Off-ramp to US-China tariff war

Life is Drama

4/28/2025

Transcript

00:00All right, Alexander, let's do an update on the US-China tariff war. And it does look like

00:08we are starting to get statements from both the US and from China that we could be moving towards

00:16some sort of de-escalation. I'm not quite sure how significant of a de-escalation is going to be.

00:24I'm not sure if we're getting any closer to some sort of a bilateral negotiation,

00:30which I imagine is the ultimate goal, is to get both sides at the table so they can discuss

00:36how to move forward, how to move towards a managed divorce, I think, is the best outcome.

00:42Yes.

00:43What are your thoughts on where we're going with the tariff?

00:46Absolutely. I think that is exactly what's happened. Now, I mean, there are a lot of reports

00:51circulating in the media, including the British media, by the way, that within two weeks' time,

00:57there'll start to be visible shortages of goods in US stores. And this is now putting pressure on

01:05Trump. I don't know whether that's true, could be. And there are also other reports that Chinese

01:11factories have stopped production. Again, probably true. But again, the extent to which that is true

01:17is difficult to say. But we've had the first comment from Trump. He speaks about the fact that

01:26China and the United States are going to see tariffs reduced. He importantly, he accepted,

01:35he acknowledged that the current tariffs are unsustainable, which is, of course, what we have

01:41been saying for the last two or three weeks. But he's accepted that the current tariffs that China

01:48and the United States have against each other are just unsustainable. He said the tariffs will come

01:53down. They won't come back down back to where they were before he was president. I don't think

02:00anybody accepts that. I don't think anybody in China accepts that. It looks to me as if he's trying

02:07to work his way towards a policy of protection, which is what we have been talking about. You can agree

02:15with it. You can disagree with it. But a policy of protection to protect US manufacturing industry to

02:22bring growth back away from the kind of outright economic wall, which we have been seeing develop

02:31over the last few weeks. Oh, there were important comments from Trump. Now, the Chinese have been

02:39making statements of their own. And here, I'm afraid there's been a great deal of misdirection, because

02:44there was a claim that the Chinese said that they would only talk after the United States rescinded

02:55all unilateral tariffs. In other words, all tariffs that Trump has imposed since he became president

03:02back in January. Now, I've scoured the Chinese media, the Chinese foreign ministry and other

03:11government websites to find confirmation of that. I haven't found it anywhere. It appears to derive

03:19from some words said by one official. What the Chinese are saying and what the Chinese officially

03:26are saying is, yes, we are prepared to talk. We're prepared to talk on an equal basis. I mean,

03:35they clearly are not prepared to make massive concessions, but they're certainly prepared to

03:42talk. And I'm going to make a guess. I think at some point within the next two weeks,

03:47we will see a proper negotiation start to get underway. And the first steps will be taken

03:52to start to bring the tariffs down. What would that mean as far as the escalation that has already

04:01taken place, the 100%, 145%, 125%? Are we going back to the baseline, to the 10% of the 20%?

04:12And then we're going to work things out from there? I suspect that Trump is going to go down

04:18to 20%. I think that's probably where this is going, actually. Which I think the Chinese can

04:26live with. I mean, they don't like it, but I think they can live with it. There will probably be some

04:31reciprocal tariffs from China as well. But I mean, the point is, trade can happen at that level.

04:39It can't happen when tariffs are at 145% or anything of that kind. But it's a massive economic shock that

04:48we have seen. And as you completely said, it will basically be clear that the tariff moves that have

04:58happened over the last few weeks was China and the United States serving on each other the economic

05:06divorce papers, because that's what it looks like. But at that point, we are into a situation of

05:13protecting American industry. It is no longer an economic war. It is no longer a project to

05:20destabilize China and crush its economy. And I think one of the reasons, by the way,

05:28why we've seen a softening of the American approach is not just because

05:35all of all these reports about goods starting to run out in American stores. There may be some of

05:45that going on. But I think the major reason is that the Scott Besant idea that countries around the

05:54world would rally to the United States and that China would be economically isolated.

06:00That just doesn't happen.

06:01It didn't happen. Yeah. And getting to the bilateral agreements with other countries,

06:07whether it be India, which already had an agreement that they were working on before the

06:12Liberation Day, Japan, South Korea, all these countries, it was taking time.

06:17I think the Trump administration, maybe Besant wasn't aware of this. I find it hard to believe,

06:24but who knows? Maybe they didn't understand that trade agreements are not hammered out in a couple

06:31of weeks. They can take many months to years. That's under ideal circumstances. That's under friendly

06:38circumstances. So all of this stuff was taking time and it wasn't working out the way they thought

06:45it was going to be. So is the US also going to remove the demand that countries don't trade with

06:55China? And is China going to take back their warnings to countries if they did agree to the US's

07:06demands to not trade with China, this whole reciprocal warning thing that was going on? So all of that is

07:11going to go away. Yes, I think so. Because as I said, it hasn't worked. I mean, Xi Jinping has had

07:17a very successful trip in Southeast Asia. He's visited various ASEAN countries. He visited Vietnam,

07:24Malaysia and Cambodia. And he seems to have been very well received there. J.D. Vance has been in

07:31India. I think that the Indians will have told J.D. Vance. Look, we have our issues with China and

07:39they're very difficult and they're very important. And we do want to have very good relations with you.

