Opinion: U.S. abuse of tariffs has already backfired

While trying to bully its way to better deals, the United States has instead found itself increasingly sidelined in global trade.

BEIJING, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Washington has turned tariffs into instruments of coercion -- used to extract big money from allies and rivals in exchange for access to the U.S. market.

By forcing compliance, showers of ultimatums laid bare Washington's abuse of threats and coercion as a defining feature of its diplomatic playbook, turning "America First" into "America Alone."

"The erratic and arbitrary nature of the policies, and the willingness to exploit U.S. economic might to extort concessions, will undermine American standing nearly everywhere," The Atlantic said in a recent report.

Tariffs are "destroying a pillar of American global power, and it will further isolate the country at a moment when others stand ready to fill the vacuum," it said. "Tariffs are not going to make other countries respect the United States. But they can make them move on without it."

While trying to bully its way to better deals, the United States has instead found itself increasingly sidelined in global trade.

Analysts warn that the United States could lose its status as the world's top importer, as U.S. Census Bureau data show that the country saw its steepest single-month drop on record in April, with imports of goods and services falling 16.3 percent year-on-year to 351 billion U.S. dollars.

According to the Financial Times, the United States accounts for only 13 percent of global goods imports today, down from nearly 20 percent two decades ago.

"The importance of the United States to global trade can be overstated," it said, citing a simulation by Simon Evenett, a professor at the IMD Business School, which found that even if the United States cut off all goods imports, 70 of its trade partners would fully make up their lost sales within one year, and 115 within five years, assuming they maintained their current pace of export growth to other markets.

Just as troubling is the country's rapidly deteriorating global image. Hardline policies have not won respect but instead triggered resistance and resentment, even among longtime allies.

A YouGov poll released in March showed that European favorability to the United States plummeted compared to the last survey conducted prior to Donald Trump's re-election as U.S. president, with ratings in Denmark, Sweden and Germany falling by 20 to 30 percentage points. Favorability in Britain, Spain and Italy also sank to historic lows.

Globally, the U.S. global net favorability score dived from over +20 at the beginning of 2024 to -1.5 by the end of May -- its first drop into negative territory since January 2022, according to data from Morning Consult.

Public favorability declined in 38 of the 41 countries surveyed, with the country's global image further dented by the Trump administration's April announcement of so-called "reciprocal tariffs."

Likewise, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that in 19 of the 24 countries polled, more than half of respondents expressed "little or no confidence" in the Trump administration's ability to handle major international issues like the global economy.

Jason Furman, a professor of economics at Harvard University, told CNN that the United States "right now is an incredibly unreliable partner to anyone in the world, and I don't know how we are going to get back to being reliable." ■