The Biggest Trade War in History

Peter Navarro wrote Chapter 26 of Project 2025’s “Mandate For Leadership.” Mr. Navarro said, “The United States of America is the world’s dominant superpower.” For the US to “maintain that global positioning,” it needed to “strengthen its manufacturing and defense industrial base.” It also needed to address “the broader existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its quest for global dominance.” Mr. Navarro was scared by the $660 billion in bilateral trade between the US and China in 2024. The Financial Times wrote that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted China’s economic “expansion of 4 per cent this year and next.” While the IMF “lowered its growth forecast for the US to 1.8 per cent in 2025.”
China’s economic expansion interfered with Mr. Navarro plan of the US as the world’s dominant superpower. It was reminiscent of George Kennan’s top-secret Policy Planning Staff Report 23. The US Policy Planning Staff wrote in 1948, “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population… Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity.” Kennan and Navarro described President Trump’s tariffs nicely. It was never about domestic manufacturing or working-class jobs. It was about “straight power concepts.” China’s economic expansion threatened the control that US companies had over the global economy. Project 2025 advocated that the US isolate China to maintain its position as the dominant superpower.
The Wall Street Journal admitted the tariffs wouldn’t bring back manufacturing. Many “manufacturers took advantage of free-trade deals such as Nafta to move production to cheaper countries. Some offshored to Mexico or China.” “The cost of Nafta was passed on to working Americans in the form of plant closures, deaths of despair and economic devastation.” Profits motivated US corporations to offshore. It devastated communities. Corporate greed caused the plant closures and economic devastation. Decades of free trade agreements incentivized US corporations to set up manufacturing elsewhere. The tariffs don’t address this. The Wall Street Journal explained the real plan behind the tariffs. “The tactic is part of a larger strategy being pushed by [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent to isolate the Chinese economy… It involves cutting China off from the U.S. economy with tariffs.” That’s the reason behind the tariffs: to isolate China.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the tariffs were a massive tax hike on the working class, isolated China, and got US manufacturers rich. The New Republic said “The Trump tariff will make people who own domestic manufacturing companies rich beyond their greediest dreams, aggressively redistributing wealth and income upward in the United States.” The working class who voted for Trump get hurt. The Wall Street Journal said, “Consumers will still feel pain because companies price inventory on replacement cost, not average cost, so tariffs are already hitting prices.” But Project 2025 fulfills its goal: “The United States of America is the world’s dominant superpower.”

Anton Porcari

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