The Duran Podcast - Off-ramp to US-China tariff war

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

Off-ramp to US-China tariff war

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on the U.S.-China tariff war. And it does look like we are starting to get statements from both the U.S. and from China that we could be moving towards some sort of de-escalation. I'm not quite sure how significant of a de-escalation is going to be. I'm not sure if we're getting any closer to some sort of a bilateral-neckelation. negotiation, which I imagine is the ultimate goal, is to get both sides at the table. They can discuss how to move forward, how to move towards a managed divorce, I think, is the best outcome. Yes.

What are your thoughts on where we're going with the tariff? Absolutely. I think that is exactly what's happened. Now, I mean, there are a lot of reports circulating in the media, including the British media, by the way, that within two weeks time, they'll start to be visible, short. shortages of goods in US stores. And this is now putting pressure on Trump. I don't know whether that's true could be.

And there are also other reports that Chinese factories of stock production. Again, probably true. But again, the extent to which that is true is difficult to say. But we've had the first comment from Trump. He speaks about the fact that China and the United States are going to see. tariffs reduced. He importantly, he accepted, he acknowledged that the current tariffs are unsustainable, which is, of course, well, we have been saying for the last two or three weeks, but he's accepted that the current tariffs that China and the United States have against

each other are just unsustainable. He said the tariffs will come down. They won't come back, down back to where they were before he was president. I don't think anybody accepts that. I don't think anybody in China accepts that. It looks to me as if he's trying to work his way towards a policy of protection, which is what we have been talking about. You can agree with it, you can disagree with it, but a policy of protection to protect the US manufacturing industry, to bring growth back, away from the kind of outright economic war, which we have been seeing develop over the last few weeks. Oh, there were important comments from Trump.

Now, the Chinese have been making statements of their own, and here I'm afraid there's been a great deal of this direction, because there was a claim that the Chinese said that they would only talk after the United States rescinded all unilateral tariffs. In other words, all tariffs that Trump has imposed since he became president back in January. Now, I've scoured the Chinese media and the Chinese foreign ministry and other government websites to find confirmation of that. I haven't found it anywhere.

It appears to derive from some words, said by one official. What the Chinese are saying, and what the Chinese officially are saying is, yes, we are prepared to talk. We're prepared to talk on an equal basis. I mean, they clearly are not prepared to make massive concessions, but they're certainly prepared to talk. And I'm going to make a guess. I think at some point within the next two weeks, we will see a proper negotiation start to get underway, and the first steps will be taken to start to bring the tariffs down. What would that mean as far as the escalation that has already taken place, the 100, 145%, 125%? Are we going back to the baseline, to the 10% of the 20%?

And then they're going to work things out from there? I suspect that Trump is going to go down to 20%. I think that's probably. probably where this is going, actually. And what with China? Which I think the Chinese can live with. I mean, they don't like it, but I think they can live with it. There will probably be some reciprocal tariffs from China as well. But, I mean, the point is trade can happen at that level.

It can't happen when tariffs are at 145% or anything of that kind. But it's a massive economic shock that we have seen. And as you completely said, it's basically, it will basically be clear that, you know, the tariff moves that have happened over the last few weeks was China and the United States serving on each other the economic divorce papers, because that's what it looks like. But at that point, we are, we are into a situation of protecting American industry. It is no longer an economic war. It is no longer a. project to destabilize China and crush its economy. And I think one of the reasons, by the way, why we've seen a softening of the American approach is not just because of all these reports about goods starting to run out in American stores. There may be some of that going on.

But I think the major reason is that the Scolpessent idea that countries around the world would rally to the United States and that China would be economically isolated. That just doesn't happen. Did it happen? Yeah. And getting to the bilateral agreements with other countries, whether it be India, which already had an agreement that they were working on before the Liberation Day. Yes.

Japan, South Korea, all these countries. countries, it was taking time. I think the Trump administration, maybe Bessent wasn't aware of this. I find it hard to believe, but who knows, maybe they didn't understand that trade agreements are not hammered out in a couple of weeks. They can take many months to years. Yes. That's under, and that's under ideal circumstances. That's under friendly circumstances. So all of this stuff was taking time and it wasn't working out the way they thought it was going to be. So is the US also going to remove the demand that countries don't trade with China and is China going to take back their warnings to countries? If they did agree to the U.S.'s demands to not trade with China, this whole reciprocal warning thing that was going on, so all of that is going to most likely go away?

