The United States’ rampage of tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico have hammered the American economy.

Stock markets are down, the US dollar is down, and even the president himself cannot rule out the possibility of the US falling into a recession. Yet he remains as adamant to take the course of trade conflict as ever. So that might make you wonder, Why bother?

Donald Trump, and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) wing of American politics, have long resented the global trading system as the US shaped it, even as it has been the bedrock of the country’s prosperity as the consumer and financial powerhouse of the world.

For decades, the US sought to export the virtues of capitalism and free markets to the rest of the world, believing that open commerce was integral to the promotion of their values, ideology, and way of life. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to describe America as being the most successful commercial country in history.

The “American dream”, as it was called, offered countless people seeking a better life from Europe the opportunity to climb the ladder of enterprise and find new wealth and opportunity. It is this commercial spirit that ultimately pioneered the rise of the US as an economic giant and a technological pioneer, which has had unforetold cultural influence on the world. From fast food to film, computers and software, Americans seemed to understand how their successes inspired others, and this was the hallmark of US-led globalization, which would see it triumph in the Cold War and surpass the Soviet Union.

The Trumpian worldview has long pushed a narrative of denial in regard to the realities of global economics, making false promises to the American people that will not be substantiated. While he aims to utilize tariffs as a weapon in order to yield favorable, unilateral concessions, the economic damage of these policies create a lose-lose impact for all involved

Yet the world has changed, and seemingly the political attitude of many Americans has also changed. The confidence and optimism that Americans invested in their support for free and open trade has faltered and been replaced by a deep insecurity and hysteria that now depicts global commerce not as a win-win triumph, but a zero-sum game that operates at the expense of the US, only to the benefit of others, and must be arrested at all costs. Protectionism and tariffs have become the order of the day, with successive administrations openly willing to destroy global economic integration unless it operates on one-sided American terms.

The president and his supporters repeatedly claim that other countries, be it China or wherever, are undermining American jobs and prosperity through so-called unfair practices, and the only answer to bringing jobs back home is to utilize tariffs as a political weapon. Of course, this is simplistic and jingoistic rhetoric that deliberately ignores the reality that in a globalized economic system, manufacturers will instinctively seek out the lowest common denominator, and that the strength of the US economy is vested on consumerism, finance, and technology, as opposed to making low-end goods, which are simply not practical to make at home.

After all, US companies that have based their operations in China, such as Apple, are hardly there to “rip America off” or are receiving so-called unfair subsidies. The consumer value of an iPhone sold in America far exceeds the cost of manufacturing, which goes to the Chinese company, even if the Chinese consumer market itself is also a lucrative factor. The Trumpian worldview has long pushed a narrative of denial in regard to the realities of global economics, making false promises to the American people that will not be substantiated. While he aims to utilize tariffs as a weapon in order to yield favorable, unilateral concessions, the economic damage of these policies create a lose-lose impact for all involved. The Canadian and Mexican economies, after all, are structured on exports to the US and thus fulfilling a considerable portion of American needs, meaning this will cause immense damage to all three countries.

In conclusion, Trump has always been unpredictable, and he is never, ever, someone you should try to call the bluff of, yet it has also been my consideration that he is not fundamentally “irrational” and there is always an innate strategic logic behind what he does, no matter how flawed it might be. However, his sudden inclination to unapologetically shake and bulldoze the American economy with sporadic trade conflicts has managed to outdo my expectations. Perhaps the president has a grand vision to rework global commerce in building a more thorough, one-sided, US-centric order, but one must have serious doubts if that vision has any place in reality.

His whole ideology, after all, has been built upon a reaction to perceived American decline, the idea that US support of globalization somehow became detrimental to America itself, and thus the old world must be “destroyed” in order to “make America great again”, but there is little inclination to believe this will be the right way to go about it.

The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.