By Herman Tiu Laurel

 

For the love of dolls, the U.S. has taken a second retreat in its trade and tariff war with China and the world, going to the Swiss mountain to meet the Chinese delegation and agreeing to a massive climb-down of  U.S. tariffs from 145% to 30% of Chinese imports while retaining its first tariff retreat exception in computers and smart phones.

China is one up again in the challenge of the century started by the U.S. to determine which of the two nations shall shape the economic and technological future of humanity.  Despite U.S. unilateralism and bullying of all nations, China has consistently proposed a  “Shared Future for Mankind”, a collective human community, the multipolar world where multilateral trade rules dominate and guide the trading relations of all nations.

Weapons for Dolls

In a vain attempt to afford dolls for its children while talking peace,  the U.S. peddles arms and  weapons instead, , as exemplified by the latest sale of U.S. armaments to Saudi Arabia. The arms sale is effected even as Trump bestows recognition to the new terrorist leadership of Syria who is busy preparing and deploying new ethnic terrorists on U.S. targets across the world (including Asia) and consults with allied Arab states for the next steps on the Gaza and Iran dilemma.

Come Christmas 2025, dolls will be too dear for U.S. children.  President Trump, supposed aspirant of the Nobel Peace Prize, has jacked up the U.S. 2025 defense budget to $ 1-trillion, a 18%  increase over last year’s approximately $ 850-billion defense allocation. This early, the EurAsian report and other geopolitical news sites have reported ’Unprecedented’ Deployment in China’s Backyard as the U.S. Significantly Expands Military Presence in Indo-Pacific Region”, especially in the Philippines.

The U.S. still cannot comprehend that times are changing and that it must realign its economic expectations and values to the emerging normal of a multipolar world whose essential feature is a more competitive trading global milieu that shall gradually equalize standards of living among all nations. The time is past when one single country can use force to have its way as the common aspiration of the global majority is peace and prosperity through cooperation and complementarity.

China Leads Global March to Multilateral Trading and Peace

China has been leading the Global Majority, the Global South and the advancing economies of ASEAN, to stand together and uphold multilateral trading rules and platforms that were agreed upon by all countries of the United Nations and World Trade Organization (WTO) for decades. At the recently-concluded meeting of the 33-country Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Beijing on May 12, 2025, President XI Jinping reiterated this call.

President Xi Jinping called for countries to stand together to promote global peace and stability, stressing that “there were no winners in tariff wars.” He cautioned unilateralist countries that “bullying or hegemonism only leads to self-isolation.” As explained by China’s Secretary of State Wang Yi, the CELAC meet is “…an opportunity to reflect on the valuable experiences of a decade of mutual benefit and equality to chart the [trade] course for the next 10 years.”

It can be recalled that President Xi Jinping’s immediate response to the looming trade crisis was prompt consultation with ASEAN neighbors in mid-April through visits to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia. All nations consulted reaffirmed their commitments to multilateral trade. China’s initiative was expanded further at the meet on May 4, 2025 of finance leaders and central bank governors of the ASEAN+3 who reiterated their “… commitment to free multilateral trade.”

In late 2024, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) also reaffirmed “… the multilateral trade system,” through the “’Beijing Action Plan’… for “a universally beneficial, inclusive economic globalization.” Together, China and Africa reaffirmed their common commitment to the core values and basic principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO), opposing decoupling and disruptions in supply chains, and resisting unilateral actions and protectionism.

Philippines Forsaken

While the current Philippine dispensation continues to pay lip service in the chorus of various ASEAN and Asian forums that espouse their commitment to trade multilateralism and eschew unilateralism and trade bullying, the reality is the complete opposite. The Philippines has allowed itself to be constrained by the administration’s “pivot to the U.S”, which has resulted in the reduction of exports to particular countries and service import, particularly, Chinese tourist arrivals.

Various sources have recorded. that China’s investments in the Philippines reached a staggering $9.1-billion in state-directed development financing from 2000 to 2022. These Chinese financing and investments to the Philippines have since dried up – suspending priority development projects that were earlier planned for decades – ever since the current administration compelled the country to submit to restraints in open and free economic engagements with other nations, particularly with Asia’s economic engine of growth,.

The Philippine government recently sent a trade team of trade negotiators led by Secretary Frederick Go a (Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs, or SAPIIEA) to meet with the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington to discuss the Philippines position on the Reciprocal Tariff crisis. Upon its return, the trade team could only report that the “talks went very well” without mentioning any tangible achievement. Since then, the BBM government has simply gone silent on the matter.

Unlike other ASEAN countries and the Global Majority who have reached clear lines of agreement with the leader of the global multilateral trading advocacy community, the Philippines is neither here nor there even as its government continues to drown in U.S.-induced internal political conflagration, self-eviscerating in a national culture of corruption propagated by the prevailing regime that the recent electoral upset hopes to neutralize.

Multilateral Trading System for Peace and Prosperity.

Since its inception in 1995, the World Trade Organization has expanded trade between developing economies by 9.7% per year, enabling these to move from less than 1/10^th of global trade in 1995 to 25% in2022, reaching a total value of US $6.1-trillion. This is particularly true for China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, who have experienced monumental economic development.

Playing by the rules, the Global Majority progressed steadily while the U.S. reaped the benefits of cheap imports from nations the world over. Unfortunately for the US, financialization of its economy and relocation of its corporations to countries with low labor costs resulted in its own de-industrialization. Today, the US has found a convenient scapegoat in the WTO, an ironic twist as the US has long been sabotaging the WTO by blocking the appointment of new judges to the latter’s Appellate Body that could have resolved long-standing trade disputes.

With the incoming PDP-Laban senators who are guided by the “Independent Foreign Policy” Duterte Legacy, the two allies endorsed by VP Sara Duterte and incumbent “independent” senators, the Philippines has a new opportunity in the 20^th Senate to make a determined push to restore the mandate and exercise of the Independent Foreign Policy and return the country towards the genuine multilateral trading system. ###

   

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