07:44But it is simply not practical for India to cut off trade with China in the way that you say. China is

07:50now India's biggest trading partner. It is a vital investor in the Chinese economy, in the Indian

07:56economy. It is providing India with infrastructure investment, which India absolutely needs if it is

08:04going to grow its economy further. And it has expertise to do it. I mean, I've been in discussions

08:11with people about this. India simply cannot afford this kind of economic cut off with China that some

08:18people in the United States might have thought. So I think that we will see that, you know, these demands

08:27Americans in the United States to stop dealing with China are going to gradually fade out. They probably

08:33won't be publicly pulled back. But the reality is the Americans will stop talking about them when they

08:41undertake these absolutely rightly, as you rightly say, very, very complex trade negotiations.

08:49The Chinese won't publicly take back their warnings, but their warnings won't be needed any further.

08:59And as I said, we'll be back finally to that position that arguably we should have been in,

09:05in the first place, where the United States pursues, moves towards a protectionist

09:10trade policies, which, as I said, you can disagree with. But they have a long history. They're nothing

09:20fundamentally new. And they have their advocates. And, you know, for all I know, they might even work.

09:27I'm not saying they will. But, you know, it is a viable economic policy, or at least an economic policy

09:34policy that has a strong intellectual underpinning. So the United States can do that. And China and the

09:42United States can pursue this economic divorce that we were talking about when Trump was president

09:48during his first term, and which seemed to be progressing at that time until his presidency was

09:56completely derailed two years in, after the Democrats gained control of the House and everything

10:05began to go completely wrong with Russiagate and all of that. So I think that, you know, if nothing else,

10:11this has had a galvanizing effect. But we're starting to see a return to a more stable course than the

10:21one that we've seen over the last few weeks, and a more sustainable one.

10:27Off topic, but maybe not off topic. Maybe not off topic, I'll ask you. And probably

10:33a video that we're going to, that we're definitely going to record at another time. But the tensions

10:39between India and Pakistan, do you think they're connected in any way to the tariff war, the tariff

10:49conflict between the US and China? Do you think there are other forces at work here? Just a quick,

10:56just a quick analysis there. And as I said, we'll get into depth on this topic in another video.

11:01We absolutely will.

11:02It does seem that there could be some sort of connection there with everything that's going

11:09on in the world, trying to escalate, to stir up escalation between India and Pakistan. We had an

11:15interesting statement from the Pakistani defense minister who did say that this was some sort of,

11:22he hinted at the fact that this could have been a false flag. And he did say that Pakistan has been

11:28doing the dirty work of the United States for decades. Something along those lines is what he said.

11:35Interesting statement from the defense minister of Pakistan.

11:36That was a very interesting statement. I have absolutely no doubt at all that this is what

11:40it is all connected to. None at all. But as you rightly say, this is something we do need to talk

11:46about in much more depth. I should say that the next couple of days following this program will show,

11:57our making of this program will show whether or not the situation between Pakistan and India,

12:03which is incredibly dangerous, by the way. Remember, they're both nuclear powers,

12:07whether it will escalate. The rhetoric from both sides is very strong. And the actions that each side

12:14has been taking against the other so far has also been very strong. It clearly, I've no doubt about this,

12:22it would not have happened had we not had this enormous crisis between the United States

12:30on the one side and China on the other. India is a kind of ally. Well, it's got a strong partnership,

12:39both with Pakistan. And now with India, its historical connection has been closer to Pakistan's

12:51than it has been with India. India historically was an ally or a friend of the Soviet Union. But Pakistan also

12:58has a very close relationship indeed with China, which is in some ways even more important for Pakistan

13:06than the one with the United States is. So undoubtedly, all of this is interconnected and it plays a

13:12significant role. But I think we need to have a better idea of where all this crisis is going because

13:18flare ups and tensions between India and Pakistan are very common. This one looks like it could be worse

13:28than some of the others that we have seen. But I think a proper analysis of it needs, as you

13:36correctly say, a dedicated program, and perhaps a better perspective of where exactly it's going.

13:41The timing of it. The timing of it.

13:42The timing is, there's no, I mean, there is no coincidence here. Let me put it like that.

13:47Yeah. Okay. We will end the video there, theduran.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey,

13:52Pitchu, Telegram, Rockfin, and X. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing

13:57in this video update. The link is in the description box down below. Use the code SPRING15 to get 15%

14:03off. Take care.

Off-ramp to US-China tariff war

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