The Empire Strikes Back

What could the real problems be which triggered the strikes against Syria by the United States and its allies?

On April 14, the United States and its allies, Great Britain and France, launched a midnight strike with cruise missiles on targets in the Syrian capital. The attack came a few days after Bashar Assad’s regime was accused of using chemical weapons against peaceful citizens in the town of Douma. The Western powers’ campaign did not wait either for the experts from the International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to reach the place of the alleged attack, or for any real evidence as to whether gas was used or who used it. The situation is suspiciously reminiscent of the Skripal case, where sanctions poured down even before it was clear as to what the former agent and his daughter were poisoned with, not to mention any clarification as to the parties responsible. Obvious questions remain: Why are the two empires in a rush to strike? And are Russia and Syria the real enemy and the real problem? The answers seem obvious, but we rarely ponder them, as we are irradiated by TV screens.

You go to war when you have problems in your own country. Historically, this has been traditional since ancient times. The internal problems of Donald Trump’s administration are huge, and many of them are even rooted in his own foreign policy. One of the key promises the billionaire made during his presidential run was to return jobs to the United States. He decided to accomplish his plan through protectionism. Since the beginning of the 80s, Washington has always supported the open economy and the free movement of capital. This is one of the Democratic Party’s trump cards in its congressional campaign against Trump. If his plan to rescue the U.S. economy and return jobs by imposing tariffs succeeds, this would serve as his life preserver for the rest of his term. Most regrettably for White House economic advisers, things did not go as planned. Before the air strikes, Washington began a different war, but it has currently taken a back seat, dominated by the smoke from the rockets falling in Damascus. The economic clash with China is much bigger and all-embracing than the Middle East operation the Americans are carrying out at the moment.

The first official information heralding a clash with Beijing came in January this year, when Trump announced that the United States would introduce a 30 percent tariff on solar panel installations and a 20 percent tariff on washing machines. The most seriously affected countries were China and South Korea. Despite protests from these traditional trade partners, this was only the beginning of the new policy. The next punch came in March, when the U.S. announced a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. At the time, the president said that he was making this decision because “steel and aluminum industries have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world.”

The United States is the biggest steel importer in the world. According to official 2017 statistics, the U.S. has imported 34.6 million tons of steel. It appears that despite the frightening rhetoric from Washington officials, Beijing is not as affected as much as Moscow. The problems with steel exports to America by Chinese enterprises began way back during Barack Obama’s administration as well as during the last year. During the Obama administration, tariffs reached as high as 500 percent, and now the Chinese hold only 2 percent of U.S. imports. At the same time, Russia accounts for 8 percent, but it is far behind Canada and Mexico, which hold a total of 26 percent and are able to bypass Trump’s protectionist policy thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The other major losers of this policy are Brazil and South Korea.

On March 8, 2018, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, announced that there will be an appropriate response to the U.S. tariff policy. “Especially given today’s globalization, choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription. They punish others, but also themselves,” he said. *

The main reason for this position is the particular extension of the new tariffs on aluminum, where China holds fourth place among importers to the United States. In 2016, the aluminum foil supply from China alone to the U.S. was valued at $389 million. Such complex pressure provokes a complex response. For the first time since implementing a market economy as an element of its policy, Beijing has been able to afford to introduce such strong restrictions. China imposed punitive tariffs on 128 U.S. goods on April 2. The total loss to the United States is estimated at around $3 billion. The majority of the products are related to agriculture. Unfortunately, these are only the first steps in this looming conflict. Nevertheless, on March 22, President Trump signed a memorandum imposing tariffs worth $60 billion on Chinese technological goods, which are imported to the United States. For the time being, the order has not yet been enacted, as discussion continues about longer deadlines for enforcement.

Either way, the direction of the confrontation is totally clear. The stakes are extremely high because Beijing is not only dependent on the U.S markets, but it also holds the majority of Washington’s bond obligations. This commitment definitely stands in China’s way, but it gives it control at the same time over the economic processes, including the yuan’s exchange rates against the U.S. dollar. However, Chinese politicians have been seeking independence for nearly 10 years. In the first place, they created one of the largest gold reserves in the world, and they are betting exclusively on cryptocurrencies at the moment while they are simultaneously looking for new, potential markets. In this regard, Chinese political involvement in Latin America, Africa and Central Asia must be taken into consideration. Naturally, the biggest gamble is future contacts with Europe, because only consumers on our continent are able to replace the U.S. in terms of purchasing power.

Trump’s economic team is well aware of all these things, and because of this, we witnessed a number of disruptions. At the beginning of March, Gary Cohn, who was one of the president’s key advisers, resigned, precisely because of this protectionism and the danger of a trade war with China. These disruptions had repercussions on the conservatives’ internal political environment, not to mention repercussions from the Democrats’ reaction.

Another important problem in Asia came again from Beijing’s intervention in the conflict between North Korea and South Korea. Chinese mediation led the two governments to the negotiating table and drastically decreased the tension, while it completely discredited the power approach previously supported by Trump’s administration. The lack of a threat from Korean missiles inflicted a serious political defeat on the president, and again turned public attention toward internal problems in the United States.

This is one of the main reasons to look for a new distraction. For a while, that role was played by the Skripal affair. After the subsequent sanctions against Russia, the bubble, inflated by the British government, also burst. The damages inflicted by this are big enough to keep the European Union and Russia apart for a long time. The double agent and his daughter’s recovery provoked the need to cover up the case in the public eye. At this extremely convenient moment, the chemical attack on Douma occurred. It must be remembered that the tension in the Middle East and along Europe’s borders hinders the “One Belt, One Road” program, China’s key project, which aims at connecting Asia’s infrastructure with that of the old continent.

So the empire led by Trump launched a retributive strike on Syria because of the impact the U.S. itself inflicted earlier on the Chinese economy. The problem which the international community is facing is that it blindly participates in this confrontation without considering even for a moment the human consequences not only on the battle fields, but also in the plants, factories and farms, where thousands of people could lose their jobs, wages and the parts of normal life which they have built.

*Translator’s note: “They punish others, but also themselves” is the translator’s interpretation of the original text: “The outcome will only be harmful.”