The US is prioritising China over the world's poorest countries

Washington is fuelling China's rise.

The latest US climbdown means that from July to August 2025, China will face a lower tariff on its exports to the US than 10 of the world’s poorest countries.

On Monday the US cut its tariffs on China by 115 percentage points to 30% for 90 days. Pre-April 2nd tariffs on steel, aluminium, electric cars and solar panels, remain in place. China agreed to lop the same amount off its own tariffs on US goods, bringing the rate to 10%. China said it would end non-tariff measures like banning exports of rare earths to the US.

This means that if no further agreement is reached, current US rates on China will remain in place until mid-August 2025. Meanwhile, unless anything changes for other developing countries, for them the 90-day pause ends on July 10th.

So US tariffs on these poor nations, whose trade makes little difference to the US, will be higher than China for at least a month — much higher in some cases. These economies are all smaller and poorer than China. In some cases, tariffs could devastate their economies because they rely on sending clothing and textiles to the US.

Although countries like Lesotho have reportedly made overtures to Washington, offering to take Trump’s crony Musk’s Starlink, they’ve presumably been rebuffed because they’re seen as unimportant. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of livelihoods lie in the balance.

These countries will not only be placed in a worse position than their bigger and richer competitor in the US, they’ll be simultaneously pushed closer into China’s orbit. In December last year Beijing abolished all tariffs and quotas on imports from least developed countries — the opposite to what Trump is doing.

At the moment ten countries will face higher tariffs than China from July to August: Lesotho, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Madagascar, Laos, Botswana, Bangladesh, Haiti, Nepal and Myanmar.

As I said before, Trump doesn’t care because he’s a greedy far-right elitist who’s obsessed with his own reflection. His policy is incoherent and incompetent rather than specifically designed to cause pain — he just doesn’t think about the less advantaged unless it benefits himself. If poor people aren’t useful to him, they’re expendable.

He prioritised negotiations with China because he realised the tariffs were battering the US economy and own ratings. Stocks collapsed. The Treasury market tanked along with the dollar. By April 27th, 57% of Americans disapproved of Trump, the lowest for any newly elected president at that point in their term since the 1950s.

He was also probably scared by Beijing’s restriction of critical metals exports used in defence, solar panels, electric vehicle batteries and other green energy goods. China produces about 60% of the world’s rare earths and accounts for 90% of processing in the industry. Tariff man was weaker than he thought.

And in any case, trade isn’t a competition between nations. Globalisation is about the internationalisation of capital, consumption and ideas. The interests of Chinese and US capitalists merge, which means that a trade deal was always likely. I’d bet on a more permanent agreement.

Apple makes most of its phones in China and can’t quickly move elsewhere. Tesla has a Gigafactory in Shanghai and sells a lot of cars there, even if it’s losing market share to China’s BYD. Retailers like Walmart buy most of their goods from China. Trump backtracked on banning Chinese-owned TikTok and said the US might buy it.

So in his latest bout of flip-flopping Trump's just confirmed his country’s reliance on China. He's shown that he won’t use high tariffs in future.

He’ll fail to achieve his stated aims. 30% isn't enough to meaningfully protect domestic industry or ‘bring back manufacturing,’ especially if he doesn’t build the wider ecosystem needed for reindustrialisation. The instability and uncertainty will make industrialisation harder because it will disincentivise incoming investment.

He's also confirmed what most sensible observers knew about the fiscal situation — that tariff revenues won't compensate for his aggressive tax and spending cuts. His needless destabilisation of markets added a premium to borrowing costs. The fiscal deficit will worsen.

All he’s done is needlessly victimise some less developed economies and driven them toward Beijing, whilst slowing the US economy, blowing out the fiscal deficit, and further eroding the US’s international standing. China’s ascent continues.