UT Austin Professor: US tariffs, threats 'absolutely' set up China for regional trade takeover

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — On again, off again tariffs have been one of President Donald Trump’s primary tools of international and domestic economic policy, with the stated means of bringing other countries to negotiations and putting tension on the manufacturing sector.

The President announced his tariff plan on April 2, placing “reciprocal” tariffs on most U.S. trading partners. That followed other tariffs brought against Canadian, Mexican and Chinese imports to the US.

Jeremi Suri, a public affairs and history professor at The University of Texas at Austin, spoke with KXAN about what impact tariffs could have on the country’s international relations. In particular, he highlighted the “deeply interconnected” connection between the American and European economies.

“These are countries we have worked with so closely for so long. If we sever those relationships, it’s like losing your BFFs,” Suri said. “These were the countries that came forward for us after 911, these are countries that supported us during the war in Yugoslavia. We have worked closely with them in Ukraine. If we don’t have our BFFs, we’re going to be alone in the world.”

A week after his “Liberation Day” announcement, Trump announced he would pause the reciprocal tariffs, putting most countries at his baseline 10% rate. But this pause only creates uncertainty, Suri said.

“[Investors] don’t know what is going to happen next. It’s hard to make investment choices,” he said. “I’ve talked to business people here in Austin who say, ‘well, I might not want tariffs, but if there are tariffs, I can adjust my business, but I’m not going to make big investments to adjust my business if I don’t know the tariffs are permanent, or if I don’t know that the pause is permanent.'”

China did not receive a pause, and tariffs between it and the U.S. continued to climb into the triple digits. Despite this, Suri said the situation “absolutely” puts China in an advantageous spot to overtake American trade in Asia.

“For more than a decade, the United States has told countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Japan— ‘We’re a better trading partner. You can trust us. Don’t trust the Chinese, even though the Chinese are a closer market, even though they make more of the things you might want,'” Suri said. “But now … we have raised our tariffs, which will transform their economies and hurt a lot of their citizens. We didn’t consult them, and now we’re trying to threaten and coerce them into changing the way they operate.”

The professor cited the coverage of tariffs in the foreign press, noting that “these countries are not happy.”

“They’re very angry at the United States. And so that makes China look like a more attractive alternative,” he said. “[China] will make deals that might not even be good for China in the short run — they want to basically get the United States out of the neighborhood. That has been the long-term Chinese plan.”

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