Convergence and divergence

The post-World War II international order, now entering its eighth decade, is deemed by Trumpists as misaligned with the interests of the United States while disproportionately benefiting strategic competitors such as China. Citing an unsustainable $1.2 trillion goods trade deficit as a pretext, the Donald Trump administration intensified its trade war on April 2 and branded it "Liberation Day", imposing "reciprocal tariffs" ranging from 13 to 49 percent on 57 countries while levying a 10 percent baseline tariff on all other economies.

The almost immediate consequence of this was the systematic dismantling of the international trade framework and the foundational economic order. By imposing so-called reciprocal tariffs — which violate the World Trade Organization's cardinal most-favored-nation principle — and unilateral 10 percent baseline tariffs that breach bound tariff commitments, the Trump administration has fundamentally undermined the architecture of global commerce. This has triggered a dual crisis: the global trading system now verges on collapse while the international economic order is descending into chaos. Critically, US efforts to construct replacements face extraordinary resistance due to three structural constraints.

First, the US lacks the capacity to unilaterally coerce global compliance with its envisioned order. Constructing viable international systems necessitates broad consensus and collaborative engagement — a requirement fundamentally incompatible with the Trump administration's bid for the strategic containment of China and coercive posture toward traditional allies. This self-sabotaging approach inevitably provokes systemic resistance.

Second, the Trump administration has perilously miscalculated the costs of restructuring global trade and the global economic architecture. Today's hyper-specialized production networks entail that rebuilding trading frameworks around supply chain resilience and security would incur staggering expenditures.

Third, a constitutive efficiency-security paradox emerges. The pursuit of economic sovereignty through national security-driven trade restructuring entrenches protectionism — systematically sabotaging rather than rebuilding the global trade system. Crucially, pushing manufacturing reshoring and defense-industrial expansion bleeds resources from the US' core comparative advantages in finance and technology toward its competitive deficiencies such as industrial production. This self-defeating misallocation corrodes US capabilities, jeopardizing its leadership in shaping the international economic order's evolution.

As the global trade war intensifies, the world economic order is destined to enter an extended period of turbulence. With hyper-globalization now discredited, and self-sufficiency or a return to near-total isolation impossible, the global trade system is increasingly likely to evolve into a staggered division pattern of globalization. Under this framework, economies may connect and diverge through four core threads — market scale, security, technology and values — which will function as the primary conduits for mutual attraction and cross-border connectivity between nations in the years ahead. The concept of blocs will then divide the world into three major spheres: core zones, transitional zones and peripheral zones.

The core zones will be North America (led by the US), the European Union (led by Germany) and East Asia (led by China).Peripheral zones include regions such as Latin America, Africa and parts of Eurasia. Transitional zones span Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, among others. Each economy will connect with others through the four threads based on its geographical affiliation.

Against this backdrop, China should adopt several pivotal strategic approaches. First, China must champion free trade by steadfastly upholding the multilateral trading system, the UN-centered international framework, and the rules-based global order. Through resolute countermeasures against the US' trade attacks, China has established a critical precedent for economies resisting actions that subvert the global trading architecture. Concurrently, China should pursue independent, autonomous liberalization; modernize its existing free trade agreements through comprehensive upgrades; accelerate negotiations for the China-Japan-Republic of Korea FTA and comparable agreements; actively seek to advance accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership; expand Belt and Road cooperation; and initiate new FTA negotiations to systematically deepen global economic integration.

Second, China should continue its ongoing "tangled engagement "with the US. With the US maintaining an effective average tariff rate of approximately 52 percent on Chinese goods — a clear signal of its intent to pursue "comprehensive decoupling" — and explicitly or implicitly pressuring third countries to restrict the transshipments or re-exports of Chinese products to the US, both direct and indirect forms of engagement confront substantial practical obstacles. To reshape the Sino-US economic and trade relations, China should explore upgraded approaches, such as expanding greenfield investments and climate cooperation with the US.

Third, China should foster a trade system less reliant on the US. Given that the US accounts for less than 17 percent of global trade, more than 83 percent of global trade flows function independently of US markets. This reality carves out viable space for other nations to collaborate in building a more diversified trading system.

Fourth, China can work with other developing countries to advocate true multilateralism against US economic bullying, epitomized in the Trump administration's pattern of economic coercion toward various nations, which has triggered a widespread backlash.

The author is an associate research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.