The sinking feeling of Trump’s global tariffs on July 9

But rather than a celebratory milestone, it has become a day of anxiety and unease across world capitals. Thus far, no credible deals have emerged—not even with America’s closest allies. The starkest example is Japan.

Despite multiple rounds of high-level meetings, there is still no finalized trade agreement between Washington and Tokyo. If anything, the situation has worsened. Trump has floated the possibility of raising tariffs beyond the current 25% already imposed on Japanese automobiles, a sector that forms the lifeblood of Japan’s export economy. This escalation has placed Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shige in an impossible political bind.

Ishiba, a pragmatic conservative, is fighting for his political life ahead of the Upper House elections on July 20, 2025. Any move to appease Trump’s demands on car tariffs could be perceived domestically as capitulation to U.S. bullying, triggering a backlash from within his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and across the Japanese public. For Japan—a democracy deeply sensitive to economic sovereignty and national pride—the optics of bending to Trump’s unilateral tariff threats are politically suicidal. Ishiba cannot afford to “cave.” And Trump seems unwilling to compromise. That stalemate has broader implications far beyond Japan.

As The Wall Street Journal rightly observes, Trump’s tariff diplomacy has never been about consistency. It is a volatile blend of threat, bluster, and unpredictability—often resembling a game of bait-and-switch. Tariffs are announced, delayed, sometimes implemented retroactively, or lifted conditionally. Allies and adversaries alike are left to second-guess American intentions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Trump Administration’s on-again, off-again engagement with China. Despite announcing a “framework deal” earlier this year, the details remain nebulous. There has been no face-to-face meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping. While Trump prefers personal, transactional negotiations, Xi delegates to technocrats—creating a dangerous gap in styles and expectations. That asymmetry alone has left Beijing unconvinced that Washington is negotiating in good faith.

For the broader Indo-Pacific, Trump’s erratic trade policies have induced strategic paralysis. China, already navigating a complex decoupling from U.S. tech and financial markets, faces further headwinds from uncertainty over tariff timelines and scope. Trump’s imposition of new levies on critical minerals and AI components has disrupted Chinese supply chains and emboldened hawkish elements within the Communist Party.

South Korea, too, remains vulnerable. Seoul is a major supplier of semiconductors and auto parts—both sectors under scrutiny from Trump’s latest tariff plans. Worse still, Korea is not included in the US-UK or US-China bilateral arrangements, leaving it exposed to the whims of Washington’s trade policy with no safety net. In an ironic twist, Trump’s brand of economic nationalism is pushing America’s treaty allies closer to hedging strategies with China and the EU.

Japan, as noted, faces not just economic pain but political peril. Trump’s repeated threat to raise tariffs on Japanese cars—despite decades of close military and diplomatic ties—signals a collapse of traditional alliance-based trade trust. Should the LDP suffer a humiliating loss in the July 20 elections, it will be in no small part due to the costs of navigating Trump’s policy crosswinds.

ASEAN, meanwhile, is caught in the undertow. As an open, trade-dependent region, Southeast Asia relies heavily on global demand and stable trading rules. Trump’s global tariffs, often applied without WTO consultations, violate those norms.

Countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia, which have benefited from some relocation of supply chains out of China, now face the risk of being next in line. Trump previously accused Vietnam of being “worse than China,” and he could easily revive that narrative to justify more levies, and recently they reached a consensus. Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines have little defence if suddenly targeted.

What’s more, the ASEAN bloc has no collective strategy to counter or buffer against these policy shocks. While frameworks like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) offer long-term alternatives, they do little to cushion the immediate volatility caused by American tariff brinkmanship.

What we are witnessing is the erosion of economic diplomacy itself. Trump’s tariffs are not tools of structural reform but symbols of political performance. They project strength to his domestic base, punish perceived rivals, and force allies into compliance—but they seldom produce enduring agreements.

Navarro’s promise of “90 deals in 90 days” was never about actual deliverables. It was about setting an artificial bar, so that even the most minimal trade statements could be spun as a diplomatic coup. But global markets are not fooled. Currency jitters, stock market tremors, and capital flight across emerging economies show that the cost of unpredictability is real—and rising.

Furthermore, Trump’s tariff-centric approach fails to address deeper economic trends: automation, digital transformation, and the rise of multipolar trade regimes. Instead of re-industrializing America, tariffs have raised costs for U.S. consumers, antagonized allies, and triggered retaliatory barriers from China, the EU, and Latin America.

The world should not treat July 9 as a date to celebrate Trump’s trade bravado. It is a warning—of a global trading system inching toward fragmentation, a world economy increasingly driven by coercion rather than consensus.

Without a coherent trade doctrine and without respect for multilateral institutions, the U.S. risks isolating itself and dragging its partners down with it.

Japan’s precarious position under Prime Minister Ishiba is only the most visible example of how Trump’s unpredictability harms not just adversaries, but allies. And if his threats against Japan become reality, it may trigger retaliatory spirals that engulf the entire Indo-Pacific.

The time has come for all sides to chart its own course rooted in multilateralism, institutional resilience, and shared prosperity—before the global economic architecture becomes a casualty of Trump's zero-sum illusions. _______________________________________________________________________________________

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.