Tonya Harding's strategy for breaking legs doesn't work with China
- It was the first of March 2018, after the first quarter of his first term of office, when Donald Trump left us the most transparent display of political-economic thinking: “Trade wars are good and easy to win.” A declaration to justify Chinese, European and Canadian steel and aluminium tariffs was being launched at that time. But at the same time, it revealed a deep conception of the character and its broad courtship. Everything went without saying: the economy is also a weapon, perhaps the most powerful, and you have to use it mercilessly for the ultimate end. MAGA, America First.
After six long years and a couple of very severe crises, it should be time to take stock of the strategy. From the most obvious: that the vision is not at all exclusive to trumpism. During Biden’s four-year term of office, it has adjusted, but the Trump tariff strategy has not been reduced at all, which has done nothing but lose the protectionist veneer of its time and increase armor against geopolitical enemies. We can say that it is a “bipartisan meeting point” in the United States. United States And that's what we should start to do.
To take the view that trade wars can be beneficial, in other words, given the evolution of the US economy over the past six years: weighing the impact and consequences of all the circumstances involved, have the tariffs imposed on China, for example, been beneficial? How is it measured? And from the point of view of the other countries that make up the geopolitical bloc of the EE.UU, “decoupling” is being something close to disaster. There are beneficiaries, but they are not in the West.
It goes without saying a lot about ease. The fact that Trump starts his second term with a slogan "more tariffs and more taxes" is a clearer indication of what happens. It doesn't work the way he thought. The defeat of the sanctions imposed on Russia since 2022, even until the end of the economic war, is already recognised by its rivals. It should be an opportunity to review the whole strategy. Starting with the recognition of the true purpose.
And for that, for example, remember Tonya Harding. Harding was the brightest ice skating star in the early 1990s. Until a brighter person appeared than her, Nancy Kerrigan. So, “someone” came up with the idea that the solution to the problem was to break Kerrigan’s legs. They tried to do it. It didn't work.
Does anyone believe that the strategy to break China's economic legs is working?
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