The writer is founding partner and head of research at Gavekal Dragonomics
A week of tariff trauma has left the world economy not much worse off than it was on President Donald Trump’s “liberation day”. Trump climbed down from his most extreme reciprocal tariff threats, but we are still left with a 10 per cent minimum levy on almost all US imports, 25 per cent duties on steel, aluminium and cars, and an outlandish 145 per cent tariff on China.
The president’s team is scrambling to rationalise the chaos as a master plan to build a coalition to defeat Chinese mercantilism. But any such plan is doomed to fail. To understand why, we first need to get at what Trump really wants from tariffs. The usual claims — that he wants to crack down on unfair trade practices, eliminate trade deficits, reindustrialise America, confront China — do not hold up. Trump often invokes these goals. But these stated aims often contradict each other, are contradicted by other policies or are obviously unachievable.