As Latin America savors America’s threats to Panama and Mexico, China may also start to see new opportunities there. Given Trump’s desire to retake control of the Panama Canal and fight the Mexican drug cartels, extreme US actions against these nations, including using force, is undoubtedly possible.
But Trump’s hostility towards Mexico is likely to be contradictory. The movement of desperate people to the US is only likely to rise if taxes force Mexico into a deep recession, as is the strength of the medication cartels, whose exports are exempt from tariffs.
In a business dispute with the US, Canada and Mexico are painfully aware that the odds are stacked against them. But they are compelled to fight.
No political leader can manage to come off as poor in the face of bullying from other countries. And it’s likely the best course of action to take in opposition to Trump.
As one Western foreign minister put it to me just:” If Trump punches you in the face and you don’t blow up, he’ll just struck you once”.
Countries that haven’t yet been subjected to levies like Britain and Japan does ooh a sigh of relief. However, they are making up their minds if they believe keeping a low page will give them immunity. If Trump decides that his first tax conflict has succeeded, he will undoubtedly look for more targets.
Corporate America also needs to wake up and quit talking sycophantically about the profit of “animal souls” to the US market. Trump is effectively offering America economic austerity and the demise of the Western alliance. That would be a disastrous economic and geopolitical catastrophe for British businesses as well as the US as a whole.