Editor's note: Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, CGTN, Global Times, China Daily, etc. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

As the U.S.' 90-day tariff pause expires, countries are scrambling to get a trade deal done. In these negotiations, few have clinched a satisfactory deal that pleases both themselves and the U.S. Instead, what has been achieved was overshadowed by compromise and wrangle.

Just before the first payments were due, Canada walked back on its digital service tax on American tech giants in a bid to woo its neighbor back to the negotiating table. Even the U.K., who got a head start in tariff talks with the U.S., had to back down in the bitter row over American agricultural produce imports. The concessions only embolden the bully to get tougher on others, including its allies.

India's farm products, especially soybean and dairy products, are areas that the U.S. is trying to crack open. Japan has been pressured to buy more American soybean, rice and maize, while its cars are kept away from the U.S. market by the 25 percent automobile-specific tariffs. These disagreements put the U.S. and other negotiators at loggerheads, resulting in a stalemate in the trade talks.

What America wants

Clearly enough, to get what it wants, the U.S. will batter whoever stands in the way, friend or foe.

Take soybean, a standing item on the agenda of U.S. trade negotiators. For the U.S., the world's largest trader of agricultural products and second largest soybean exporter, China and the EU were its two largest soybean destinations in 2024, according to the U.S. Agricultural Export Yearbook. As exports to these two economies may drop as a result of tariffs, the U.S. is trying to pry open other markets, including India and the U.K.

To help American tech companies get rid of the up to $2 billion in digital service tax, the U.S. government forced Canada to rescind the tax that will bring the Canadian government $7.2 billion in revenues. The recent trade deal between the U.S. and Vietnam allows American goods to enter the country duty-free whereas a 20 percent levy will await Vietnamese exports, and a 40 percent transshipment tariff is slapped on goods from third countries that transit through Vietnam on their way to the U.S.

With threats of escalating tariffs, the U.S. is acting like a bully to get what it wants at others' expense.

What America doesn't want

"We need to restore freedom and equity to international trade, much more than barriers and tariffs, which are devised by the strongest, and which are often used as instruments of blackmail, not at all as instruments of rebalancing," said French President Emmanuel Macron of the EU-U.S. negotiations.

Though he didn't specify who the strongest is, hours after his remarks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected Macron's characterization, insisting that tariffs are an effective tool to rebuild U.S. manufacturing. But the U.S., strong as it is, has to accept consequences that it does not want.

Owing to a decline in exports, the U.S. trade deficit in goods jumped by 11 percent to $96.6 billion in May, way higher than the previously expected $86.1 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

Reuters reported that prices for Chinese goods on Amazon rose faster than overall inflation. Between January and mid-June, the median price of a basket of over 1,400 such products edged up 2.6 percent, outstripping the U.S. core inflation. This demonstrates that tariff-driven price rises are already starting to hit American consumers.

According to the Conference Board, American consumer confidence slid from 98.4 in May to 93 in June, the lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a European Central Bank forum on July 1, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell expected the repercussions of tariffs to show up in inflation data this summer.

Companies are also feeling the pain of fickle U.S. trade policy. Many multinationals are again taking a look at their global production and procurement strategy to cushion the blow.

After the passage of One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax cuts package would add $2.4 trillion to the nation's deficit over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A sky-high deficit plus on-and-off tariffs brings into question the reliability of the U.S. and its greenback.

As more countries wait in line for "reciprocal" deals, the U.S.' disproportionate gains will only pile up, other countries' vulnerability will cut deep, and the current trade regime will break up.

This is keenly observed by Ichiro Fujisaki, former Japanese ambassador to the U.S. "I don't think it's going to be a win-win situation," said Fujisaki. "Maybe a capital-letter 'WIN' for the U.S., but a small-letter 'win' for Japan." Other countries should know it well.

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