Will Trump unite China and Europe?

ROME – With little economic or political rationale, U.S. President Donald Trump has introduced some of the highest tariffs in more than a century, and imposed them on nearly every economy in the world. Then, suddenly, despite his insistence that the tariffs were here to stay, he paused the new “reciprocal” tariffs for all countries except one, keeping in place an across-the-board 10 percent levy for the rest. For China, Trump added a 50 percent tariff on top of the two 10 percent tariff hikes in February and March and the 34 percent “reciprocal” tariff levied on his “Liberation Day” (which he then increased to 84 percent by executive order). The result? An effective minimum tariff rate of 145 percent on all Chinese goods entering the United States (with a temporary reprieve for consumer electronics). China, which had retaliated with proportional tariffs to the two initial 10% hikes and had hoped for a deal with Trump, has responded to his last two hikes with matching increases, bringing the overall tariff on U.S. imports to 125 percent. The Trump administration is betting