Trump Remains Belligerent on His Trade Policy

President Trump has continued to claim benefits of his tariffs, and railed China and other “loser countries” in a press conference.

Bryan Watt | The Wire

---

US President Donald Trump has entered the headlines for his belligerent actions against China, namely, all the tariffs he had imposed on China. Recently, Trump has faced a press conference, in which gathered reporters interviewed him on his trade policies. His responses only serve to highlight his goal for America to re-assert his dominance on the world stage.

One claim Trump has made is his insistence that the US can “produce manufactured goods” in the face of tariffs, believing that such tariffs will result in “so many jobs” for American workers, believing that America’s economy can be buoyed by the application of such tariffs. This could not be further from the truth. According to the Tax Foundation, although Trump’s imposed tariffs will raise $2.1 trillion in revenue over the next decade on a conventional basis, the tariffs will

reduce US GDP by 0.5 percent, even before foreign retaliation is considered. In other words, in the words of the foundation, the tariffs “threaten to offset much of the economic benefits of the new tax cuts” the President has promised, “while falling short of paying for them”. In other words, rather than providing more jobs to workers, tariffs will increase unemployment in America. However, Trump remains adamant that tariffs will make America Great Again.

Even worse is President Trump’s opinions regarding all the third-party countries that are not named China or America, with him referring to many of them as “loser countries”. According to Trump, these “loser countries” export “guns”, “drugs”, and “gang violence” to the United States, contributing to his low opinion towards these countries. Hence, Trump had also displayed his lack of empathy for all the other countries hit hard by the tariffs, whether they were slapped with tariffs by the US or they were indirectly affected by the trade spat between the US and China.

One example that showcased this was when Trump was asked about measures to minimise the impact of the tariffs on all the other countries. The Wire had asked this particular question out of concern for countries negatively affected by the tariffs. For instance, India had been hit by American tariffs enforced from August 27, 2025, which were 50% duties imposed by the US government on a wide range of Indian goods. India had managed to diversify its exports,2 but its

GDP was still cut between 0.3% to 0.5%.3 However, not many countries were that lucky. Bangladesh, a key Indian partner in the region, was slapped with a 37% tariff on its garment exports. Such a tariff will very likely lead to drastically cut garment orders from US buyers, resulting in the Bangladesh garment industry facing declining export revenue, forcing garment factory owners to lay off their workers. For an industry that employs more than 4 million people

in Bangladesh, this tariff spells an unemployment crisis in the making. It is clear that Trump’s tariffs are causing economic problems around the globe.

Trump did not give a straight response, only stating that America will support countries that conform to its demands, such as cooperation on stopping gang violence, drug trafficking, etc. Not only is this help unspecific, but the help is also transactional. The message is clear in Trump’s pronouncement: give in to the US, or suffer economically. This answer highlights the primary aim of all of these tariffs, which is the assertion of US dominance over the rest of the world.

The last and biggest announcement of the press conference with Trump is on whether he believes that the Phase 1 Agreement with China has a future. His reply was a simple “No.” This answer goes against the various commitments made in the agreement, such as technology transfers and trade expansions, and re-normalises the state of economic hostility between America and China. This answer, perhaps greater than any other announcement, signals a return to a world in 2018, where America was bent on reasserting its dominance on the world.