The intent of the United States was to coerce China into making concessions. But this didn’t work. China was only inspired to reach out to other trading partners and become more independent through home-grown technological development.

The current deglobalization policy of the Trump administration in the form of tariffs, as well as its disregard for multilateral rules, will only lead to a slowdown in American economic growth. It will undercut the country’s technology advantages and hurt American families.

Trump’s ‘America First’ protectionist tactics are supposed to create advantages for the U.S. in trade and freeze out China in theory, but expect that the world needs America’s consumers to continue. New connections forming amid the trade war could mean instead, the U.S. is left out in the cold.

If the United States can adapt flexibly and prioritize consensus with its trading partners, it may solidify its economic dominance. Otherwise, persistent high tariffs risk deepening global trade fragmentation and will challenge America’s long-term influence.

The most recent trade talks between the United States and China in Geneva and London provided little more than temporary relief in the conflict between the world’s two largest economies. Despite US President Donald Trump’s efforts to tout the stopgap measures as a “deal” that benefits America, China reads the scoreboard differently – and believes it is winning. From its vantage point, it has weathered the storm and emerged more confident, more self-reliant, and more convinced that its long game is paying off.

Chinese manufacturing has come a long way – and by some measures, it is stronger than ever. Whereas foreign-invested enterprises were the driving force behind China’s manufacturing exports 20 years ago, most of these firms are now leaving China, having lost their market share to domestic competitors. And these dominant Chinese companies are not limited to the low-value-added production of the past. They are global leaders in many high-tech industries, such as semiconductors and electric vehicles, where they hold an absolute price advantage.

Washington is now piling up debt even in the absence of an emergency. In the long run, this sort of quick fix, where the cure is worse than the disease, will only worsen America’s economic fragility and add to uncertainty.

After a public split with Donald Trump over the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Elon Musk launched the America Party in an effort to challenge the U.S. two-party system. While his shifting stance on China adds strategic ambiguity, the party serves as a stress test for American democracy in an era of polarization and gridlock.

By equating artificial intelligence data flows with national security risks, the United States has effectively designated China as a presumptive problem. This has not only soured the atmosphere for bilateral AI cooperation but also promises to cast a long shadow over global AI collaboration.

China’s economy today bears an unsettling resemblance to Japan’s in the 1990s, when the collapse of a housing bubble led to prolonged stagnation. But Japan’s “lost decades” were not the inevitable result of irreversible trends; they reflected policy blunders, rooted in a flawed understanding of the challenges the economy faced. Will Chinese policymakers make the same mistakes?