Tariff Tantrums and Geopolitical Turbulence

The US, under President Donald Trump, declared a new Liberation Day on April 2, when he imposed a slew of "reciprocal" tariffs on all US trade partners.

- SHYAM SARAN

While these tariffs and their economic and commercial impacts on the US and the global economy are being examined threadbare, the geopolitical consequences of the underlying thinking behind this latest US move deserve closer scrutiny.

Mr. Trump's "tariff tantrum" risks decoupling the US from the rest of the world, making it a diminished power and creating spaces in the geopolitical landscape for other substantial powers to expand their agency and influence. Make no mistake—the chief beneficiary of the US retreat will be China. If it plays its cards well, which it does not always do, it could be on the brink of hegemony in Asia, if not the world.

If the US is celebrating its liberation from a world it believes has taken advantage of it throughout the post-Second World War period, the flip side is that the world may soon liberate itself from the US—by compulsion, if not by choice. The US risks becoming an outlier in whatever global order emerges from the pervasive disruption unleashed by Mr. Trump.

The sheer instinct for survival may drive countries to forge new arrangements to ensure their security, safeguard their economic interests, and build on affinities that may have remained latent—obscured by the power and influence of the US. This reordering may happen sooner in Asia, as US tariffs and transactional diplomacy accelerate the consolidation of China-led supply chains that now dominate the region's economy.