China’s response to Trump’s tariffs marks a dramatic escalation

Might peace in Ukraine be prelude to an even more serious conflict between the United States of America and China? Is that a hysterical question? The deal-or-no-deal drama starring Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders has dominated the news in recent days, so much so that the latest clash between Washington and Beijing has gone all but unnoticed. Yet China’s official response to the Trump administration’s move to raise its tariffs on Chinese imports to 20 percent does appear to mark a dramatic escalation.

“Exerting extreme pressure on China is the wrong target and the wrong calculation,’’ said China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian. “If the US has other intentions and insists on a tariff war, trade war or any other war, China will fight to the end. We advise the US to put away its bullying face and return to the right track of dialogue and cooperation as soon as possible.”

As if to emphasize that the “any other war” formulation was no mistranslation, official Chinese accounts also reposted and reiterated the words on social media. China is currently holding its biggest annual political event, the “two sessions’”(so-called because the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) hold their meetings at the same time). The ruling Chinese Communist Party had already announced its own retaliatory tariffs, a 10 to 15 percent levy on American goods, and a 7.2 percent increase in its defense spending. But the war-talk is a potentially more significant reversion to the CCP’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy, which began in earnest during Trump’s first term. Chinese experts say that the lupine rhetoric is primarily as a sort a macho posturing for the domestic audience, but that isn’t much comfort to those of us who would rather not live through World War III. In 2025, Trump 2.0 is at least twice as serious about tariffs and standing up to Chinese aggression, and the Chinese, convinced as they are that America’s supremacy is on their wane and their global influence expands, seem ever more willing to match Trump’s threats with their own.

From the Trump administration’s viewpoint, since 2016, America’s “pacific tilt” towards the challenge of China has morphed into a more ubiquitous operation to counter Beijing’s nefarious influence. The new cold war is heating up. In fact, the Trump administration has been willing to play somewhat nice with Vladimir Putin in part because of its broader concern over China’s expanding reach and its fear that the NATO-backed war in Ukraine has driven China and Russia together.

I’d hoped to get through this missive without mentioning every geo-strat pseud’s favorite concept, the Thucydides trap — Graham T. Allison’s term for the threat of major war that occurs when an emerging power (China) threatens to displace the existing international hegemon (America). But we may be close to finding out if Donald Trump is pushing the West towards — or saving us from — that terrifying possibility.