Escobar: How Trump’s Tariff Tizzy Is Burning Down The House

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Global Majority, rejoice! And step on the high-speed rail de-dollarization train.

Circus ringmaster Trump’s Tariff Tizzy (TTT), christened by himself as “Liberation Day”, is being largely interpreted around the world – Global North and Global South alike – as Slaughterhouse Day.

This de facto uncontrolled economic demolition gambit starts with the warped fantasy that launching a customs war on China is a bright idea. As bright as collecting a few trillion extra dollars in tariffs assuming the rest of the planet will be somewhat “encouraged” to sell to the Hegemon, while pretending that these tariffs will lead to the re-industrialization of the U.S.

The tragicomic mask of a self-appointed circus ringmaster of turbo-capitalism may be as pathetic as the European chihuahua rage boosting their “revenge” via Rearmament – with funds that they plan to steal from the savings accounts of unsuspecting citizens.

The indispensable Michael Hudson has configured the key problem. Allow me a little tweak: “Sanctions and threats are the only thing that the United States has left. It no longer can offer other countries a win-win situation, and Trump has said that America has to be the net gainer in any international deal it’s made, whether it’s a financial deal or a trade deal. And if America is saying, any deal we make, you lose, I win”, that Mafia extortion gambit does not exactly reflect the Art of the Deal.

Prof. Hudson neatly describes Trump’s negotiation tactics: “When you don’t have very much to offer economically, all you can do is offer not to hurt other countries, not to sanction them, not to do something that will be against their interest.” Now, with TTT, Trump is actually “offering” to hurt them all. And they will certainly invest in all sorts of counter-tactics to “get away” from that “strategy” of American “diplomacy”.

A trade war on Asia

TTT attacks everyone, especially the EU (“born to hurt us”, according to the circus ringmaster. Wrong, because the EU was invented by the Americans in 1957 to actually keep Europe under control). The EU exports roughly 503 billion euros to the U.S. a year, while importing around 347 billion. Trump is fuming non-stop about this surplus.

So a counter-measure vendetta will be inevitably in store, as already advertised by the toxic Medusa von der Lugen in Brussels – incidentally the sponsor of every weapons producer in Europe.

Yet TTT is above all a trade war on Asia. “Reciprocal” tariffs – not exactly reciprocal – were imposed on China (34%),Vietnam (46%), India (26%), Indonesia (32%), Cambodia (49%), Malaysia (24%), South Korea (25%), Thailand (36%), earthquake-hit Myanmar (44%), Taiwan (32%) and Japan (24%).

Well, even before TTT, a first has been achieved: the circus ringmaster generated a once-in-a-lifetime consensus among China, Japan and South Korea that their response will be coordinated.

Japan and South Korea will import semiconductor raw materials from China, while China will be purchasing chips from Japan and South Korea. Translation: TTT will solidify “supply chain cooperation” among this triad that so far was not exactly too cooperative.

What the circus ringmaster really wants is an iron-clad mechanism – already being developed by his team – that unilaterally imposes whatever level of tariffs Trump may come up with on whatever excuse: could be to circumvent “current manipulation”, to counter a value-added tax, on “security grounds”, whatever. And to hell with international law. For all practical purposes, Trump is burying the WTO.

Even tariffed penguins in Heard island in the South Pacific know that the certified effects of TTT will include rising inflation in the U.S., serious pain on its – delocalized – corporations and most of all the complete collapse of American “credibility” as a reliable and trustworthy trading partner, adding to its certified reputation as “non-agreement capable” – as the Global South knows so well. > Ант: A rentier FIRE Empire (financialization, insurance, real estate, as masterfully analyzed by Michael Hudson), which offshored its manufacturing industries and was gobbled up by a pile of overleveraged hedge funds, Wall Street derivatives and Silicon Valley totalitarian surveillance in the end decides to strike…itself.

Poetic justice applies. Burning Down the House – from inside the house. As for the emerging, sovereign Global Majority, rejoice: and step on the high-speed rail de-dollarization train.

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