The Trump tariff extravaganza was never about trade deficits, reindustrialization, or bringing jobs back to America. It was always about China. Now that Trump has either eased or lifted the tariffs on 90 other countries, we can see what’s actually going on. Trump is using the ‘tariffs smokescreen’ to implement his decoupling policy, a strategy that is designed to isolate, encircle and eventually crush the People’s Republic of China. That’s the motive that drives the policy. The tariffs were just a means to an end. This is from&nbsp;CNN: President Donald Trump announced a complete three-month pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect at midnight, with the exception of China,&nbsp;a stunning reversal from a president who had insisted historically high tariffs were here to stay. But&nbsp;enormous tariffs will remain on China, the world’s second-largest economy. In fact, Trump said they will be increased to 125%&nbsp;from 104% after China announced additional retaliatory tariffs against the United States earlier Wednesday. All other countries that were subjected to reciprocal tariff rates Wednesday will see rates go back down to the universal 10% rate, he said. “Based on the lack of respect&nbsp;that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump said in his social media post. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” he wrote.&nbsp;Trump announces 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs with exception of China,&nbsp;CNN China’s “lack of respect”? So, Trump is setting US trade policy based on bruised feelings?? That’s just not a credible explanation. Something else is going on here. China is being targeted because China’s meteoric rise and explosive growth has made it a threat to America’s global hegemony.&nbsp;That is why China has entered Washington’s crosshairs. By imposing prohibitive 125% tariffs on Chinese exports, Trump is indicating that&nbsp;the era of integrated markets in a globalized system is over.&nbsp;The world is being redivided into warring blocs by wealthy&nbsp;Capitalists in the West who cannot compete with China’s government-led model that controls the nation’s critical industries and recycles massive profits back into vital infrastructure, education, R&amp;D and technology.&nbsp;The West’s highly financialized model—that increasingly depends on skimming the cream off toxic securities and stock buybacks—cannot remake itself into a manufacturing powerhouse willing to compete with China on a level playing field. Instead, it must use its waning influence to jolt the system with some unexpected fireworks display (the tariffs) that sends shockwaves through the system and panic across the markets. These contrived spectacles, that border on economic terrorism, are all part of Uncle Sam’s repertoire that are used to subdue the opposition and maintain Washington’s tenuous grip on power. But do they work? Trump seems to think so. Here’s Trump with his billionaire friends discussing ‘the killing’ they made when he eased the tariffs and markets soared. We should have seen through this hoax from the very beginning. After all,&nbsp;if Trump was serious about bringing jobs back to the US, wouldn’t he have convened a Blue-Ribbon panel of industry experts and economists to create an industrial policy that would provide a roadmap for how to proceed?&nbsp;Wouldn’t he have looked into the feasibility of re-industrialization in a country that has already shuttered the bulk of its factories and no longer has a workforce that is trained to do the jobs that are about to be created? And wouldn’t he have solicited the support of wealthy Capitalists who could be persuaded to make the long-term investments required for an industrial project of this magnitude? Yes, he would have. But he didn’t do any of those things, because he wasn’t serious about any of it.&nbsp;The whole tariffs-fracas was just an illusionist’s trick aimed at creating a pretext for attacking China.&nbsp;That’s why it was so easy for Trump to end the charade with a wave of his hand as if nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened. It was all a glitzy light-show devoid of any real substance. And no one makes my case that ‘this was all about China’ better than Trump’s right-hand man, Treasury Scott Secretary Bessent. Check out this clip of Bessent boasting about how he tricked China. @BehizyTweets Treasury Secretary Bessent just revealed that President&nbsp;Trump laid a trap and China fell into it. “This was driven by the president’s strategy… You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position.&nbsp;They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.” “It wasn’t a hard message. Don’t retaliate. Things will turn out well.” China screwed up badly. Bessent is obviously pleased that he and Trump were able to ‘pull a fast one’ on China. Bessent thinks that’s good policy. And, of course, the American people—most of whom are distrustful of China to begin with—agree.&nbsp;“China is ripping us off”, says the president whose nation’s bank account is $36 trillion overdrawn and whose country lives on ‘the generosity of strangers.’&nbsp;“China is stealing our jobs”, say the corporate bosses who uprooted their businesses and factories lock-stock-and-barrel and shipped them to China to take advantage of the cheap labor and free security. But now China must be crushed for aspiring to compete with “their betters” in the USA. Now China must be ‘brought to heel’. Isn’t that what’s really going on? (if we’re honest with ourselves) Isn’t this really a case of sour grapes? Indeed, it is. China has overtaken the US as the manufacturing capitol of the world through intelligence, hard work, ingenuity and an organizational model (recycled profits into productive activity) that is the result of good governance. That is why China is rapidly surpassing the US in science, technology, AI, quantum computing, robotics and nearly everything else.&nbsp;Because they are governed by people who aspire to create a civilization in which individuals and community achieve their full potential. This is why the entire country is crisscrossed with high-speed rail linking shiny, space-age cities together in a vision of 21st century modernity that is unrivaled in the world today. Whatever one may think about China, they must admit that—as a civilization and a society—they are headed in the right direction while the dilapidated, threadbare and deeply polarized US is in steep decline. In any event, China’s success has generated considerable envy among western elites who are now determined to do everything in their power to turn back the clock to the post war era when the global economy was their oyster, and the “rules-based order” was the only game in town.&nbsp;The goal is to “contain China’s growth”, which is a sobriquet for subverting China’s development at every turn. The particular strategy even has a name. It’s called “decoupling” which refers to the process by which the United States (and other Western countries) reduce their economic, technological, and financial interdependence with China.&nbsp;In other words, western elites want to terminate trade with China as much as possible which will lead to isolation, encirclement and eventually, regime change. Sound familiar? The trick is to make “decoupling” (economic isolation) look like it is being forced upon the United States which is why Trump keeps repeating the inane phrase, “China is ripping us off.” Just to clarify that point:&nbsp;China gives US consumers quality merchandise that requires expensive resources, factories and investment in exchange for green sheets of paper of diminishing value. On which end of that deal would you rather be? Take a minute and watch this short video with economist Larry Summers who explains that China is NOT cheating anyone by producing inexpensive goods that it is willing to exchange for USD. <lframe id="twitter-widget-2" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" class="" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/e...