Trump’s tariff war enters truce period

US President Donald Trump is facing tough reaction from Mexico, Canada and China after he raised tariffs against imports by 25 per cent against Mexico and Canada, and by 10 per cent against China.

Canada and Mexico got ready with their retaliatory 25 per cent tariff on American imports. Trump had decided to hold off the tariffs for a month. China had announced 10 per cent targeted tariffs against US imports. Beijing had also announced an investigation for monopoly against the Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Trump had a telephonic conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who promised to send 10,000 Mexican troops to the border with the US to check infiltration of drug traffickers. The expectation in Beijing and in Washington is that after the expected telephonic conversation between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the telephone call between the two leaders will happen in “couple of days”.

The expectation is that as in the case of Trump-Pardo conversation which led to the suspension of tariffs hike with Mexico, it is most likely that the tariffs against China would be suspended after the Trump-Xi telephonic conversation.

The American president seems to have believed that as the leader of the most powerful country in the world, he can get his way. But he is facing a pushback. Mexico and Canada retaliated.

When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio went to Panama, he warned that the 1999 treaty between the US and Panama handing over the Panama Canal to Panama would be revoked and America will resume control of the canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Panama President Jose Raul Mulino rejected the idea firmly and politely, though he promised to reconsider the contracts with Chinese companies.

Experts have also pointed out that China was not handling the Panama Canal, but it was holding ports at either end of the Panama Canal, and these ports were not part of the canal. So the US claim that China has control over the canal does not seem to hold water.

In the Middle East, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar along with the Palestinian Authority and Arab League have rejected the Trump proposal that the Palestinians in Gaza should be taken in by Egypt and Jordan. So, Trump’s brash and simplistic solutions and decisions are being pushed back.

It is a reminder to the feisty president that he cannot use American muscle power – economic and military – to impose his decisions in other parts of the world. Trump would have no option but to deal with the stubborn reality of global politics where there are many players, conflicting views and conflicting interests. Trump is being forced to recognise that it is not a unipolar world where America is the lone pole.

At the end of the day, Trump will have to learn to negotiate with America’s partners and rivals, and he will succeed in some matters and not succeed in others. Trump cannot hope to play the role of the global sheriff. America remains the largest economy, a military power and it can use its economic and military assets to persuade and pressurise other countries in the world, but it cannot impose its views on others unilaterally.

But Trump will not abandon his habitual bluster and the world will have to get used to it. But it does not have to feel apprehensive that he will do everything he says. He cannot and America cannot. The world has been a multipolar world for sometime now, and it will remain so in the foreseeable future as well. The days of the Big Brother are indeed over.