"'America First' could again produce 'America Alone,' only more so as the fears of other countries that the United States could never again be a trustworthy friend, let alone leader, would seem confirmed," said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

WASHINGTON, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Despite widespread criticism and high volatility in U.S. stock markets after tariff hikes, the White House clarified on Thursday that the total effective tariff rate on Chinese imports had climbed to 145 percent.

It is the latest in a series of escalating U.S. levies that Beijing called "a mistake on top of a mistake." Such "blackmail" harks back to Trump's first presidency, when he imposed aggressive tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports as part of his "Make America Great Again" agenda.

While the Trump administration keeps touting tariffs as a means to bring back jobs and revive manufacturing, economists across the political spectrum never ceased to sound alarms: these "self-defeating" tariffs were "designed to backfire," pushing up costs for U.S. companies and consumers.

So, which side do the outcomes of his first-term policies validate? Who has been paying for these tariffs? Has Washington achieved its goal of reducing trade deficits and bringing manufacturing back through tariffs? And what does the future hold for the move?

HOW HAS U.S. RAISED TARIFFS ON CHINA?

In August 2017, Trump initiated an investigation against China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. From 2018 to 2019, he published four rounds of 301 tariff lists, with the first two targeting high-tech products and the other two focusing on intermediate goods, capital goods and consumer goods.

According to calculations by Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, average tariffs on Chinese products had surged from 3.1 percent in 2017 to 24.3 percent by August 2019.

As Trump 1.0 relied heavily on Section 301, it imposed tariffs ranging from 7.5 percent to 25 percent across four lists of imports totaling 550 billion U.S. dollars in value.

After Joe Biden took office in 2021, he retained most of the tariffs from Trump 1.0 and continued to escalate the "strategic competition" with China through tariffs and export controls, along with other measures.

In May 2024, the Biden administration announced its review of the Section 301 tariffs on China. Building on the existing tariffs, fresh tariffs were gradually imposed on Chinese-made products, including electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic cells, critical minerals, semiconductors, steel and aluminum.

The U.S. government has also overstretched the concept of national security, politicized and weaponized economic, trade and technological issues, and abused export controls to suppress China.

In May 2019, the United States put Chinese tech giant Huawei on the Entity List, barring U.S. firms from selling it technology without government approval. In October 2022, the Biden administration escalated export controls on China in areas such as semiconductors.

The Biden administration didn't cease mounting pressure on China until the very last moment of its term. In December 2024, the United States updated its semiconductor export control regulations. In mid-January, new export controls related to artificial intelligence were also announced.

Since regaining power in late January, Trump has unleashed a series of tariff hikes on China, and Washington has made the path back to the negotiating table even harder to find.

WHO'S PAYING THE PRICE?

Numerous studies have shown that Washington's trade war with China has failed to address the structural issues in the U.S. economy. Instead, it has driven up prices, reduced economic output and employment, and harmed the overall economy. The primary costs of the trade war have been borne by U.S. businesses and consumers.

"U.S. tariffs focused on differentiated Chinese goods that were hard to replace, so Chinese exporters kept prices steady," said Harvard Business School professor Alberto Cavallo in a recent paper. As a result, U.S. importers ended up paying more for goods from China and passed some of the costs on to consumers.

Meanwhile, data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that while the country's trade deficits with China decreased, its global trade deficits widened to 1.07 trillion dollars in 2024, a significant surge from 870 billion dollars in 2018.

Trump held the mistaken view that "there was a bilateral China fix for a multilateral trade deficit" with more than 100 countries and regions, wrote Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, in a recent Financial Times article.

"That backfired," Roach said, noting that the Chinese portion was simply diverted to countries like Mexico, Vietnam and Canada.

"It turns out more than 70 percent of the trade diversion away from China went to higher-cost or comparable-cost nations, underscoring that trade diversion is the equivalent of a tax rise on U.S. companies and consumers," he added.

When Trump launched the trade war, he vowed to bring jobs back. Again, data paints a different picture.

In the steel industry, where Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff in his first term, U.S. employment dropped to 80,200 in 2021, the lowest since the 1980s. Though the number climbed back to 83,600 in 2023, it was still below 84,100 recorded in 2018.

Higher steel prices resulting from the tariffs created higher costs for the U.S. steel consumers, denting their demand and thus killing jobs in the U.S. auto industry, according to a recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, warned in February that the steel tariffs "would have a huge impact on our industry with billions of dollars of industry profits wiped out and adverse effect on the U.S. jobs as well as the entire value system in our industry."

Back in 2018, the company suffered 1 billion dollars in lost profits from Trump's tariffs on metals and had to reassign workers.

The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, noted that although tariffs raise the price of foreign goods, making domestic industries more profitable, such businesses are not low-cost producers. Thus, tariffs result in less efficient production, leading to reduced economic output and lower incomes over the long run.

