As an example, only now that kind of public seems to discover the way how America recently forced two Asian powers, India and Pakistan, to make peace. And, I have to add rather hastily, the Russian public does not in the least believe that narrative.
We are talking about an editorial in Nezavisimaya (The Independent), a very decent Moscow newspaper where I worked for four years. First, that editorial quotes Donald Trump’s words at the APEC summit in Korea, last week, about his calls to New Delhi and Islamabad with a threat to impose 250 per cent tariffs on both countries, unless they stop the fight. And, second, The Independent drops a bit of poison, saying that, apparently, we encounter here a new method of stopping wars.
That method should be called conflict trumpization, and “the only working mechanism of it is Donald Trump himself, eager to put a decorative end to yet another conflict”. But one should not be too hasty to believe in such miracles, conclude my former colleagues, hinting that the real machinery ending hostilities with Pakistan was probably very different from what Trump was saying.
So, we should not believe that a threat of a virtual embargo on trade with US is always strong enough to achieve any results in modern-day politics. Or, at the very least, the impact of such threat tends to become smaller and smaller. The recent big gathering of Asian powers and their partners in Malaysia and Korea gave us heaps of proof of that reality. These were ASEAN and APEC summits, attended in many cases by representatives of the same powers.
I have stocked up, in my dossier, several dozen of commentaries on the significance of these meetings, but the golden medal goes to one feature in the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong). Its title says it all – “The long goodbye: Southeast Asia adjusts to a post-America trade future”.
That feature describes how Trump’s tariffs are squeezing margins, re-routing supply chains and forcing companies to wean themselves off the US market. It’s a slow and natural process towards future without America, something that’s going well below the level of inter-governmental agreements.
In case of Malaysia, a trade agreement with the US has been concluded on the margins of the ASEAN summit, so as to minimize the impact of those US tariffs, that stayed imposed on Malaysian goods in spite of being slightly lowered after humiliating negotiations. But at the same time, the South China Morning Post tells us about Southeast Asia’s small and medium-sized enterprises that are regrouping and reluctantly preparing for a long-term future with less dependence on America. For many, that means turning inward: finding new markets closer to home, tightening margins and limiting exposure to tariffs. For others, it’s about looking at different markers, previously ignored.
But in any case, if it goes on like that, there’ll be less and less chance for any future attempt of the US to do a trumpization of a regional conflict or, indeed, to achieve any political aim by using trade as weapon. For good or for bad, lots of companies or whole nations will choose to depend less on trade with the US, so as to keep a bit more of independence in their actions.
But then, that dependence will be diminished in any case, since Trump’s tariffs are likely to reduce America’s share in the global trade. These tariffs are not an arbitrary act, and not a passing fancy. To quote the source, that is Trump himself in his recent CBS News interview - what happens to economy if the Supreme Court invalidates the tariffs? And here is the answer: “I think our country will be immeasurably hurt. I think our economy will go to hell.” And it will, have no doubt about it. So it’s a case of “either – or”.
Either you change the very model of the US economy, which will have to make your markets less accessible and deprive you of your trumpization weapon, or you will go to hell, indeed.
That weapon is getting blunter even now, anyway. And the results of the last week’s Asian summits show it very well. APEC used to be a wonderful venue to watch for changes in power balance at least in the Pacific, and APEC keeps that role. One has a chance, by attending or following that annual event, to note the smallest shifts at least in the power game of the two superpowers there, that is US and China. And what do we have in that regard after the recent Korean APEC? We have an American-Chinese deal, a kind of a compromise, is that right?
But it was amazing to see how that compromise have been called an American defeat by Russian, or Asian, or indeed American commentators. The reason for that verdict was simple: if you want to upkeep trumpization of your diplomacy, you cannot make trade deals with anybody. You have to stay all-powerful just because everyone is supposed to cave in, for fear of not trading with you.
And what happened to America when it made a deal with China? Here my choice is a Foreign Affairs essay Structure Trumps Agency in the U.S.-China Relationship by a very Democratic lady called Mira Rapp-Hooper. That’s her logic, cruel and simple: during Trump’s first term in office, his officials “raised alarms about Beijing’s growing technological prowess, its military buildup, and its dominance over the critical minerals industry. They slapped sanctions on Chinese entities, imposed tariffs on U.S. imports of Chinese goods, placed some restrictions on the country’s access to semiconductors”, and so on.
What now? “When Trump returned to office four years later, China was one of the only areas in which analysts expected continuity. Yet Trump has dashed these expectations. In fact, since starting his second term, the president and his closest advisers appear determined to build a commercially based détente with Beijing. The president imposed crippling tariffs on China in April but then quickly lowered them”, and so on.
Simply speaking, if you begin your fight proclaiming that you are able to contain the economic growth of your partner, then a trade deal with it is a defeat. And if that deal has been reached by diminishing your trade leverage on that adversary, then everyone else starts thinking about the benefits of weakening that leverage, too.
To go back to The Independent editorial, there is one nation that cannot be pressed by the US directly into a faulty peace agreement, or indeed into anything. And that country is Russia.
Why so? There are many reasons, military or geographical ones, but let’s stick to trade realities, since we are at it. The Russo-US trade turnover used to be over 34 billion dollars in 2021. But it’s only 3.5 billion now. That’s compared to 717 billion of all the Russia’s foreign trade in 2024. So it’s small wonder that, in the same interview, Donald Trump is saying that he is expecting new commercial deals with Russia to be reached soon, and Russia wants it very much. But then, everyone in Moscow will remember that at least with one big power too much trade may be a problem.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com