October 22, 2025

Tariffs Are a Weaker Weapon than Trump Thinks

By: Edward Fishman

This article was originally published in Financial Times.

This past summer, Donald Trump’s faith in tariffs appeared vindicated. He sealed lopsided trade deals with the EU, Japan and South Korea, while imposing most of his promised “liberation day” levies without provoking a market meltdown. His trade representative, Jamieson Greer, declared “a new global trading order” in which America uses tariffs to bend the rest of the world to its will.

Trump’s confidence rests on a simple conviction: access to the US market is so vital that other countries will do anything to preserve it. As his press secretary summarised: “Every country wants what we have: the American consumer.” But that confidence is misplaced. Tariffs are a far weaker weapon than the president believes. They are a poor substitute for the modern economic pressure tactics that the US pioneered and China increasingly embraces.

The biggest problem with tariffs is a basic fact: access to the US market isn’t as vital as Trump imagines.

Those “wins” with Europe, Japan and South Korea also tell a misleading story. These are close security allies that depend on Washington’s protection. Their concessions reflected strategic dependence, not economic capitulation. Brussels swallowed an unequal pact to preserve American backing for Ukraine, not because tariffs had forced its hand.

Countries outside the US security umbrella have proved far less pliant. Take India, which has been subject to a 50 per cent duty since August. The Trump administration insists these “secondary tariffs” are intended to compel India to stop buying Russian oil. But the policy is backfiring. Indian refiners are importing more Russian crude, openly defying Washington.

Read the full article on Financial Times.

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