It also echoed 18th-century economist Adam Smith's view that tariffs should be kept as low as possible.

HOW'S CHINA HANDLING IT?

The underlying goal of the U.S. government's trade protectionist measures against China is to undermine China's manufacturing sector and prevent it from moving up the global value chain.

However, over the past seven years, China's economy has neither succumbed to U.S. tariffs nor has it decoupled from the global economy. It has instead entered a new phase of high-quality development, with steady growth in economic strength and technological capabilities.

China has maintained its position as the world's largest trading nation in goods during the past eight years, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) said in February.

In recent years, China has advanced the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the successor to a trade deal that the United States negotiated in 2015 before withdrawing under Trump's first term.

Meanwhile, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has seen over 150 countries and 30 international organizations sign cooperation agreements, spanning Eurasia, Africa and Latin America, further promoting regional connectivity and cooperation through investments in infrastructure and digital trade.

According to data from the GACC, the country's foreign trade hit a record high in 2024, with total goods imports and exports reaching 6.1 trillion dollars.

For the first time, countries participating in the BRI accounted for over 50 percent of China's total foreign trade in 2024, the GACC data showed. And China's exports to ASEAN amounted to 526.66 billion dollars between January and November 2024, making China and ASEAN each other's largest trading partners for the fifth consecutive year.

In the high-tech industry targeted by U.S. tariffs, China sees an ongoing structural upgrade. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, China ranked 11th among the 133 economies featured in the Global Innovation Index 2024, making it one of the "fastest 10-year climbers" in innovation.

China's foreign trade has also seen its structure optimized, with exports of high-quality and high-tech products particularly increasing.

Annual exports of mechanical and electrical products have grown steadily, with their share of total exports above 50 percent in each of the seven years since the trade war.

In 2024, mechanical and electrical products accounted for nearly 60 percent of exports, of which automatic data processing equipment and its parts, integrated circuits and automobiles exports grew by double digits, according to GACC data.

The growth in exports of the "new three" -- photovoltaic products, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles -- is also an eloquent testimony to China's shift from manufacturing to innovation. According to the State Council, in 2024, China's photovoltaic product exports exceeded 200 billion yuan (27.37 dollars) for the fourth consecutive year, lithium-ion battery exports hit a record 3.91 billion units, and electric vehicle exports surpassed 2 million for the first time.

WHAT FUTURE HOLDS FOR U.S. PROTECTIONIST MOVE?

Under the "America First" doctrine, Trump sees organizations like the WTO as "contrary to U.S. interests," said DW, a German public, state-owned international broadcaster.

The U.S. breach of international agreements and withdrawal from global governance organizations would "accelerate the unraveling of a rules-based world trade order," it said.

Experts said that with a narrow focus on "America First," the United States during Trump 1.0 regularly circumvented and disrupted the WTO's dispute settlement system. It practiced unilateralism and economic hegemony, abandoned its international commitments, and provoked international trade friction around the world on the pretext of U.S. domestic law such as Section 301, jeopardizing the foundations of the global multilateral trading regime.

This has not only undermined the interests of China and other countries, but also damaged the international reputation of the United States itself, according to observers.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank, said the trade war launched by the "White House protectionists" stems from "a nationalist view of supply chains", disrupting the global supply chain networks and casting a shadow over global economic growth and stability.

Sweeping tariffs announced during Trump 2.0 are amplifying these effects. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in early April that such trade actions "clearly represent a significant risk to the global outlook at a time of sluggish growth."

Echoing her view, the World Economic Forum said the tariffs risk heightening tensions with trade partners and triggering potential retaliatory measures, exacerbating further global economic fragmentation, deepening inequality and slowing poverty reduction in vulnerable emerging economies.

Besides China, Canada -- a close U.S. ally and major trading partner -- has already responded with a suite of countermeasures, slapping tariffs on U.S. imports ranging from footwear to motorcycles. The EU, another key ally, also approved 25 percent retaliatory tariffs but only put them on hold for 90 days after Trump announced a similar pause on his reciprocal tariffs. Still, the bloc warned that "if negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in."

"'America First' could again produce 'America Alone,' only more so as the fears of other countries that the United States could never again be a trustworthy friend, let alone leader, would seem confirmed," said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the United States is clearly "no longer a reliable partner," French President Emmanuel Macron urged European countries to suspend investment in America. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen likewise called the tariffs "a major blow to the world economy." As Reuters reported, the U.S. tariffs have drawn condemnation from world leaders, warning of "the end of a decades-long era of trade liberalization."

The growing unease is also reflected in financial forecasts. While investment bank JPMorgan now puts the chance of a global recession by year-end at 60 percent, up from 40 percent previously, Goldman Sachs said it now sees a 65 percent chance of a U.S. recession in the next 12 months.

In line with such apprehensions, Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said last November that no countries, including the United States, can enjoy "continued and stable prosperity on their own."