In Trump’s trade wars, global values should find more time

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Editor's note: Ghanbar Naderi is an Iranian columnist and political commentator. The article reflects the author’s opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

US President Donald Trump has kicked off trade wars with several countries, even bashing China for “doing NOTHING to help us.”

China, Canada, and the European Union are not sitting on their hands. They have hit the US with retaliatory tariffs in a tit-for-tat reaction.

There is no reason to believe that Trump will not answer each counter-tariff with more tariffs of his own. A glance around Earth and one can quickly realize this is not what the world wants. What about global values?

China shouldn’t look for fight

Trump blames China for America’s problems. But the angry man with a vindictive streak only has himself and America‘s permanent wars to blame. He is no stranger to outsourcing.

US President Donald Trump introduces his daughter Ivanka during a visit to H&K Equipment Company in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, January 18, 2018. /VCG Photo.

Trump’s clothing line is produced in China. Ivanka Trump’s jewelry and footwear line’s production is also outsourced to China and other countries.

It goes way beyond asymmetry that a tectonic shift is taking place in the world and trade war is just a ruse, a deliberate distraction for Trump to flip the chess board – the animating principle of his presidency.

This is a geopolitical war for ascendancy to global leadership; a contest between the US and China, in which one is increasingly isolated, shunning allies and destabilizing the Eurasian giants and their new Silk Roads – the Belt and Road Initiative – while the other is globally trusted as a reliable partner, financing, investing, building, and cultivating robust ties.

From pulling out of international treaties to denigrating allies, to waging trade wars, to throwing the kitchen sink, the one-man foreign policy and impulsive actions of Trump have only broken the US and upended the international order, triggering a global slowdown – policies as opaque externally, as they are confused internally.

Even before Trump’s belligerent foreign policy positions and trade wars, America had been gradually losing its dominant role in world affairs. A power shift among the nations of the world began after the US and company invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker gives a speech during the traditional Matthiae-Mahl dinner on March 2, 2018 at the City Hall in Hamburg, northern Germany. /VCG Photo.

It has been accelerating when Trump decided to wage trade wars and ratchet up tweets of mass destruction against everything and everyone on the planet.

In contrast, China continues to be the single largest contributor to world GDP growth. For a global economy limping along at stall speed, China’s contribution is all the more important.

A few numbers bear this out. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF) currently expecting only 3.9 percent global growth this year and next, China would contribute nearly 39 percent of the total. China contributed 30 percent to global growth in 2017 – well above the United States, the European Union, and Japan. This positive contribution should be highlighted, not contained.

Making the case

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Chinese President Xi Jinping made this case for Chinese global leadership that was startlingly well received by the rich and powerful officials, business people, and experts in attendance.

Then in March, Canada formally joined a Chinese-led regional development bank that the Obama administration had opposed as an instrument of broadened Chinese influence; Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France were among the founding members.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, March 5, 2018. /VCG Photo.

In response, and in almost every region of the world, the Trump administration has continued to leave a mark, by blunder, inattention, miscomprehension, or willfulness.

The message has been amplified: with the US fighting trade wars and manufacturing threats, and with countries across the globe willing to form new trade alliances to leave the US behind, the American monopoly on symbols of power has officially been broken.

This means, among other things – and stressing it is never enough – that China doesn’t need to stop buying US Treasuries, devalue the yuan, or make life harder for US companies.

China has already made a splash with the affirmation of its global values and indispensable role in the world as a champion of all-inclusive peace and progress. Any doubters should ask the participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos.