The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: China's reciprocal tariffs and Canada gets a Liberation Day exemption

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Rudyard and Janice open the show with Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements and specifically China's response: a punishing 34% countervailing tax on all imports from the US. Is this the start of a more dangerous moment between these two adversaries? President Trump is about to find out how vulnerable the US is to China, and how easy it is to start an economic war but how hard it is to end it. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn their attention to Canada, which was conspicuously absent from Trump's Wednesday tariff announcement. What can we expect when CUSMA - our free trade agreement with the US - gets renegotiated after the election? To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to Friday Focus. Rudyard Griffiths here, the chair of the Monk Debates. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, a consequential week on many fronts, but the big story has to be the announcement of a series of sweeping reciprocal tariffs by the Trump administration on Wednesday.

I want to spend the show breaking this all down for our listeners and viewers with you. Let's begin, though, Janice, with just simply what this event in the Rose Garden marked. How significant do you register or weigh this event in the context of the economic history of the West and the world for the last 50 years? It is really significant, Roger. Cariffs are higher when this whole package goes into effect than since 2009. that probably tells us everything we need to know. Higher than just before the Great Depression, when governments really didn't understand the risk of an escalating tariff war, undoing 75, 60 depends where you want to date things, years of work.

This is a seismic shift. in the global trading system with really important implications for the global economy and for global security because the two are connected. Yeah. We're recording this on Friday morning. So lots of developments that could go on during the day as our listeners then subsequently get to the podcast this evening and on to the weekend. So just put that caveat out there. But Janice, what we are seeing early on Friday are significant, 34% matching retaliatory tariffs by China against all U.S. imports with no exemptions. Additional Chinese regulations and examinations of pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, other really key, key must-haves of the U.S.

economy and Americans generally, something like 95% of all U.S. heart medication related to high blood pressure is manufactured in China. So what do you make of this early Chinese response. It's different, I think, than some people expected, certainly than some people hoped. People had been hoping that up to this point the Chinese had been very measured. They had not been, in a sense, confronting Trump. Instead, they had almost been ignoring him to the extent to which maybe they had hoped there was some way forward. But what does this big retaliatory tariff announced by China this morning mean? You're absolutely right to start with China, right there, because 54% tariffs on China, on Chinese manufacturing goods coming into the United States and those smaller countries, you know, Vietnam, where after the previous Trump administration, manufacturers moved some of their plants.

So what do we have now? we have fundamentally the Chinese with overlapping security and economic concerns. That's where these two systems join up the security concerns and the economic ones. The pacing rival of the United States from a security perspective imposing really significant counter tariffs which are going to amplify the negative consequences of the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed. And all with a view to what, just let's just take one minute. Roger, the purpose of these tariffs, according to the president, is to encourage manufacturers to make their products in the United States.

What's the likelihood that Chinese manufacturing is going to move to the United States? Right. As, in fact, there's a live issue culminating maybe in a matter of days or maybe not now because of this retaliatory tariffs from China for the United States to effectively, appropriate the U.S. operations of the Chinese company TikTok owned by Bight Dance. So if you're a Chinese company, boy, operating in the United States doesn't look like a lot of fun. It looks like a great way to have your assets appropriated by an administration. And then we'll see who ultimately wins a bid for TikTok America, but it kind of looks like being handed out to some of the president's

closest friends and allies. But let's go back to China for a second more jazz because you are right. This is the most important news that our listeners and viewers need to follow because everything that matters in the world right now is Chimerica, the relationship between China and the United States and what has been now years of competition, which is Janice, I think today and the last 72 hours, is now spilling over into something more than just competition. So my question is, is this the start of a new and potentially more dangerous and more entrenched moment between China and the United States, where both parties instigated here by Donald Trump with these 54% punitive tariffs on China on Wednesday. Now the Chinese respond with blanket 34% across the board tariffs on U.S. imports,

plus other bans and regulations related again to absolutely critical must have things that the American economy needs, are we now at the point where these two superpowers are beginning to take off the gloves and we're out of the phase of kind of feeling our way? And we're now, I don't know, pick your analogy. We're in a boxing ring. We're waving red flags in front of bulls here. What's your sense of what we've seen in the last 72 hours? I think it is a signal moment. You know, China did wait. For two reasons. It waited hoping to understand to get a grip registered on what was motivating Trump, what his goals were.

In other words, like everybody else, they were trying to fit different rational explanations, different theories of the case so they could get a handle on this. That order of magnitude response just says, we're not bothering with that anymore. And there's no question. It hardens the rivalry. And, you know, something came across my desk yesterday and I was looking at the 49, 44 most advanced technologies in the world right now. I think, again, Australia tracks who's ahead.

