In April 2025, the Trump administration in the United States brazenly launched the "reciprocal tariff" policy, and the global financial market plunged in response, the US stock market evaporated more than $1 trillion in market value in a single day, and the S&P 500 index recorded the largest decline in five years. This trade war caused by the logic of "businessman rule" not only impacts the global economic order, but also pushes the game of great powers to a new climax. China's choice of hard and tough countermeasures, Vietnam's compromise to survive, the European Union, Japan and Australia wavering - the international situation fission and reconstruction, is writing a new chapter in history.
1. China's hard and tough: multidimensional countermeasures to break the "American trap"
In the face of the 34% punitive tariffs of the United States, China quickly played a combination of "trade + technology + rules". The first round of countermeasures targeted US agricultural products, soybean tariffs increased to 15%, directly hitting Trump's "vote warehouse" Midwest agricultural states; Rare earth export controls have pinched the "throat" of the US high-tech industry, and Tesla's battery factory has been forced to stop work due to supply cuts. More far-reaching, China has accelerated the integration of regional industrial chains through RCEP. In the first quarter of 2025, trade with ASEAN increased by 12.7 percent year-on-year, and Vietnam's agricultural exports to China surged by 45 percent.
This "asymmetric deterrence" strategy not only relies on the world's largest domestic market, but also on the technological breakthrough of chip self-sufficiency rate of 70% and new energy vehicles accounting for 65% of the global share. As foreign media commented: "China's countermeasures list is not only an economic weapon, but also a strategic declaration."
2. Vietnam's quest for survival: The dilemma of "sitting on the wall" between the cracks
As the "spare tire" of the United States' industrial chain transfer to China, Vietnam seems to reap short-term dividends, but it is actually Mired in deep contradictions. Although it relies on cheap labor to undertake some manufacturing, it relies on China for 60 percent of key components, and its profit margins have been squeezed sharply after the tariff war pushed up costs. What is more serious is that Vietnam tried to unite Australia, Japan and India to build an "anti-China alliance", but was hit in the face by reality - China is its largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding 230 billion US dollars in 2024, far more than the United States.
This torn line of "relying on China's economy and on beauty's security" is doomed to be unsustainable. "If China and the US are fully decoupled, we won't even be able to make screws," a Vietnamese scholar admits.
3. The European Union, Japan and Australia: Strategic anxiety in the swing
The EU faces a difficult choice between "security generalization" and "economic autonomy." On the one hand, it imposed retaliatory tariffs on 26 billion euros of US goods and launched a 14.1 billion euro corporate aid program; On the other hand, the leaders of Germany and France paid intensive visits to China. China-eu trade rose to 785.8 billion US dollars, bucking the trend, and cooperation on new energy and artificial intelligence became a new highlight.
Japan is in a "steel and aluminum dilemma." U.S. tax increases could reduce its crude steel production by millions of tons, while China's rare earth controls have stalled Toyota's plans to build a factory in the United States. The Japanese media lamented: "We have become the 'sandwich layer' of the great power game."
Australia's hedging is even more ludicrous. 055 major drive around the offshore waters of Australia, warning them not to "one-sided" with the Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States; The recovery of iron ore and milk powder trade under the China-Australia free trade Agreement has forced the Australian government to walk a tightrope between military exercises and cooperation with China.
4. Reconstruction of the International Order: From "American Center" to "Multipolar Symbiosis"
Trump's tariff stick has unexpectedly accelerated the process of "de-Americanization" of global supply chains. German car companies have cut exports to the United States, and Mexico has replaced China as the largest trading partner of the United States, but 60 percent of its intermediate products still come from Chinese subsidiaries. The hegemony of the US dollar has also been challenged: the average daily transaction volume of the RMB cross-border payment system has exceeded 2.4 trillion yuan, and many countries have accelerated the promotion of local currency settlement.
The essence of this game is the ultimate showdown between unilateral hegemony and multilateralism. Yale University predicts that if the tariff war continues, GDP will shrink by 1% in 2025, and China's domestic market and technology break through, the risk is generally controllable. History has repeatedly proved that the zero-sum game of "beggar-thy-neighbor" will eventually be swallowed up by the tide of win-win cooperation.
Conclusion:
There are no real winners in the tariff war. But China's hard-and-fast countermeasures, the EU's pragmatic cooperation, and Southeast Asia's sober choices are writing new footnotes to globalization. While the United States indulges in the "art of the deal," the world has voted with action: a new era of multipolar symbiosis will not die with hegemony.
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