Chaos & Order

U: President Donald Trump has created chaos in international trade and economic order through his skewed and short-sighted tariff war.

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But, out of the chaos a new order is slowly emerging in which China is positioning itself as the pivot. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ongoing tour of the South-Asian countries of Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week, days after the imposition of new tariffs by the US administration on 2 April point to this realignment of economic forces. The flip flops and contradicting messages emanating from the White House on the quantum of tariffs seem to have only strengthened the Chinese resolve to formulate its new international economic policy that is likely to be far more effective than its Belt and Road Initiative. The crude escalation initiated by the American President has only reinforced China’s belief that it must minimize its dependence on the United States and introduce an entirely new dynamic that will lead to a decoupling of the world’s two largest economies, which till date seemed impossible.