Friday 11th April, 2025

US President Donald Trump has made another U-turn––a historic one. He has suspended unprecedented tariff hikes he announced the other day; he vowed that he would neither pause nor waive them under any circumstances. The 90-day tariff reprieve he has opted for has gladdened many hearts and made stock markets soar across the word, but a global recession is looming with a fierce tariff war between the US and China intensifying.

Trump has jacked up tariffs on all Chinese goods to a whopping 125%. China has stopped dilly-dallying and increased its tariff on imports from the US to 84%. The White House is reported to have said those who do not retaliate will be rewarded. Trump may have expected the Chinese leaders also to bow and scrape before him, asking for a tariff reduction.

Meanwhile, President Trump will have a hard time repairing relations with the traditional US allies in Europe. He did not mince his words, when he said, while announcing the new US tariffs, the other day, that many Americans thought Europe was a friend but it had actually ripped off the US. He has shown, albeit unwittingly, that Europe cannot trust the US as an ally. Besides, Der Spiegel, a German magazine once revealed that the CIA had been operating a global network of 80 eavesdropping centres, including 19 listening posts in Europe.

The White House has sought to help Trump save face; it has claimed that his flip-flop is part of a strategy to further US economic interests globally. But the truth is otherwise. Trump got cold feet as stock markets tumbled the world over, and protests erupted in the US itself against his new tariff policy. Initially, he, true to form, chose to dig his heels in, and even coined a new word to disparage the critics of his tariffs. On Truth Social, he called them ‘panicans’. He said: “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN. Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!” He also said, “Be cool! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before. On Monday, he announced from the White House that “we’re not looking at” a tariff pause …” He also bragged in a Truth Social post announcing the 90-day tariff pause, that “more than 75 Countries” had called US officials seeking to strike new trade deals. But it is clear that he had to bite the bullet and suspend the tariff hikes. The EU has put its retaliatory tariffs on hold, as a result.

The suspension of US tariff hikes has brought immense relief to the developing countries dependent on the US as a major export destination, but prudence demands that they continue with their efforts to formulate strategies to ensure the survival of their fragile economies in the worst-case scenario. They had better consider the tariff reprieve at issue only an interval in hell, as it were, and brace themselves for what is to come after three months.

Trump’s strategy of using tariffs to subdue the world has yielded some unintended benefits, the main being that it has prompted other nations, including traditional American allies, to realise the risk of being overdependent on the US as a trading partner, diversify their trade relations as well as exports, and, most of all, look for an alternative to the US. The on-going efforts to adopt an alternative international reserve currency is bound to gain a turbo boost from Trump’s abortive bid to leverage America’s hold on the global economy to undermine other nations.

The world owes President Trump a big thank you—not for jacking up US tariffs and then suspending them but for having revealed how far the US is ready to go to further its interests at the expense of the other nations, including its allies.