The day before Donald Trump's “reciprocal” tariffs to launch, the US president seems locked in a high -bet chicken game, with the global economy hanging in balance.
Some nations, marked by the “oldest offenders”, are fighting to make a pleasant with the White House to complete this game before reaching a potentially devastating climax.
China, in contrast, plays a different game, one of revenge and resistance.
Meanwhile, Trump went on, even when some allies – in Congress and Wall Street – wonder if he goes too far. On Sunday, when asked what level of falling on the market he would tolerate before changing the course, he snapped that it was a “stupid question”.
So all this is a tactics for negotiation, as many investors and politicians hope – or does it play a longer play aimed at permanently restructuring the global economy and the place of America in it? In this new world, whether a country is an ally or opponent depends on whether this nation gives the US a good deal.
On Monday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first world leader to visit the president after his trade announcement, tried to play the new Trump game. He promised that his nation – which is tilted for rates of 17% – will drop its trade barriers and move to remove its trade surplus with the United States.
“We think it's the right thing,” he said. “I think Israel can serve as a model for many countries that have to do the same.”
It seems that other nations are pursuing such a strategy in the hope of a positive result.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called Trump on Monday morning, encouraging Finance Minister Scott Bensten to say that the United States is beginning talks with the nation to “apply the president's vision for the new Golden Trade Golden Age.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe was “ready to negotiate” with the United States, offering a mutual reduction in industrial goods rates to zero – a proposal that Trump praised during remarks in the oval office, saying that it was not “not enough”.
There were no such gestures from China. On Monday morning, the best economic competitor in America announced that it was a 34% increase in Trump's rates with an additional 34% of its own.
This prompted Trump to threaten another 50% for US tariffs for China if he did not give way to Tuesday.
“China has chosen to isolate through revenge and doubling the previous negative behavior,” Bessent has been published to X. “More than 50 countries have responded openly and positively to Donald Trump's historical actions to create a more just, more prosperous global trade system.”
China's reaction to Trump's last move was equally dumb.
“We have emphasized more than once that China's pressing or threatening is not the right way to engage with us,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengiu told BBC CBS News partner. “China will strongly protect its legal rights and interests.”
A similar series of reactions and repression from China and the United States seemed to be exactly what investors were afraid of last week as US stock indices dropped by double -digit percentages.
Until Monday, the growing choir of business leaders spoke against Trump's tariff plan, including Wall Street financiers, who were strong public supporters of his administration – trying, seems to be the president to retreat to Will.
In the meantime, the US markets were ready to jump for some reason for hope. When a social media publication on Monday morning indicated that the president was considering a 90 -day delay in new tariffs – perhaps derived from the misinterpretation of comments made by Trump's economic adviser Kevin Khaset on Fox News – US stock indices have grown. The S&P 500 Index added $ 2,4TN to the market value for about 10 minutes, just to disappear after the White House quickly denied the president to consider such a move.
Further, Trump closed the door on Monday afternoon, saying that he was not “looking” any kind of delay. It was still at full speed forward at the tariffs.
“We'll have one shot at this,” he said.
Perhaps the most concerned message for investors and foreign leaders, who hope for cancellation at the last moment – and a starting ramp to stability – comes from one of Trump's best commercial advisers, Peter Navarro.
“This is not negotiations,” he wrote in a piece of opinion on the Financial Times, published on Monday afternoon. “President Trump is always ready to listen. But to those world leaders who, after decades of infidelity, suddenly suggest reducing tariffs – know this: this is only the beginning.”
So, if it is the beginning of wider system changes – what is the desired end goal that is worth potentially acting in the world economy?
One theory is that Trump has a plan with several of his best advisers-the Mar-A-Lago Agreement, it is called the ultimate goal of forcing trade partners in America to weaken the US dollar in the international currency exchange. A similar move would make US exports more accessible to foreign markets and reduce the value of China's big reserves from the US currency.
This is a plan pressed by Trump's economic adviser Stephen Mira, although he denied that it was the current administrative policy.
This is just one of the possible explanations for the current chaos of the stock exchange that Trump has purposefully incitement – the one that many other prominent economists warn is risky. He is far from the only one.
Since Trump has shocked the world with its extensive tariff plan, White House staff have collapsed in the media to preach patience and offer a selection of sometimes conflicting explanations about Trump's Global Trade War Strategy. He does it to raise revenue and protect the US industry – or as a negotiation tool. Tariffs are constant – or temporary. They will encourage individual transactions with other nations – or will force some large multilateral agreement.
As Trump presses against the tariff rock on Wednesday without signs of support, he seems ready to keep the world to guess.