Trump’s tariffs paused: 90 days to save the world

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion

There’s no other way of putting it. Donald Trump has made an irreversible blunder on tariffs.

After coming out all guns blazing announcing a tidal wave of tariffs, just one week later Trump’s tariff plans have all been paused for 90 days.

Trump well and truly stuck his neck out – and it’s backfired faster than anyone could have imagined. The stock market is folding like a cheap tent, with 10% of the S&P 500 vaporising in just three days.

I’m not even 100 words into this article but I’m already running out of things to say here. I mean, what can you say? Has a US President ever self-imploded this quickly?

The 90-day negotiating window – but Starmer’s doing nothing

We quite literally have 90 days to save the world.

Stock markets are crashing, which means pension pots are evaporating before our eyes. The average UK worker has lost up to £10,000 from their pension pot so far, with the average middle-class American losing over $21,000.

We already know there will be a wave of job losses, with 25,000 car manufacturing jobs earmarked for the chop in the UK. Small businesses, however, will undoubtedly be the first to go under, whacking up unemployment rates.

It’s all doom and gloom I’m afraid. To make matters worse for the UK, Keir Starmer is sitting on his hands – he’s not spoken to Trump at all since his outrageous tariff announcement last week.

Why ever not? What are you doing, Keir? The EU had planned retaliatory tariffs, which have now been paused with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wanting to “give negotiations a chance”. But at least the EU are reacting, responding, keeping an eye on the game. Starmer’s just ball-watching, waiting for a special relationship soft-touch, injury time miracle that isn’t going to happen.

The only thing Starmer has done is to stamp all over calls to buy British. Why?

I’m not asking people to buy British like it’s 1940, living on a diet of potatoes and spam and driving around in a Morris Minor. But buy British milk. Buy British fruit and veg. Buy British meat. Especially British chicken – unless you want a chlorinated American chicken that tastes like a swimming pool.

Why can’t we support that? We should be buying British anyway to support our farmers, who are in desperate trouble because some silly fool who’s never set foot in a wellington boot decided to raid everything farmers have got.

US v China: Endgame

But Keir’s inactivity is a drop in the ocean. This is bigger than making America great again. It’s bigger than Americans. It’s a battle for the crown of world superpower, the biggest prize of all.

China has benefitted massively from free trade. It has grown exponentially, to the point where it is teetering on the verge of stealing America’s crown as king of the world. Whilst American GDP is over $30 trillion and China’s just under $20 trillion, China’s growth rate is much higher. In 2024, the Chinese economy grew by around 5%, and the US economy around 2.8%.

In short, China is catching – and has been for a long time. So it’s no real surprise that, despite this 90-day pause for negotiations, Trump has not paused China’s tariffs – but increased them further, to 125%. So what did Beijing do? Hit back with an 84% tariff on goods imported from America, of course.

This state of tariff tit-for-tat is an extremely dangerous game – for Trump. With tariffs slapped on such a vast array of countries, Americans will be feeling the pinch and losing morale. Meanwhile, Chinese stock markets are climbing – bucking the worldwide trend.

It is Trump’s America who are losing here. In his MAGA rage, Trump has blinked first – and America and the Western world are paying the price.