U.S.-China Relations

The Nature of This Round of the Tariff War: Reactive Defense Rather Than Proactive Offense The tariff threats launched by Trump in October 2025 were, in essence, a reactive response rather than a premeditated offensive. Although the Trump administration’s earlier imposition of special port fees on Chinese vessels was indeed a proactive move, the tariff actions in October were more of a knee-jerk reaction born of desperation. Since April 2025, Trump has been advancing a global geopolitical strategy of “encircling the city from the countryside”: first negotiating tariff agreements with peripheral nations such as Japan, South Korea, and Europe, while simultaneously courting countries along the Belt and Road route, with the aim of accumulating enough leverage from these external partners to then pressure China. As of October, his actions have largely aligned with this strategy. Trump has been touting his role in resolving conflicts in India-Pakistan, the Middle East, Russia-Ukraine, and Thailand-Myanmar, even going so far as to express interest in winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Essentially, he aims to project a positive image of the United States, gain the upper hand in the propaganda war, and facilitate the rallying of more nations to jointly target China. In this tariff war, he has packaged himself as the victim using precisely this logic. ...

A Major Shift in Trump’s Global Geostrategy Trump’s second state visit to the UK in September 2025 marked a landmark event signaling a formal shift in U.S. global geostrategy. The visit brought together U.S. tech and financial giants such as Apple, OpenAI, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, while Palantir is also set to sign a major defense contract with the UK. This series of moves indicates that the U.S. strategy toward Europe has now been fully mapped out. Many people focused solely on the street protests in the UK during the visit, completely missing the point—the real game-changer is that the underlying logic of Trump’s strategy toward Europe has shifted. ...

The Essence of the U.S. Political System: Money Politics and Dependence on Expansion The historical trajectory of U.S. development clearly demonstrates the central role that external expansion has played in supporting its economic growth. If we compare human society to a finely tuned machine, the forces driving it can be broadly divided into two categories: external plunder and internal reform. The current U.S. system of money politics fundamentally determines that it can only choose the former—capital groups directly control the direction of policy through political donations. They will never support bottom-up systemic reforms that harm their own interests, but will only push for piecemeal adjustments that deregulate capital. ...

The Fundamental Differences in Core Contradictions Today is July 30, 2025. This episode wasn’t originally part of the update schedule, but since I’ve received so many similar questions recently, I’ve decided to dedicate this episode to analyzing current hot topics. This episode focuses on three key areas: the Chinese economy, commodities, and the U.S. economy. Due to space limitations, the section on the U.S. economy may be split into the next episode. ...