trade containment and suppression against China, fully estimated its potential impact, and prepared response plans with sufficient lead time and reserves.’ The 34% tariff applied to China in Trump’s initial announcement, in conjunction with various pre-existing duties, pushed the average rate for Chinese goods over 70%. The US decision ‘will impact China,’ the editorial conceded, ‘but the sky won’t fall.’

China responded by raising its own tariffs, restricting exports of several rare earth minerals vital for industries such as aerospace, and banning a list of US companies – ‘unreliable entities’ – from importing goods with potential military applications. This led to a sequence of tit-for-tat measures between Washington and Beijing that soon caused financial markets to panic. In early April, the S&P 500 index – the leading index of US blue-chip companies – lost more than 10% of its value in three days, ‘a drop almost as steep as the declines seen during the 2008 financial crisis and at the onset of the pandemic in 2020’, the BBC reported.

With his billionaire buddies urging him to rethink his strategy and interest (…)

Full article: 3 887 words.

Renaud Lambert

Renaud Lambert is Asia head at Le Monde diplomatique.

(5) To date, there has been no formally approved English or French translation.

(9) Nadège Rolland, ‘China’s vision for a new world order’, NBR special report, no 83, National Bureau of Asian Research, Washington DC, 27 January 2020.

(10) ‘China’s strategy to Trump 2.0’, 26 January 2025, thechinaacademy.org/.

(11) ‘Remarks by national security advisor Jake Sullivan at the special competitive studies project global emerging technologies summit’, White House press release, 16 September 2022, bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/.

(12) Jonathan Fulton, Tuvia Gering and Michael Schuman, ‘How Beijing’s newest global initiatives seek to remake the world order’, Atlantic Council, Washington DC, 21 June 2023.

(13) ‘Asia Society Policy Institute experts comment on the escalating trade war between the US and China’, email sent to the ASPI distribution list, 11 April 2025.