America is in a race with itself to see which party can deglobalise faster. On Tuesday, Joe Biden slapped tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, including 100 per cent on electric vehicles. That’s nothing, said Donald Trump, who promised 200 per cent tariffs on Chinese cars, plus 10 per cent on all imports from everywhere. Biden has more to come. At this rate of bidding, US-China decoupling will be set in bipartisan stone by November. The choice will be between Biden sealing an orderly divorce, or Trump doing it in chaotic leaps and bounds.
Of course, there is far more at stake in the US election than what remains of global trade rules. If Biden’s trade war helps to defeat Trump in November, hindsight will judge him kindly. The cost of imposing new taxes on the US middle class and delaying America’s transition to green energy would have been outweighed by the benefit of saving US democracy.
But it is an open question whether Biden’s move will register at the polls. Since Trump will outbid him every time, some voters might prefer to go for the real thing. In 2019, Biden criticised Trump’s China trade war for harming US farmers and manufacturers. “It’s really easy to be tough when someone else absorbs the pain,” Biden said. After a four-year review, Biden this week said he would keep all of Trump’s China tariffs and raise him on others.