“China is the world’s friend and the Filipino people’s family”
ON APRIL 23, 2025 the major US news outlet website CNN headlined on its business page: “Trump says China tariffs will ‘come down substantially,’ hinting at potential U-turn.”
On the same day other international news wires published the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement, “US Treasury secretary says trade war with China is not ‘sustainable’.”
This comes only 21 days after Trump’s “Great Wall of tariffs” on April 2, 2025 “Liberation Day” declared against China.
Trump started the tariff war against China roaring like a crazy, rampaging bear snorting fire, raging against China by piling upon Trump 1.0 tariffs on China with new tariffs two months into Trump 2.0 raising tariff against Chinese imports up to 245 percent on April 15, 2025.
Every analyst took this to mean the inevitable “de-coupling” of the US economy from China and that bifurcation of the World economy had begun. A new economic Cold War splitting the globe into two economic major blocs.
China, throughout Trump 1.0 from 2017 to 2021 and Trump 2.0 starting Jan. 20, 2025 to the present, has abided by Sun Tzu’s advice: “Winning through strategy and intelligence rather than brute force for ‘subduing the enemy without fighting’.”
Upon announcement of the tariffs Trump demanded countries make a beeline to Mar-a-Lago to “Kiss My Ass” while expecting Chinese president Xi Jinping to “request a call with Trump” that the Chinese leader quietly snubbed while internal US contradictions pressured Trump and China took reciprocal actions.
Internally, Trump faced overwhelming pressures from major US companies that rely on their manufacturing offshored to China to supply their American market, such as Apple which produces 90 percent of its iPhones in China.
American small businesses rely on Chinese imports to sell toys, cosmetics, appliances on Chinese imports, while the US health sector relies heavily on Chinese pharmaceuticals.
Just three days after “Liberation Day” on April 5, Trump had to declare a 90-day “pause” on the tariffs and specifically on cellphone, chips and pharmaceuticals.
While China imposed reciprocal tariffs to respond to Trump’s ridiculously high anti-China tariffs, the real telling actions of China were, first of all, the total export ban on rare earth elements and particularly the ban on processed critical minerals gallium, germanium, and antimony, that will disrupt US production in the energy, electronic chips, computer, defense industries that would take five to ten years to find alternative sources.
China moved to import billions of LNG and soybeans from Canada and Brazil that it used to get from the US.
China has strategized its reduction of dependence on the US market since Trump 1.0 in 2017, reducing the share of exports to the US down to only 2.5 percent of its GDP today.
On the other hand, China has been expanding its market amongst the Global South countries where its trade has grown by more that $200-billion since 2021.
China’s biggest regional trading partner is ASEAN with close to $ 1-trillion annual turnover, while economically growing BRICS and BRI countries ensure ample expansion in the years ahead. China can do without the US.
China has strategized the future since 2013 when the Belt and Road Initiative to build global infrastructure-economic corridors were launched to ensure development of emerging economies while China peacefully advanced.
It’s a two-way circulation of goods and services to and from China, the infrastructures climaxed recently in Peru’s Chancay Port to bring goods to and from Asia and South America, and in the CIIE (China International Import Expo) where 152 countries, regions and international organization show what they can sell to China.
While the US struggles to reverse its precipitous economic-financial crash, China is super-confident about its economic future with the rest of the world – starting with ASEAN.
While the US is trying to abort the rise of ASEAN with the highest sweeping tariffs of up to 49 percent China is instituting “Zero tariff” for 94.6 percent of goods from ASEAN.
China assures ASEAN of increased purchases and investments amid the US tariff and trade war threats, while Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian assures the Philippines its open door for its goods.
Meanwhile, the US continues its peddling of F-16s, Typhon, NMESIS and now MADIS missiles in military drills of the US and the AFP to sell on loan more weapons of war the Philippines needs like a hole-in-the-head while the self-rated poverty level in the country stands at 63 percent, the highest since 2003.
China is the world’s friend and the Filipino people’s family, as we all strive to achieve the “Community of Shared Future for Mankind.”
