{"id":1530183,"date":"2025-04-14T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1530183"},"modified":"2025-04-14T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T06:00:00","slug":"escobar-why-china-wont-call-the-tariff-wielding-barbarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/escobar-why-china-wont-call-the-tariff-wielding-barbarian\/1530183\/","title":{"rendered":"Escobar: Why China Won’t Call The “Tariff-Wielding Barbarian”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Why China Won’t Call The “Tariff-Wielding Barbarian”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Pepe Escobar,<\/em><\/p>\n

The Toddler Temper Tantrum-style\u00a0Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT)<\/a>, now accelerated to 145% \u2013 and counting \u2013 is yet another thunderous trademark pigeon smashing the chessboard gambit.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It won\u2019t work. Trump claimed that China would call him to \u201cmake a deal\u201d. That\u2019s reality show territory. Reality is more like the statement by the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council: \u201cGiven that U.S. exports to China already have\u00a0no market acceptability under the current tariff rates<\/strong>,\u00a0if the U.S. further imposes additional tariffs on Chinese goods, China will simply ignore them.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation: keep vociferating\/tariffing. We don\u2019t care. And we will stop buying from you. Anything.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Foreign Ministry: A \u201ctariff-wielding barbarian can never expect a call from China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basic numbers. China\u2019s GDP for 2025 is projected at 5%. U.S. imports account for at best 4% of Chinese GDP. China\u2019s share of total exports to the U.S. dropped to 13.4 per cent in 2024.<\/p>\n

Goldman Sachs \u2013 not exactly a CCP \u201cmouthpiece\u201d \u2013 has just projected that TTT will cost China only 0.5% of GDP in 2025, while costing no less than 2% of U.S. GDP. Talk about blowback.<\/p>\n

Still, from now on, what matters most for Beijing is to keep diversifying the supply chain.<\/p>\n

Asia-wide, the extra wheels are in motion. President Xi Jinping will soon start an ASEAN mini-tour (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia). The Shanghai Cooperation Organization \u2013 increasingly focused on geoeconomics \u2013 is about to meet. The EU, for all the mendacity of its \u201celites\u201d, is absolutely itching to strike trade deals with China.<\/p>\n

Zhao Minghao, deputy director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, in Shanghai, refers to the current incandescence as \u201ca game of strategic resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, the eminent Wang Yiwei, international relations star professor at Renmin University in Beijing and an expert on the New Silk Roads, noted that the current tariff rate already made China\u2019s exports to the U.S. \u201calmost impossible\u201d.<\/p>\n

This analysis<\/a>\u00a0noted how China started to deal with TTT with a \u201ccourtesy before force\u201d approach, then turned to \u201cwe don\u2019t care\u201d, while cultivating\u00a0\u201cthe art of timing\u201d in its asymmetric attack on U.S. stocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A fascinating window on the real wheels of Chinese trade is offered by a timely visit to the vast\u00a0<\/strong>Yiwu International Trade City<\/a>, the largest concentration of small traders on the planet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Less than 10% of Yiwu\u2019s phenomenal amount of business involves the U.S. Among the 75,000 business operators in Yiwu Small Commodity City, only a little over 3,000 do business with the U.S.<\/p>\n

Two Sinophobes meet one mirage<\/strong><\/h2>\n

TTT is largely the product of two crude Team Trump arrogant\/ignorant Sinophobes, economic advisor Peter Navarro and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who know less than zero about all things China.<\/p>\n

In fact it was Bessent who right at the start gave the game away:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was driven by the president\u2019s strategy\u2026 You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crude trap. With the sole focus on China. That had nothing to do with the initial tawdry plot line: tariffs, Mafia-style, on most of the planet, penguins included. If you don\u2019t retaliate, fine. If you do, we hit harder.<\/p>\n

of the so-called \u201cMiran mirage\u201d \u2013 after Trump\u2019s alleged economic brain Stephen Miran. What is actually happening, fast, bypassing the stupid notion that tariffs will be paid for by current depreciation elsewhere (see Miran\u2019s white paper here<\/a>), is the uncontrolled demolition of the U.S. as a world trade center.<\/p>\n

