IT’S OVER: Who’s WINNING the Trade War? Not America (Uncut) 04-29-2025

 IT’S OVER: Who’s WINNING the Trade War? Not America

Welcome back everyone, thank you so much for joining me today. Now that we are in the midst of a geopolitical power shift with the unipolar moment as Marco Rubio admitted being over. So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power that was not that was an anomaly it was the product of the end of the Cold War but eventually you were gonna reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world multi great powers and different parts of the other planet we face that now with China and to some extent you know Russia.

The change in the paradigm necessitates a change in our approach to the events that unfold in front of our eyes. You don’t need to be pro-left, you don’t need to be pro-right or pro-anything in the middle but it is important to be pro-truth and sometimes unfortunately more often than not these days truth can be inconvenient and it can be uncomfortable but it doesn’t mean that we need to brush it aside because if we do it will come back to bite us in the end. Even some of US media outlets seem to understand this.

A recent article published by Bloomberg titled the United States is already losing the new Cold War to China caught my eye. The greatest power struggle of our time isn’t unfolding on a battlefield at least not yet. It is a simmering global rivalry between the world’s two great power states the United States and China and despite the tough talk and tariffs despite military drills and diplomatic pressure the uncomfortable truth is this the United States may already be losing the new Cold War.

This isn’t a sudden rivalry by the way. As early as 1989 China’s statesman Deng Xiaoping warned of a coming Cold War with the United States but then in 2017 Donald Trump made it official he declared China as quote a strategic competitor and so since then the contest has already sharpened economically militarily and of course ideologically. Just days ago Donald Trump claimed that the United States is back at the table with China negotiating a new beautiful trade deal asked who exactly met with the Chinese officials he shrugged he said it doesn’t really matter who they are said the US president.

Hours later Chinese officials dismissed the claim entirely calling reports of any talks groundless Trump even promised that his tariffs would be lowered he said they would substantially come down but here’s the twist China says no such talks are actually happening and behind the scenes Beijing isn’t blinking it is biding its time watching Washington fumble. In this high-stakes standoff it is becoming clear China believes that it is winning the trade war and they might be right. It is a telling sign of just how out of sync the US is with its supposed adversary and just how little urgency China feels to come to the negotiating table.

Trump once declared that quote trade wars are good and they’re easy to win. His logic the United States sends more money to China than it receives from China so if America stops buying Chinese goods China will lose but unfortunately that is not how trade works. Think of it like this you probably run a trade deficit with your grocery store every time you actually use your credit card to purchase food but you’re not losing money are you you’re getting something in return you’re getting the food you’re getting value in return and in a global economy China’s goods are far more critical to the United States than our money is to them.

Sorry to break it to you minerals, electronics, pharmaceuticals things we can’t really easily get elsewhere and we can’t really produce ourselves domestically because our policies fail to set up the industrial base prior to cutting us off of a billions of dollars worth of products that we need and we use on a daily basis take rare-earth minerals for example China just cut off exports of vital components used in smartphones in electric vehicles and even in military drones. These minerals power everything from Tesla batteries to US missile systems. One expert actually warned it would take the United States he said 10 to 15 years to build a China free supply chain but many US firms can’t wait that long they’re going to run out of these critical components within months meanwhile China is already pushing its exports to other markets it is adapting it is diversifying and waiting it out and it’s not un-American to admit this it is un-American I would argue to want to silence those who point out the inadequacies in our policies that ultimately harm you and your families What’s President Trump’s next move? Rally the allies.

He’s asked Japan the EU and others to reduce trade with China and join a US-led economic bloc but no one is biting even Japan said yeah we’re not in in a rush to negotiate on your terms even Japan and that tells us something so Japan said no the EU says that they won’t decouple from China and why is that well because they rely on Chinese goods too and they’ve watched Trump tear up trade deals and slap tariffs on Europe also without warning so to them the United States doesn’t really look like a stable partner anymore and President Trump hasn’t even clarified he hasn’t clearly explained what he wants from China other than for a decades-old trade deficit to magically disappear and here’s where it gets really political in China Xi Jinping doesn’t face elections he can indeed absorb economic pain without fear of losing power in fact Trump’s tariffs give Xi Jinping a convenient scapegoat blame America for China’s slowdown so just like the tariffs are a gift to the BRICS nations in general as was discussed in my recent interview with the BRICS expert tariffs are actually a gift to China too in the United States it is a different story of course Trump’s approval on economic policy just hit a record low it now stands at 37% according to Reuters and the real damage hasn’t even begun retailers are still working through inventory that they purchased in the beginning of the year as they tried to front load their purchases to sort of mitigate the risk of tariffs but soon prices will spike supply chains are already breaking there is a 60% decline in cargo shipments heading to the United States as I shared in my recent video jobs will be lost because businesses won’t get the supplies they need Trump’s recent behavior may suggest that he is feeling the heat after a week of boasting about high tariffs he is now hinting at massive reductions before even securing a deal with China but the problem is even that kind of talk China isn’t buying anymore Beijing wants a full rollback of tariffs a full rollback of tariffs just think about that just to begin negotiations with the United States and they’re betting that Trump will blink first the longer they wait the more desperate Washington becomes it is a power shift but this isn’t just about trade it’s about global leverage China is flexing its economic muscle showing that it can use supply chains to its advantage which someone in the White House should have been competent enough to admit and to to be aware of before imposing a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods the United States is showing that it can’t rally allies as is the case with the EU and Japan and it can’t even keep its story straight if this continues the United States risks ceding economic leadership not just to China but to a world that sees America as unpredictable and reactive and therefore unreliable and can we really blame them here in the United States people are feeling the same it’s not a winning strategy China isn’t just outlasting Trump’s tariffs it’s out playing him a trade war once referred to as easy to win is looking more like a slow strategic defeat tech and trade are now weapons tariffs can drive positive change if they are coupled with other well-designed economic policies when tariffs are used as a political tool we shouldn’t be surprised that the fallout leads to empty shelves and surging prices this isn’t just about economics anymore it’s about who says the rules in the future and this isn’t just a simple rivalry between superpowers it’s a global chess game and the United States isn’t winning at the moment thank you very much for watching I appreciate your time if you found this insightful interesting drop a like and hit that subscribe button become a subscriber at world affairs and context calm I’d love to see you there and I will see you back here tomorrow enjoy the rest of your day bye for now