• Trump’s Tariffs Are Misguided: Resulting in Confusion & Chaos
  • Myanmar Earthquake: Effects on Politics & War
  • Pacifying the Houthis of Yemen

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Trump’s Tariff Madness

Very bad things can happen when U.S. presidents seem to lose their grip on reality.

According to CNN, after stock market shocks and global recriminations, there are reasons to question whether President Donald Trump fully grasps the consequences of the misguided tariff barrage that he used to fire up a global trade war (CNN/Stephen Collinson, April 4).

In his latest Washington Post column, noted CNN-anchor Fareed Zakaria also argues Trump’s new tariffs are the wrong medicine given decades-long trends in the world economy.

In making the case for these new protectionist barriers, Trump has painted a grim picture of the U.S. – as a country getting taken advantage economically, its industrial base hollowed out via offshoring in the age of globalization.

Trump’s stated goal is to reverse that trend.

But reality is quite different, Zakaria argues: “The real economic story of the last three decades is that the United States has surged ahead of all its major competitors .  .  .

“In 2008, the U.S. economy was about the same size as the Euro zone’s; now, it is nearly twice the size .  .  .

“In 1990, average U.S. wages were about 20 percent greater than the overall average in the advanced industrial world; they are now about 40 percent higher .  .  .

“In 1995, a Japanese person was 50 percent richer than an American in terms of GDP per capita; today, an American is about 150 percent richer than a Japanese person .  .  .

“In fact, the poorest American state, Mississippi, has a higher per capita GDP than Britain, France or Japan.”

Trump’s protectionism introduces a problem for the U.S. , Zakaria argues: Other countries will work around the U.S. market, leaving America behind as global trade continues.

“This movement has already begun,” Zakaria writes.

“Since Trump first took office in 2017, the United States has abandoned virtually all efforts to expand trade. But other countries have picked up the slack .  .  .

The European Unionj has signed eight new trade deals, and China has signed nine.”

As Ruchir Sharma, the chair of Rockefeller International, notes: ‘Of the 10 fastest-growing trade corridors, five have one terminus in China; only two have a terminus in the U.S.’

Countries around the world need growth, and that means trade. China will clearly be the big winner in this new world economy because it will position itself as the new centre of trade.

Is the ‘tariff war’ here to stay?

As The Economist wrote following Trump’s suite of Wednesday tariff announcements, “few expected him to go so far.”

Markets had briefly trended upward beforehand, seemingly on the theory that Trump’s tariffs would be milder.

For one thing, Trump has shown a penchant for threatening steep tariffs as a negotiating tactic, seeking to extract concessions from tariffed trading partners.

Perhaps the rates will be bargained down.

At the same time, Yardeni Research President Ed Yardeni tells Bloomberg Telivision’s Haidi Stroud-Watts that the policy seems too ‘sweeping’.

[For instance, bringing textile manufacturing back to the US is unrealistic and not even necessarily desirable, Yardeni says].

So political resistance could grow, particularly among Congressional Republicans who will need to seek re-election in the 2026 midterm elections, in Yardeni’s view.

“I hope that the message that the stock market is sending to the administration is being heard,” Yardeni says.

“The market is giving a big thumbs-down to this tariff policy .  .  .

“There are issues the administration is rightly focusing on with regards to national security .  .  .

“That includes pharmaceuticals, it includes semiconductors, it includes the ability to produce our own steel and aluminum for the purpose of building national-defense weaponry .  .  .

“So there are legitimate concerns, but this is way too sweeping an approach, and as the president said, he’s now willing to listen to ‘phenomenal’ offers from people on the other side of the table, and I think he is going to back off .  .  .

“I think he is going to back off in a way where he can declare his victory .  .  .

“He’ll get some concessions from our trading partners, and say that’s good enough, and hopefully this whole thing will kind of be behind us within the next three to six months .  .  .

“Maybe that’s too optimistic. I’m hopeful.”

Even so, the effects could be long-lasting, respected economist Eswar Prasad of Cornell University and the Brooking Institution argues in a Foreign Affairs essay:

“Many people hope that Trump’s tariffs will prove ephemeral – that, confronted with tanking stocks and rising prices, Washington will roll the restrictions back .  .  .

“It is possible that the White House will lower some of its rates, especially as countries lobby for exemptions .  .  .

“But the reality is that the age of free trade is unlikely to come back .  .  .

“Instead, any haggling between Trump and other states will shape an emerging economic system defined by protectionism, tensions, and transactions .  .  .

“The result will not be more jobs, as Trump has pledged .  .  .

“It will be turbulence for all, and for years to come.”

A Devastating Earthquake Strains Myanmar’s Embattled Regime

The massive earthquake in Myanmar has exacerbated the country’s existing crises, and will likely worsen instability rather than lead to peace, according to Joshua Kurlantzick of the US Council on Foreign Relations (April 1).

The massive earthquake of 7.7 magnitude on the Richter scale that hit Myanmar two weeks back, has done devastating damage to the South-East Asian country – sandwiched between India, China, Laos, Thailand and Bangladesh (clockwise), and bordering the Bay of Bengal in the east – ill-prepared to handle a major disaster, as it is in the middle of a brutal civil war, has few functioning institutions, and is a pariah in the outside world, as Kurlantzick notes.

