How do governments react the most smartest to Trump’s tariffs and threats? Affected states are very different in the problem, speak out threats or appease.
Is there a strategically correct answer to Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” in the customs dispute? If you look at the reactions of the 185 affected states, there are very different approaches to counter the Bulldozer tactics of the US President.
This is obvious because America’s trading partners also go into the negotiations with different requirements, be it the intensity of trade relationships or other non-economic weaknesses or means of pressure. Strength can only show who can afford an escalation. Nevertheless, the reactions also differ significantly in their tonality.
Commercial dispute between China and the USA: Jörg Endriss, ARD Beijing
Small trading partners are powerless
Obviously, many smaller states see themselves in a position of weakness, especially developing and emerging countries, which often have a modest trade surplus towards the United States. This also includes those responsible in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in the world. President Emmerson Mnangagwa instructed the government to suspend all tariffs on imports from the USA “to facilitate the establishment of a beneficial and positive relationship for both sides”.
Trump had announced a penalty of 18 percent for products from the Southeast African state. In addition, US sanctions against political leadership are in force, also against Mnangagwa. According to the US Ministry of Trade, Zimbabwe delivered products worth around 65 million euros to the United States last year, mainly tobacco and sugar. In contrast, US exports according to Zimbabwe had a value of around 40 million euros.
Experts see the steering of many smaller partners disadvantages for their economy, who often seek to protect their key industries from foreign competition through “educational duties”.
China wants to “fight to the end”
The reaction from China, for whose exports the United States are the most important buyer, and which with the United States recently achieved a huge commercial balance sheet surplus of $ 295 billion. Trump was correspondingly hard against the People’s Republic with tariffs of 34 percent – in addition to high penalty taxes on Chinese products.
Beijing reacted to this with a retaliation in the same height, whereupon Trump threatened with additional tariffs of another 50 percent if China should not withdraw this plan until Tuesday 6:00 p.m. (CEST). The Beijing Ministry of Commerce reacted immediately. “If the United States insists on going its own way, China will fight against it until the end,” said a ministry spokesman. At the same time, he asked the United States to “adequately invest the differences with China by an equal dialogue based on mutual respect”.
EU further emphasizes factually
While the signs are still on escalation here, those responsible for the European Union continue to emphasize their willingness to dialogue. The EU is the most important trading partner of the United States after the total volume of foreign trade, i.e. im- and exports. Germany alone makes up almost a quarter of this total volume. Most recently, Brussels offered the United States the mutual cancellation of all tariffs to industrial goods – which Trump promptly rejected as inadequate.
Of course, Europeans also throw their economic power into the balance, albeit significantly more cautious than the Chinese. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen repeatedly said that the EU has retaliation measures in the drawer should negotiate with the USA. For tactical reasons, she did not reveal what the “strong plan” of Brüssels looks like. The only thing that is certain is that Brussels works on other counter -tariffs. A digital tax against US internet giants is also apparently discussed.
Appacement or hardness?
The most promising negotiation tactics can perhaps show Trump’s most extensive exchange of blows with its closest trading partners according to the EU, Mexico and Canada. The two neighbors had relatively harshly reacted to Trump’s original threat of flat -rate penalty tariffs of 25 percent. Canada in particular offered the US president’s forehead with sensitive counter-tariffs.
After further threats and counter threats, both states received repeated customs accumulations – without the threats of Washington have so far been lifted. A certain steering of the US administration, which in any case does not speak against a harder counter-course.
Rather, Trump’s whole politics seems to be shaped by the fact that he only recognizes strength. However, a harder course against him must first calculate another drastic escalation – a dilemma that should also be discussed in detail in Brussels.
