'Nobody Wins': US Hikes Tariffs on China as Economic Tensions Continue to Rise

Previously, China had warned the White House not to politicize bilateral trade and to abide by the “basic norms” of the market economy.

On Tuesday US President Joe Biden imposed tariff hikes on electric vehicles (EVs), semiconductors and other Chinese imported goods - it is the latest move in the escalating trade war between China and the US.

KJ Noh, a journalist, political analyst, writer, and a teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region, joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown on Tuesday to discuss the escalating trade war between China and the US.

“What we see right now is that for the US geostrategic goals supersede economic goals or economic benefits, right? And so, [the US] is trying to see what [they] can do to cripple the Chinese economy, not just in the short term, but over the long term. And also, the larger story of this is that the US sees any supply chain dependency on China as a risk right now,” said Noh. “They literally want to decouple, they want to revert to protectionism, neo-mercantilism, and they want to decouple as much as possible.”

“And so, what we're seeing right now is that the US is retreating from its Washington consensus. It's technically retreating from capitalism, as we understand it, in order to, you know, kneecap China,” he continued, adding that the US cannot compete with China and so they are “changing the rules.”

“The beating industrial heart of the global economy is China, and the US is going to suffer. Our people are going to suffer. The US economy is going to suffer. We are already heading into a depression and things are going to get worse. The ruling imperial elite, they're more concerned about their power than the direct economic effects that it will have on the masses," he added.

China is also making “big PR moves” that suggest the Chinese economy no longer needs to rely on the US, added Sputnik’s Angie Wong, who suggested that this concept is now becoming a reality.

During his five-day tour of Europe, Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping visited France, Serbia, and Hungary in a trip which focused primarily on trade, investments, and promoting a "new multipolar vision" of global politics. Despite their ideological differences, China and France were able to agree to an enhanced cooperation in agri-food, finance, aviation, civil nuclear energy and other fields, according to a recent report.

“This economic trade war is simply one dimension of a full spectrum hybrid war that the US is waging with China. And, certainly, one of the problems is that the US is not anticipating counter moves,” said Noh. “China will simply develop its own strength and it will develop more Global South partners. That's what some of the agreements with Hungary have to do with, and then it will also increase its dual circulation, its internal domestic capacity. And so, everybody loses. We're going down this route of lose-lose rather than win-win.”

A recent poll from the New York Times shows former President Donald Trump leading President Biden in five important battleground states. The most crucial voters for the Democratic president - young voters and Black and Hispanic voters - appear poised to vote for Trump as discontent over the economy and the Gaza war continues to grow.

“And then, this current set of neocons who are complete ideologues, I can't see them getting off this Sinophobic crusade,” said Noh, referring to the Biden administration. “I really believe that they would rather destroy the US economy and damage the living standards of the US people rather than find some meaningful accommodation in a global system that requires cooperation and win-win development.”

“People are saying, ‘We don't want to be subject to the vagaries, the wins, and the dictatorial mandates of the US in the way that it manipulates its reserve currency, that it can be sanctioned, that its reserves can be taken away, that it can have lawfare waged against it,’” said Noh. “And simply the fact that, ‘We are tired of giving our hard-earned goods to the US for essentially receiving in return an IOU that can never be redeemed, essentially, in US paper, treasuries, or US dollars.’”

The Kremlin press service recently reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China after having been invited by Xi. The report added that the two world leaders will discuss issues of bilateral cooperation in trade, the economy, and humanitarian issues.