Asked why he paused the tariffs, Trump answered: \u201cI thought people were jumping a bit out of line. They were getting a little bit yipee. They were getting afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonsense. Trump cannot possibly admit on the record that the U.S. oligarchy, Jamie Dimon and co., freaked out big time; and that, plus the debacle in the bond market, forced him to backtrack.<\/p>\n

Nobody in neoliberal heaven and earth can mess with the Goddess of the Market.<\/p>\n

As for the long-term strategy of several nations of the Global Majority caught in TTT\u2019s crossfire hurricane, not to mention big players like China and the EU, they will all avidly reduce their dependence on U.S. markets.<\/p>\n

Once again, the elaborate \u201cdeal\u201d offered by Trump and his illiterate advisors boiled down to a Mafioso \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse\u201d: blow up, or significantly diminish, your trade with China \u2013 the largest trading partner of nearly all of these nations \u2013 and trade with Exceptionalistan, plus 10% tariffs. To hell with your economic sovereignty and strategic flexibility. Once again: it\u2019s our way or the \u2013 tariff \u2013 highway.<\/p>\n

Reality instead will dictate that the U.S. will increasingly import Chinese products from third countries \u2013 while China will continue to get paid for it. China will export even more to ASEAN and other Global Majority actors.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Trump\u2019s \u201cplan\u201d \u2013 if there is any \u2013 remains to \u201cstabilize\u201d his allies while concentrating all the firepower on China, in theory to drive China\u2019s complex supply chains to chaos and force companies to move production lines to, for example, Vietnam or India.<\/p>\n

Shakedown leading to breakdown<\/strong><\/h2>\n

China containment will be on overdrive. Expect a tsunami of technological restrictions, investment red lines and, of course, extra sanctions. Sinophobe Bessent does not rule out delisting Chinese stocks from U.S. exchanges: \u201cI think everything\u2019s on the table (\u2026) That will be President Trump\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beijing, for its part, can easily go nuclear, deciding for a sell-off of its U.S. Treasuries en masse, with catastrophic cascading consequences. As of January, Beijing held $760 billion in U.S. debt. With a delightful diplomatic touch, Yang Panpan and Xu Qiuyan, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, note that what happens next with U.S. Treasury bonds remains \u201chighly uncertain\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bridgewater billionaire investor Ray Dalio, for his part, while incisive, was also heavy on diplomacy: \u201cWe are seeing a classic breakdown of the major monetary, political and geopolitical orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no more \u201ccooperative world order\u201d led by the U.S. (in fact that was anything but cooperative\u201d); Dalio at least recognizes the unilateralism manifest in \u201cthe U.S.-led trade-war, geopolitical war, technology war, and, in some cases, military wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian de facto synthesized Beijing\u2019s position. No more Mr. Nice Guy, which was the default Chinese position until recently: if the U.S. insists on fighting a tariff war and a trade war, China will fight to the end.<\/p>\n

So here we are. And once again, it\u2019s the Empire of Chaos against BRICS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Empire of Chaos embarks on a hot geoeconomics war against its peer competitor China; contemplates a hot military war against sovereign Iran; and at the same time tries to appease nuclear\/hypersonic power Russia into a sort of hazy deal to somewhat freeze the Forever War by proxy in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The new Primakov triangle, RIC (Russia-Iran-China) is perfectly aware of these moves. Putin had metaphorically characterized the Russian position in the U.S.-China trade war when he mentioned that the Chinese have a good proverb: when tigers fight in the valley, the smart monkey sits and watches how it ends.<\/p>\n

Now is more the case of three wise monkeys perfectly aware of what a pigeon posing as eagle is really up to.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 04\/13\/2025 – 22:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/escobar-why-china-wont-call-tariff-wielding-barbarian<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Why China Won’t Call The “Tariff-Wielding Barbarian” Authored by Pepe Escobar, The Toddler Temper Tantrum-style\u00a0Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT), now accelerated to 145% \u2013 and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1530184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1530184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}