- March 25, 2025
Trump’s tariffs, foreign aid cuts are weakening America, boosting China’s influence
HONG KONG — Before I arrived here recently, I anticipated widespread panic over President Trump’s tariffs targeting major U.S. trading partners. Instead, I found that China may be seeing Trump’s quarrels with America’s historic allies as a great chance to increase its own global influence.
While nobody here is happy about Trump’s tariffs against China, the U.S. president’s punitive trade actions against Europe, Mexico, Canada and other historic American trade partners — along with massive cuts in U.S. foreign aid — have shattered America’s international standing as the most desirable global partner. That’s allowing China to portray itself as the most reliable superpower, diplomats here say.
One of the reasons China is not panicking over Trump’s tariffs is that, unlike Mexico, which relies on the U.S. market for 83% of its total exports, China sells only 16% of its total exports to the United States. Despite its current economic problems, China’s diversified export base allows it to be less fearful of a major economic backlash as a result of Trump’s trade war, Western diplomats here told me.
“Beijing ‘will be the main beneficiary’ of Trump policy,” read the lead headline on the front page of the South China Morning Post on March 5.
The article cited Ukraine’s former minister of foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, as saying in an interview that Trump’s political embrace of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, the U.S. president’s near abandonment of Ukraine, his tariffs on European products and his cuts in foreign aid programs mean that Trump “will definitely lose Europe.”
Chinese officials are careful not to come across as celebrating Trump’s fights with America’s historic allies. But the Communist Party’s newspaper, The China Daily, and other official media publish almost daily articles quoting European, Latin American and African officials as saying that China will emerge as the big winner of Trump’s retrenchment in the global arena.
A March 18 column in the China Daily by China expert William Hurst notes that the era of Europe’s unquestioning reliance on U.S. security is rapidly coming to an end, which “creates opportunities for China to engage with European powers on terms more favorable to its interests.”
Trump’s cuts in foreign aid to Latin America and Africa are also seen here as a great opportunity for China. Chinese officials emphasize, in an apparent reference to Trump’s foreign aid cuts, that China will continue and possibly increase its development assistance to about 150 countries under its Belt and Road initiative.
In Latin America, the biggest recipients of U.S. aid that are likely to be impacted by Trump’s foreign aid cuts are Central American countries, Colombia and Haiti. Much of that aid goes to fight the root causes of migration and drug trafficking.
But, in addition to his tariffs and foreign aid cuts, one of Trump’s most potentially damaging foreign policy actions has been his decision — challenged by a judge — to dismantle the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Marti broadcasts to Cuba. Earlier, he had slashed U.S. funds for groups that promote democracy and freedom of expression in dictatorships such as Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
“This is absolutely crazy. It is unilateral disarmament,” wrote Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, in his X social media account. “China won’t be closing CGTN. Russia won’t be closing RT, the theocrats in Iran and their proxies in the Middle East won’t be closing down their media operations.”
McFaul added that as Trump shuts down America’s most powerful tools to spread Western values, “China advances to win hearts and minds around the world.”
The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the Voice of America and its sister organizations, has a combined audience of 427 million people in over 100 countries, according to its most recent report.
The ultimate irony of Trump’s presidency may be that the U.S. leader who likes to surround himself with American flags and claims to be making “America great again” is presiding over the biggest retrenchment of America’s global influence in history. Here in China, they’re taking notice.