Tariffs Are the Weapon. China Is the Target.

To make sense of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, you have to start with one simple truth: this is about China. It may not look like it on the surface—with new tariffs hitting everyone from Europe to the Caribbean—but China is the target. It always has been. Once you view it through that prism, everything starts to make a lot more sense.

For decades, the global trade system has been gamed by Beijing. What was originally designed as a framework for reciprocal, rules-based trade among free-market economies was twisted beyond recognition when Bill Clinton ushered China into the World Trade Organization in 2001. That decision, sold to the public as a step toward liberalizing China, now ranks among the greatest strategic blunders in U.S. history. China never intended to play by the rules—and it never did.

Instead, it turned the system inside out. Currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, massive state subsidies, debt-trap diplomacy, and an unyielding wall of domestic protectionism became the pillars of China’s economic model. The goal wasn’t competition. It was domination. And while the Chinese Communist Party tightened its grip, Wall Street and U.S. multinationals cheered them on, happy to reap the short-term profits of offshored factories and cheap goods.

Trump saw the danger early. And now, with only a short window to reverse decades of policy failure, he’s chosen the bluntest possible tool: tariffs. Not because he believes tariffs are perfect—but because there is no alternative. The entire trade regime—built around the idea of fair, rules-based exchange—has already collapsed. The only question now is whether we rebuild something new or let the rot continue.

While all the talk has been about tariffs, they’re just a tool. What Trump’s “Liberation Day” really signals is a push for economic sovereignty. It’s about decoupling from China and redrawing the rules and boundaries of global trade. For too long, the global economy has been operating under a fiction: that China was a normal trading partner, one that would liberalize with time. That illusion is dead. China is a one-party state, hostile to the West, and committed to weaponizing trade for its own ends. Meanwhile, the American middle class has been gutted, industrial towns hollowed out, supply chains shipped overseas. The U.S. has become dangerously dependent on China—not just for cheap electronics, clothing and shoes, but for pharmaceuticals, rare earths, batteries, and even for essential components used in military hardware. But perhaps worst of all, the U.S. subsidized all of this. It literally paid for the rise of a hostile regime in the naive belief that economic integration would lead China to liberalize.

To the casual observer, it may look like Trump is going to war with the entire global trade system—and this may not seem to make sense if what he’s really after is decoupling from China. But on closer inspection, it makes perfect sense. Aside from having foolishly funded the rise of a hostile country, the U.S. also subsidized the defense of its so-called allies, who then outsourced their supply chains to Beijing and padded their welfare states with the savings. To add insult to injury, other countries became massive transshipment hubs—conduits for Chinese goods to evade U.S. trade restrictions. When you see a broad sweep of countries being hit with tariffs, the reason is that almost every country has in one way or another facilitated China.

So we have to look at this on multiple levels. The direct tariffs on Chinese goods aim to sever that relationship outright. Direct measures also entail tightening rules around programs like de minimis, which have allowed Chinese firms to flood the U.S. market with untaxed goods by breaking up shipments into packages under $800. But if those were the only kinds of moves—as they largely were in Trump’s first term—China could simply shift production to Vietnam or Mexico and keep cutting sweetheart deals with Europe, all while the U.S. continued footing the bill, in terms of massive trade deficits, in terms of dependency, and in terms of paying for global security. That arrangement was never sustainable and that is why it’s not just China that is being targeted. Trump is moving to close those loopholes but, more importantly, he is forcing countries to choose: act as conduits for China or trade with the United States. They won’t be able to do both for much longer.

Just today, Vietnamese leader To Lam offered to cut his country’s tariffs in an attempt to avoid U.S. tariffs. That’s a good sign—but it’s only a first step. The last thing the U.S. will do is strike a free trade deal with Vietnam without ironclad guarantees that China can no longer use it as a back door to the American market.

For years, China played the world for fools, growing rich off a system it never respected. Now, that era is ending. The adjustments will be difficult, but they are long overdue. The postwar trade system, based on the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, was never designed to accommodate a country like China, and the decision to let them in was one of the greatest strategic mistakes of the last half-century.

That mistake is now being corrected. China won’t go quietly, and the global economy will feel the strain. But in the end, restoring fair competition and reducing reliance on a hostile power is a price worth paying. The days of China gaming the system unchecked are over.