On April 15th local time, U.S. media "The Wall Street Journal" reported that the Trump administration was preparing to put pressure on more than 70 countries simultaneously, asking them to reduce their interactions with China. The report stated that Trump intended to propose two things to these countries during negotiations:

The first is to prohibit these countries from using their territories to transport goods to the United States;

The second is to prevent Chinese enterprises from entering these countries to avoid U.S. taxes.

Trump's stance seems to be aimed at completely blocking Chinese manufacturing out of the U.S. market. However, after this pressure was exposed, the U.S. side received two pieces of bad news in quick succession:

1. The first piece of bad news is that China and Vietnam have released a joint statement, and all matters concerning Vietnam have been thoroughly resolved. In this joint statement, Vietnam not only agreed to jointly oppose hegemonism with China but also clearly stated that they would jointly manage and resolve maritime disputes.

What does this mean? This means that the U.S.'s attempt to woo Vietnam since the Biden era has completely failed. There have indeed been maritime disputes between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea, which is an important point for the U.S. to try to incite conflicts between China and Vietnam, just as they do with China and the Philippines. But now, the U.S. can forget about this idea.

2. The second piece of bad news comes from the British newspaper "The Guardian", which reported that the UK Secretary of State for Business, Reynolds, intends to visit China. Reynolds' office has not yet announced the specific time of the visit, but officials from his office clearly stated that both China and the UK are currently in contact in the field of trade. Moreover, they believe that maintaining such contact with China is very important. In fact, regardless of whether Reynolds' visit to China will actually take place, it shows that the UK has never considered truly "decoupling" from China. At the same time, it also indicates that the EU's attitude toward China is undergoing positive changes. Soon, we may hear good news about the agreement reached between China and the EU regarding electric vehicle tariffs.

Trump tried to use one "prohibition" and one "prevention" to block Chinese manufacturing out of the U.S. market, but he seemed to have forgotten one thing: it is the U.S. that needs Chinese manufacturing, not the other way around. These past few days, AFP and several British media outlets have sent journalists to Yiwu, China. There, they saw that Chinese merchants still couldn't finish processing orders. Moreover, many merchants in Yiwu said that they had long prepared for the U.S. and were not afraid of losing the American market.

In 2024, the total trade volume between China and the U.S. was over 680 billion USD, and this market gap is something China can fill. According to the latest customs information from China, the export trade remained growing in the first quarter of 2025, with ASEAN still being China's largest trading partner.

Next, Trump will negotiate with these more than 70 countries one by one. At this critical juncture, China needs to do the following two things:

1. Uphold the attitude of seeing it through to the end, making these more than 70 countries see China's true strength and make wise choices;

2. Continuously apply pressure on the U.S., exposing its "paper tiger" nature globally, to promote these more than 70 countries to make wise choices.

In summary, this tariff war, which Trump once thought was a sprint, should now make him realize clearly that it is a protracted war. Trump himself started it, but the outcome depends not on him. For more details, let us continue to follow up.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7493724084543570466/

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