The fact that the United States has all but eliminated foreign aid, has not gotten any assistance on site, and has promised a mere meagre two million US dollars in aid – has not helped.

Other countries are helping, but the U.S. in the past has often taken the lead on major global disasters.

According to NBC News, rescue teams from China, India, Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, and other countries, including Nepal have already arrived in Myanmar.   

During a prior major disaster in Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis, in 2008, the United States provided US $ Dollar 85 million in aid.

The suffering now in Myanmar is intense.

The government reported that the death toll from the earthquake stands at two thousand, including two hundred Buddhist monks, but that figure is likely wildly understated.   

Independent analyses suggest the final toll will likely exceed 10,000, as rescue operations are very limited, water and food are scarce, and temperatures near the epicenter can rise to over 37.8 degrees Centigrade this time of year.

There is little internet and few ways for even rescuers to contact each other, with phone lines often down and mobile phone access sketchy.

All this in a country that, even before this disaster, 20 million people (out of a total population 54.7 million) needed humanitarian aid because of the conflict.

The government has no real idea how bad the damage is since there is little way to measure it.

At the same time, some experts in the country and outside are wondering if and how the earthquake will impact the country’s civil war and politics in general.

The junta itself did not let the earthquake stop it from relentlessly bombing whole villages – it did so almost immediately after the quake hit.

It also used its forces to prevent volunteers from helping innocent people in areas near the epicenter controlled by antigovernment forces.

Thus, Kurlantzick sees the earthquake making Myanmar into even more of a failed and violent state.

The junta likely will become even more dependent on China, a situation unpopular with most Myanmar citizens.

The opposition will be bolstered by the common people again, seeing the inadequacy of the junta in doing anything but killing people.

The opposition forces will suffer from a cutoff of non-lethal aid to them.

However, they have shown themselves resilient throughout the civil war, and prolonged fighting plays into their hands, as the military will face more defections and is already seeing its conscription efforts flag (CfR).

Can the U.S. Defeat the Houthis of Yemen?

The now infamous Signal chat, on which top Trump administration security officials inadvertently leaked plans to attack Yemen’s Houthis to the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, generated much debate about secrecy and national security.

It directed less attention to some underlying policy questions, such as:

  • What can the Trump administration do about the Houthis?
  • Will bombing them work as intended?

The Iran-backed militant group controls much of Yemen in the southeastern part of the Arabian Peninsula [ and borders the southern end of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden/Arabian Sea ], and has fought a brutal civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government.

Already riven by a civil war in the 1990s and a Houthi rebellion in the 2000s, Yemen has suffered under another full-blown civil war since 2014.

More recently, the Houthis have attacked international shipping through the Red Sea, in retaliation/solidarity for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The Middle East expert Elisabeth Kendall maintains that the Houthis are well entrenched, with years of experience “melting” back into hideaways when attacked.

Kendall also said the group can benefit politically in Yemen from being seen as waging war against Israel and the U.S. (Fareed’s Global Briefing/Chris Good, April 4).

In a Jerusalem Post op-ed, Morocco-based political scientist Salem Alketbi writes that the Houthis are no match for superior American weaponry.

“Previous experiences indicate that the Houthis will suffer catastrophic losses in leadership, as well as headquarters and weapons facilities,” Alketbi writes, predicting a high likelihood US bombing will loosen the Houthis grip on power.

“Another crucial element involves the Houthis’ near-total dependence on Iranian support for armament, training, and funding .  .  .

“This support is now facing direct threats following Trump’s explicit warnings to Iran.”

Seeking a new deal with Iran over its nuclear program, Trump has threatened Iran with bombing of its nuclear facilities [ together with or through Israel or even alone ] and intensified sanctions if it does not come to the table.

Then again, the Houthis have survived years of war against Saudi Arabia and the Riyadh-backed government in Yemen.

The Biden administration struck them too, Noah Robertson writes for Defense News, and Trump’s bombing campaign is likely to encounter the same difficulties.

“The problem, officials in the Biden Pentagon later acknowledged, was that these strikes didn’t solve the root issue,” Robertson writes.

“Even when attacked, the Houthis could resupply their stockpiles with support from Iran, and the group was gaining prestige by continuing its salvoes.”

The US bombing has almost certainly worsened Yemen’s already deep humanitarian crisis, Oliver Holmes reports for The Guardian.

That won’t help Washington defeat the Houthis, Iraqi-American entrepreneur and activist Faisal Saeed Al Mutar writes in a column for The Hill, arguing the real problem is that Yemen is a failed state with a governance vacuum conducive to such militant forces.

“Ultimately, if Washington hopes to neutralize the Houthi threat, it must grapple with Yemen’s internal fragmentation,” Al Mutar argues.

“Only a Yemeni government capable of delivering credible governance and economic development can erode the Houthi’s popular support .  .  .

“A post-conflict Yemen aligned more closely with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economic frameworks, focused on infrastructure investment, job creation and integration into global markets, would stand a far better chance of undercutting Houthi influence than missiles alone.”

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com