Trump's tariffs strain US alliances as he reshapes global relations

President Trump has imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China and the European Union. That means tariffs on the USA’s major trading partners. The United Kingdom is so far the only major US trade partner to avoid tariffs.

Donald J Trump is quite pro-British perhaps partly because his mother was a British immigrant to the United States. The United Kingdom has striven to butter Trump up. Prime Minister Keir Starmer abased himself before Trump in the Oval Office. He hand-delivered a letter from King Charles III inviting Trump on a second state visit.

This is unprecedented. Donald Trump thinks so because he is uniquely magnificent. No, it is because he is the first US President since Harry S Truman to have been in office during the reign of two British monarchs. A state visit only happens once in the administration of a president or the reign of a monarch.

The expert consensus is that tariffs are bad news. Trump has never been one to heed the advice of those who are in the know. He is wilfully ignorant and anti-intellectual. He has never been known to read.

In 1993 the United States created NAFTA with Mexico and Canada. The North American Free Trade Agreement has led to healthy economic growth for all three countries almost every year for the past 32 years. NAFTA was largely about free trade. Trump openly reviled it. In 2020 he changed it to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) which is much the same thing.

The stock market in the US took a tumble due to tariffs. The USD also fell in value. Markets are jittery.

Trump tried tariffs when he was president before. They damaged the economy. Trump said trade wars are good and easy to win. He never cited such an example. If what he said was true, why did the USA not wage them all the time? Trump abolished most of the tariffs on Chinese goods within 2 years.

Trump is stupid enough to think China paid for those. No, American consumers paid them when they bought Chinese goods. However, the tariffs meant that Americans purchased fewer Chinese goods because of the price. They did not necessarily buy American instead. They sometimes bought other foreign goods or none at all.

In the EU, Trump may have a bit off more than he can chew. By most metrics, its combined economy is bigger than that of the United States.

Canada and other countries riposted to the US tariffs. They have imposed tariffs of their own on US goods.

Donald J Trump is impairing relations with countries that have been US allies since the 1940s. Some Republicans are publicly unhappy about it.

In Canada, the Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was deeply unpopular in 2024. But Trump’s rhetoric has led to the Liberals regaining popularity. The leader of the Progressive Conservatives Pierre Poilievre was tipped to lead his party to victory in 2025.

But Poilievre is seen as a Canadian Trump. His party’s ratings have fallen drastically. Trudeau announced his resignation. The Liberals in Canada have elected Mark Carney as their leader and he has become the prime minister. The Liberal’s approval rating has risen sharply in response to Trump’s inane comments about making Canada the 51st state of the USA.

Trump has said the US might not save other NATO countries if they are attacked. Article 5 of the NATO Charter says an attack on one is an attack on all. The US invoked this to get NATO countries to send troops to Afghanistan after 9/11.

President Zelensky of Ukraine visited Washington DC to seek more arms and financial support. Trump and Vice President Vance rounded on him. They savaged him saying he had better give them everything they wanted.

Zelensky said that Russia is a threat to the United States, but the US does not feel it yet because there is an ocean in between but the US would eventually feel a threat.

‘Don’t tell me what we are going to feel’, Trump lost his temper. He said now the Ukrainians are in a weak position. That is true and it is largely because the Republican Party in the US held up a multibillion-dollar aid package for months. Trump has blocked the handover of arms already promised by the Americans to Ukraine. Ukraine is in an invidious position and Trump is trying to make it even worse.

J D Vance lacerated Zelensky. President Trump lied and said that Ukraine started the war. He had the US Ambassador to the United Nations vote against a resolution denouncing the Russian invasion.

Since Trump’s 90-minute phone call with Putin in February the line out of Washington DC has been very favourable to the Russian stance on Ukraine. What was offered by Putin? Or what was threatened?

Ukraine had been told to sign over most of its mineral resources to the US or be cut off from military aid. The US is not providing security guarantees in return for the aid.

J D Vance said having the US economically interested in Ukraine was a ‘better security guarantee than troops from some random country that had not fought a year in 30 or 40 years.’ Only France and the UK had at that stage said they would send troops to Ukraine. The French and British took it as an insult. In fact, they have fought a few wars in the last 40 years such as Afghanistan in both cases and indeed also Iraq in the British case. Vance ought to know that as he was a US Marine in Iraq. His stupid and offensive remarks hurt diplomatic relations.

The ignorance and arrogance of the Trump Administration are on full display. He seems to go against Reagan Republicanism. Trump wants to betray US allies and help its foes. The narrow-minded and nauseating hyper-nationalism is in full view when Trump says that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.