Commentary: Trump is sowing the seeds of an anti-American alliance

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LONDON: “Our strategy on tariffs will be to shoot first and ask questions later.” That was what one of Donald Trump’s key economic policymakers told me late last year.

That kind of macho swagger is currently fashionable in Washington. But the US president’s shoot-from-the-hip tactics are profoundly dangerous – for America itself, as well as the countries that he has targeted with tariffs.

The potential economic risks for the US – higher inflation and industrial disruption – are well known. The strategic consequences for America are less immediately obvious – but could be just as serious and even longer lasting.

Trump’s tariffs threaten to destroy the unity of the Western alliance. He is sowing the seeds of an alternative grouping formed by the many countries that feel newly threatened by America. Cooperation will be informal at first, but will harden the longer the tariff wars go on.

GOING AFTER ALLIES MORE VIGOROUSLY THAN ADVERSARIES

The collapse of Western unity would be a dream come true for Russia and China. Trump himself may not care; he has often expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

But Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz – the men Trump has appointed as secretary of state and national security adviser – both claim to believe that containing Chinese power is the central strategic challenge facing the US.

If that is the case, it is profoundly stupid for Trump to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico (although the Mexicans may have negotiated a one-month stay of execution). In so doing, he risks creating a convergence of interest between these three countries – as well as the European Union, which has been told it is next in line for the tariff treatment.

When the Biden administration took office in 2021, the EU was poised to push through a new investment agreement with China. But that wa...

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