China is leading in 37 of those 44 advanced technologies. So the United States, in fact, I mean, I can't think of a worse. strategy. In order to cut back on toys, on shoes, on clothing, and on Chinese cars, they have started, frankly, an economic Cold War. And boy, is the U.S. vulnerable to China in ways that it's not vulnerable to anybody else, perhaps. Yeah. As you said, Janice, many times before on this program, you know, wars are easier to start than they are to finish. And would you say that also?

I guess what concerns me today is I think that maps to trade wars too, not just hot wars, that now the Chinese government, Xi himself, has come out and said, okay, the gloves are off, 34% across the board countervailing duties. Trump is out there in the Rose Garden with that crazy kind of Moses-like tablet, you know, wandering around, throwing out MAGA hats to his cabinet of officials. these two men, Janice, look, dug in to some extent, whether they want to be individually or personally or not, I don't know. But Janice isn't this an issue now of face? And especially for the Chinese, if they back off on this, you know, what does that say?

And then if they're not backing off, what the heck does Trump do, even if he wants to back off? because the Chinese, as we know, are not a democratic society. They have a lot more power in their leadership. If their leadership truly does want to commit to a policy and a goal, then they can pursue that, Janice, I think a lot longer and a lot harder than an American president facing a lot of division and collapsing poll numbers in the United States. There is no question about this.

You know, we use a phrase rather to describe tariffs and why. There are many, many, many reasons why they're not a general purpose, effective tool. They can be effective to solve very specific problems, but not a general purpose tool. We call them sticky. What is a sticky to how it mean? They're so easy to put on, but they take so much effort to lift off once they're on. They tend to stick, right? And that's what you've just said, except in the Chinese.

case, I think that the stickiness is even stronger. Shishiping doesn't have to worry about a domestic audience. He doesn't have to worry about China's advanced manufacturing. What he does have to worry is a country that is struggling with its growth rate. And I think that's partly what explains the Trump people. They think maybe this is the moment to crush the Chinese. It's frankly nonsense. That's all I can say.

Yeah. I wonder, Janice, if there's also a parallel here to Israel before October 7th, that America's opponents, I'm not going to call them enemies anymore because the world is so different the last hundred days, but America's opponents like China, look at the United States under Donald Trump, and they see a country like Israel before October 7, a country divided, a country that is fast-headed to or is in a crisis of the rule of law and maybe a major constitutional crisis in a matter of weeks. There's an important case now. about these extraordinary renditions of Venezuelans to El Salvador that may well see a judge in the next week formally censure the White House and rule on obstruction. So I don't know, Janice. I guess I wonder if the Chinese aren't looking at the United States in exact the same way, saying this nation is not up for this fight. Now is the time that we need to pull out our pen and draw a long. a series of red lines regarding the Chinese America relationship.

And we are going to push hard over the next period of time to convey to the Americans what those red lines are because America itself has been weakened by this president. I think, you know, the answer to you is yes and yes. Yes, because you're right that leaders who don't come from the president. democratic societies and democratic traditions. See these kinds of core challenges. See dissent as weakness record. We tend to see them a strength. We tend to say, oh, we have robust institutions.

That's not how autocrats see it. And they see it as a moment of opportunity. Let's talk about something else that happened yesterday. I got lost in all the noise. Laura Lumer, her national security credentials, are opaque to me. Let me put it to you that way. No, Jen, let's call her what she is.

She's an anti-Semite. She is someone who has engaged in the worst conspiracy theories about January 6th. She's an election denier. I mean, this is a deeply toxic person in American social media just to bring our audience who maybe, thankfully, have no idea who Laura Lumer is. And that's why we like you so much here at the month debates because you're not. following Laura Loomer. And she could be...

Please, both of us if you didn't know. She had a meeting. First of all, she was invited to the White House. Secondly, she met with Donald Trump and just before... And left him a list of six national security. Senior officials, all six were fired by the Trump administration on Thursday. So the national security apparatus inside the United States right now is a, chaos, frankly. If you're watching the United States, you understand the bureaucracy is disheveled.

They are going to drop the ball. The country is roiled by some of the constitutional cases, and the United States has launched a policy which is going to increase inflation and slow growth in the United States. If you're an adversary of the United States, oh, and by the way, we left on one thing right here. Donald Trump, raised tariffs against the closest allies of the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, the core of the Indo-Pacific Alliance and the European Alliance. If you wish the United States and you're watching this, why wouldn't you see it as an opportunity, frankly? Yeah. James, let's say goodbye to our complimentary guests and listeners and join our monk supporters on the other side of this short break.

We're going to talk about how these tariffs are spilling out in Canada here, what we got hit with or not, what it all means, and how it's impacting our federal election. That for you right after this short break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website. website, www. The Monk Debates.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site. Make a donation as little as $25 a year or 50 cents an episode and we'll send you not only the full-length editions of each and every Friday Focus podcast, but all kinds of special offers, perks, access to events, and additional content. Again, you can do that right now by

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