Like dementia patients who have their licenses taken away, Donald Trump shouldn’t be managing the world’s largest economy.

The so-called Trump Tariff, an unprecedented series of duties on imports from more than 90 countries, is not only disrupting the economies of the U.S.’s trading partners; it may also mark a turning point in the U.S.–China rivalry. By weakening economic relations with long-time allies and states heavily reliant on U.S. trade, the tariff package has eroded international trust in the United States and created space for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to present itself as the backbone of a new international order.

On April 2—“Liberation Day,” as President Trump branded it—he stunned the world with an enormous package of tariffs designed to steer consumers toward domestically made products, boost tax revenue, and spur investment inside the United States. After protracted negotiations with major trading partners, including Washington’s closest allies in the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, the administration settled on tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent. The measures hit a wide spectrum of countries. Economic and strategic partners such as Mexico and Canada were assigned tariff rates of 25 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Countries already experiencing political friction with Washington, including Brazil and India, were placed at the top tier, facing duties of 50 percent.

Washington’s April 2 announcement triggered a flurry of responses. Many governments sought to avoid an all-out economic confrontation with the United States, even as they publicly protested the decision. When Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on European steel, aluminum, and cars, the European Union initially announced a retaliatory package worth $23.8 billion on imports from the United States. But after the White House floated the possibility of raising duties on European goods to 50 percent in May, Brussels ultimately agreed to an unequal settlement, accepting a unilateral 15 percent tariff on U.S. imports to avert a full-scale trade war. India, which adopted a tough rhetorical line against the Trump Tariff, is likewise maneuvering toward an accommodation with Washington and has signaled a willingness to make larger concessions. For half a year, capitals around the world have spent valuable time and political capital trying to restore something resembling the less punitive economic and diplomatic relationships they once had with the United States.

The absence of outright trade wars does not mean that the sweeping tariff program has been embraced. On the contrary, anxiety over the costs of the measures has damaged U.S. credibility, particularly among its allies. An IPSOS poll conducted after Liberation Day found that citizens in the other G7 countries believe the tariff regime is harming relations between their governments and Washington. Nowhere is the backlash more pronounced than in Canada, one of the countries hardest hit by the tariffs, where respondents expressed the bleakest view of the bilateral relationship among G7 publics.

The repercussions of the Trump Tariff extend beyond reputation. The policy threatens core relationships with suppliers of strategically vital commodities. When the administration announced a 50 percent tariff on copper, Chile and Mexico—two of the largest copper suppliers to the United States—began seeking alternative destinations for their exports, including China, in order to avoid the new duty. Washington’s dependence on these partners for refined copper cathodes ultimately forced it to roll back the 50 percent rate. Yet the episode injected significant uncertainty into trade relations. That uncertainty strains ties with key suppliers and raises the prospect that other powers could step in to occupy the economic space the United States once dominated.

Evidence is already mounting that the reputational and economic damage from the tariffs is benefiting China. An IPSOS survey conducted from March 21 to April 4—after Trump had already signaled sweeping measures against U.S. trading partners, but before Liberation Day—found that, for the first time in the firm’s research, China was viewed as a more positive influence than the United States on average across 29 countries. This shift suggests that Washington’s tariff offensive has corroded the global trust it carefully cultivated over decades and allowed Beijing to present itself as a more dependable partner.

China has clearly recognized the opportunity created by the political distance between Washington and the rest of the world. Its decision to extend non-tariff treatment to all African nations is a case in point. More than a routine renewal of an existing arrangement, the agreement widens access to the Chinese market by opening the framework to higher-income African states such as South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Invoking a call “to work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind, [and] promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation,” Beijing is signaling a strategic ambition: to deepen ties with the Global South and extend its regional influence beyond that of the United States, which it accuses of undermining “the existing international economic and trade order by tariffs.”

The United States, by contrast, appears to be moving in the opposite direction in its engagement with Africa. The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a duty-free trade framework between the United States and African countries that lasted 25 years, expired in September 2025, and prospects for renewal appear dim. At the same time, President Trump’s decision to bar citizens from dozens of countries from entering the United States will affect more than 30 African nations, erecting yet another barrier to commerce and exchange. This widening policy gap between Washington and Beijing could allow China to entrench itself more deeply in African economies without meaningful competition from its rival, eventually drawing the continent more fully into the orbit of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Even if Trump’s October tour of Southeast Asia—which included discussions with Cambodia and Malaysia—had produced meaningful breakthroughs in tariff negotiations, the broader impact of the Trump Tariff would be difficult to reverse. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s unveiling of the Global Governance Initiative at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on September 1 underscored Beijing’s determination to build a new leadership framework for the international system. The trajectory is clear: the Trump Tariff has already imposed serious economic and reputational costs on the United States, and China is moving quickly to convert those costs into an opportunity to advance its bid for global hegemon status.