Shaukat Hayat Buneri
FOR almost two decades after the loss of Russia’s superpower status, the United States emerged as the world’s only superpower without participation and won the historic honor of fighting wars in the nooks and corners of the world. But this journey of American supremacy is now slowly coming to an end, and instead of Russia, China has now come up against the United States. It is as if history has turned the page. In this new chapter, American supremacy is dying. The trade war between China and the United States, which began in 2018, has now entered a decisive phase. When Trump came to power four years ago, his agenda was to stabilize the US economy and reduce the US trade deficit, to strengthen the US domestic manufacturing sector so that more Americans could find jobs. In response to this, the United States imposed a 15% tariff or import tax on Chinese imports. In response, China also imposed a 5 to 25% tax on US imports. In this context, the United States received 550 billion in tariffs.
But one will be surprised to know that US measures to stop China’s trade invasion have failed. Despite heavy taxes, China’s exports to the United States increased and the trade balance remained in China’s favor. The US trade deficit widened, while China’s trade surplus widened. Trade head plus is an economic term that has little practical application, but China has adopted it. A well-known Chinese video app company is currently in the throes of a trade war between the United States and China. The US Secretary of State said in a recent statement that President Trump has decided to impose sanctions on the United States. Mike Pompeo says the app is owned by a Chinese company that is accused of having data on 180 million American citizens and companies that the company shares with China’s ruling Communist Party. The company has vehemently denied the allegations, but Donald Trump fears that in the run-up to the election, the younger generation of Americans who are addicted to TikTok will be mentally engineered to vote against Trump.
Pompeo told Fox News that the company has become a “broad-based security risk” for the United States. The US government believes that many more US companies owned by Chinese-Americans are involved in US intelligence or espionage. Trump’s patience is running out, he says. “Enough is enough. We’ve decided to arrange it,” he said. On the other hand, Trump has instructed the American company Microsoft to buy the rights to operate inside the United States. US Senator Lund says that the United States has an advantage in this, on the one hand the local company will make a profit and on the other hand the possibility of spying for China will be eliminated. It is also pertinent to mention here that in the case of the Coronavirus, the United States is openly blaming China for the catastrophe caused by China which is responsible for the catastrophe all over the world. When news broke, Trump jokingly referred to the virus, and when asked, he said, “Now he says China is responsible for more than 200,000 deaths in the United States because the United States intends to take action against China and claim damages through the United Nations.
The US-China trade war has shattered the world’s notion of a global village, and the world is now moving back to the 1980s or earlier, drawing the line between the two factions of the world. One faction will be from China and the other from the United States. Against this background, the existence of the global supply chain network is in jeopardy. The world will shrink back to the regional level and borders will be stronger. The perception of the world will decline and the global supply chain will shrink. The supply chain originated with the United States, which planned to take over world trade. We have the example of companies like McDonald’s and Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In any case, the United States is concerned about protecting its supply chain, which is spread around the world. The two trillion packages are on Trump’s Trade Adviser’s desk, but the Chinese leadership’s confidence shows that it knows what to do next.
—The writer is freelance columnist, based in Buner KP
