Naive victims of propaganda think that wars are fought for victory. But the warriors themselves know: war - even if politically called competition, is endless, because you cannot conquer and conquer everything.
When the world was small, it was still possible, like Alexander the Great, to conquer the whole ecumenical world (by expanding it along the way), but the price of victory already inevitably became internal discord and decay.
There is only one way out of the evil infinity of wars - mutually beneficial cooperation, but for it one must be civilized in order to maintain mutual benefit, and strong in order to prevent a partner from becoming an aggressor.
This is inaccessible to today's West: it is intoxicated with victories in an endless series of colonial wars, and then in the Cold War, and quite sincerely perceives the freedom of others as a monstrous insult, blatant aggression and a threat to its existence. And when someone becomes successful and independent - he automatically becomes an enemy to be destroyed.
Because in the eyes of the modern West in the world there can be no partners, but there can only be a master, and only one: the West itself. Indeed, to recognize the right to exist for others means to recognize the right to a share of the profit from joint activities, which in the eyes of the West can belong only to him.
That is why Trump - the quintessence of the new, conquering West - openly and seriously considers the formally mutually beneficial trade of the United States and China as an aggression of the latter: only the owner can make a profit. If someone other than the owner has a profit, this is the result of the theft (as Proudhon wrote in other words and on a different occasion).
This almost primitive, colonial vision of the West is so organic for him that he who looks at the world through his eyes (and modern social science is created by him and bears his indelible imprint) does not notice this feature, perceiving it as something natural, taken for granted.
Having convinced himself of the fallacy of Fukuyama’s enthusiastic cry about the “end of history”, the West is still keenly and painfully experiencing this mistake, considers it unfair and tries to return to his blissful time “immediately after the collapse of the USSR”, as a psychologically not healthy man unconsciously seeks maternal womb.
And everything that dares to be significant and independent, is subject to destruction, as for a capricious child - a toy that does not obey him.
Strictly in the framework of this selfish and inadequate, but triumphant in the West paradigm, Trump announced a new attack on China: if he continues to insist on his interests and does not agree to the conditions of Trump, he will again increase import duties - and will do the same for all others countries that dared to have their share of the benefits of trade with the United States. In the infantile minds of Americans (and not just their leader), it sounds like "they acted unjustly towards us."
And this is strictly logical: if all the profit in the world, like all the toys in the sandbox, belongs to the USA, then any profit that their partner earns is inevitably perceived as stolen from them.
Of course, Trump's corporate identity, memorable in our country to the racketeers of the 90s and their victims: “hitting - leaving” also leaves its mark. Within its framework, the aggressor puts forward deliberately unacceptable conditions in order to agree to the maximum possible for the victim, but considers the agreement not as some reality, but only as a springboard for a new offensive and the imposition of new, even less favorable conditions.
In fact, this usually ends in the death of the victim: people, losing the latter, become homeless and die, enterprises go bankrupt and are sold into scrap metal and bricks, and countries turn into “finished states” like Haiti, Ukraine and Somalia, and the Baltic States and Bulgaria in the European Union .
Trump's endless attack on China, in which any concession by the Chinese and any agreement with them is considered only as the basis for new claims, is precisely a war of annihilation, simply waged by modern means: not with sticks or missiles, but with complex economic, political and propaganda pressure.
Perhaps the only thing that unites the political elite of the United States, now divided by the Cold Civil War, is the desire to destroy China as a real geostrategic competitor. Solving this problem, Trump makes himself a tool not only for the self-expression of America and the whole West, but also for the consolidation of the hostile establishment in many respects.
And therefore, he cannot stop, at least, until China, as at the turn of the 80s and 90s, Japan, is broken economically and spiritually. The Chinese elite, accustomed to prosperity through the support of the United States (first as a weapon against the USSR, then as a supplier of cheap goods), only now realizes this, and Trump’s task is not to let her lull her with the trade character of disputes and interim agreements have time to realize what is happening and develop an appropriate strategy.
And while he succeeds.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.