Yes, I think so, because as I said, it hasn't worked. I mean, Xi Jinping has had a very successful trip in Southeast Asia. He's visited various ASEAN countries. He visited Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia. And, you know, he seems to have been very well received there. J.D. Vance has been in India. I think that the Indians will have told J.D. Vance. Look, you know, we have our issues with China and they're very difficult and they're very important and we do want to have very good relations with you. But it is simply not practical for India to cut off trade with China in the way that you say. China is now India's biggest trading partner. It is a vital investor in the Indian economy. It is providing

India with infrastructure investment, which India absolutely needs if it is going to grow its economy further. And it has expertise to do it. I mean, I've been in discussions with people about this. India simply cannot afford this kind of economic cutoff with China that some people in the United States might have thought. So I think that we will see that these demands in the United States to stop dealing with China are going to gradually fade out. They probably won't be publicly pulled back. But the reality is the Americans will stop talking about them when they undertake these absolutely rightly, as you rightly say, very, very complex trade negotiations. The Chinese won't publicly take back their warnings, but their warnings won't be needed any

further. And as I said, we'll be back finally to that position that arguably we should have been in in the first place where the United States pursues moves towards a protectionist trade policies, which, as I said, you can disagree with, but they have a long history. They're nothing fundamentally new. And they have their advocates. And for all I know, they might even work. I'm not saying they will. But, you know, it is a viable economic policy, or at least an economic policy that has a strong intellectual underpinning. So the United States can do this. that and China and the United States can pursue this economic divorce that we were talking about when Trump was president during his first term and which seemed to be progressing at that time

until his presidency was completely derailed two years in after the Democrats gained control of the House and everything began to go completely wrong with Russia gate and all of that. So I think that, you know, if nothing else, this has been a, this has had a galvanizing effect, but we're starting to see a return to a more stable, a more stable course than the one that we've seen over the last few weeks and a more sustainable one. Off topic, but maybe not off topic. Maybe not off topic, I'll ask you. And probably a video that we're going to, that we're definitely going to record at another time. but the tensions between India and Pakistan.

Do you think they're connected in any way to the tariff war, the tariff conflict between the U.S. and China? Do you think there are other forces at work here? Just a quick analysis there. And as I said, we'll get into depth on this topic in another video. We absolutely will. It does seem that there could be some sort of connection there with everything that's going on in the world trying to escalate, to stir up escalation between

India and Pakistan. We had an interesting statement from the Pakistani defense minister who did say that this was some sort of, he hinted at the fact that this could have been a false flag. And he did say that Pakistan has been doing the dirty work of the United States for decades. Something along those lines is what he said. Interesting statement from the defense minister. I have absolutely no doubt at all that this is what it is all connected to, none at all. But as you rightly say, this is something we do need to talk about in much more depth. I should say that the next couple of days following this program will show our making of this program, will show whether or not the situation between Pakistan and India,

which is incredibly dangerous, by the way. Remember, they're both nuclear powers, whether it will escalate. The rhetoric from both sides is very strong. And the actions that each side has been taking against the other so far has also been very strong. It clearly, I've no doubt about this, it would not have happened had we not had this enormous crisis between the United States on the one side and China on the other. India is a kind of ally, well, it's got a strong partnership, both with Pakistan. And now with India, its historical connection has been closer to Pakistan's than it has been with India. India historically was an ally or a friend of the Soviet Union.

But Pakistan also has a very close relationship indeed with China, which is in some ways even more important for Pakistan than the one with the United States is. So undoubtedly all of this is interconnected and it plays a significant role. But I think we need to have a better idea of where all this crisis is going because flare-ups and tensions between India and Pakistan are very common. This one looks like it could be worse than some of the others that we have seen. But I think a proper analysis of it needs, as you correctly say, a dedicated program and perhaps a better perspective. The timing of it.

The timing is, there is no, I mean, there is no coincidence here. Let me put it like that. Yeah. Okay. We will end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, picture, Telegram, Rockfinite, X. Go to the Durand shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. The link is in the description box down below.

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