08-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why Trump's 14-nation tariff package puts China on edge and pressures Southeast Asia
When US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to extend a pause on 'reciprocal' tariffs until August 1, it offered little comfort to China.
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Instead, Beijing's policymakers may feel increasingly cornered, as Washington also moved to target 14 countries – many of them China's close trading partners – with tariffs of up to 40 per cent.
This came despite breakthrough talks in London that laid the groundwork to
remove most bilateral export controls – from China's rare earth restrictions to US aircraft engines and chips.
Analysts said the latest US tariff package was a calculated strategy to isolate China and strengthen Washington's position in coming trade negotiations, as the 90-day trade truce agreed in May is set to expire in early August.
'Trump's newly announced tariffs ... are a continuation of this decoupling agenda,' said Xu Weijun, an assistant research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology.
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'It's both pressure and division: the message is clear – 'cooperative' countries like Vietnam get
preferential treatment , while others face high tariffs,' he said.
