Under the pretext of "correcting trade unfairness" and "reshoring manufacturing," Washington has weaponized tariff policies by rolling out unilateral measures like so-called "reciprocal tariffs," exerting extreme pressure on trading partners including China. This constitutes typical trade bullying and has drawn strong international opposition.

Clearly, such radical and irrational "reciprocal tariffs" will not achieve US objectives. Instead, they lay bare Washington's attempt to attribute domestic failures — industrial hollowing-out and aggravated social contradictions — to other nations, using unilateral protectionism to mask governance incompetence.

Such short-sighted actions not only undermine the global economic order and inject massive chaos and uncertainty into the world economy but ultimately backfire on the US itself, becoming a self-defeating exercise in "hoisting stones to crush one's own feet."

Historically, there's clear precedent. In 1930, confronting domestic economic crisis, US president Herbert Hoover defied petitions from over 1,000 economists and signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, imposing record-high tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. This provoked global retaliation, disrupted the world economy and deepened the Great Depression.

Many scholars observe striking parallels between the current US administration and Hoover's government, warning that resorting to tariffs to address domestic economic woes risks repeating historical calamities.

A customer shops at a Target store in Rosemead, Los Angeles County, California, the United States, on March 4, 2025. (Photo: Xinhua)

In reality, these measures are fundamentally flawed. The multiple imbalances in the US economy stem from complex structural causes. Blaming trade deficits and imposing tariffs represents both a "misdiagnosis" and a wrong "prescription" that cannot cure America's "diseases."

Tariffs cannot fix trade deficits.

Washington blames other countries for US trade deficits but deliberately ignores its unique dual-cycle economic structure: persistent trade deficits that export dollar liquidity globally while recycling dollars through its dominant capital markets and Treasury bonds. To put it bluntly, trade deficits are the inevitable outcome of America's system to cheaply acquire global goods and facilitate capital appreciation. Attempting to alter deficits through tariffs without structural reforms defies economic logic and practical feasibility.

Tariffs cannot reverse industrial hollowing.

Long-term reliance on dollar hegemony has fueled excessive growth in financial services, while manufacturing exodus — driven by shifting production factors — has seen the US share of global manufacturing value-added plummet from 25 percent in the early 2000s to 17 percent today. Reshoring manufacturing faces insurmountable challenges including labor costs, infrastructure gaps and energy bottlenecks. Higher tariffs would only raise production costs and exacerbate industrial hollowing and financial bubbles.

An American flag is seen inside the Marlin Steel Wire manufacturing plant in Baltimore, the United States, April 17, 2025. (Photo: CFP)

Tariffs cannot resolve fiscal imbalances.

Using "trade imbalances" to justify trade wars is a smokescreen for America's deeper crisis of chronic fiscal mismanagement. Decades of military spending expansion, domestic tax cuts and welfare inflation have ballooned deficits. From 2000 to 2024, the US maintained an average annual deficit of 4.6 percent of GDP, far exceeding the 2.6 percent average of the previous three decades. The administration's "tariff revenue plan" proves equally illusory — US Customs and Border Protection collected merely $500 million in "reciprocal tariffs" from April 5 to 13, drastically below projections. Meanwhile, tariff-induced recession risks threaten to further erode tax revenues.

Structural pathologies — low savings rates, manufacturing decline and financialization excess — lie at the root of America's fiscal and trade deficits. The current administration's simplistic scapegoating of trade imbalances represents a fundamental inversion of cause and effect.

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, on April 8, 2025. (Photo: Xinhua)

Historical trajectory clearly demonstrates that US development has long depended on and benefited from the global trade and financial system's "sustained transfusion." Claims of "America being shortchanged" should therefore be laid to rest permanently.

Only through profound reflection on its bullying practices, abandoning zero-sum mentality, pursuing structural reforms, returning to multilateral trade frameworks and cooperating with other nations to stabilize global industrial and supply chains can the US government genuinely address its economic imbalances and finally contribute to sustainable world economic development.