Trump's Tariff Reset & A Prelude to a CCP-Taiwan War?

Depending on who else is on board with Xi, his risk appetite may merely be to acquire Taiwan with minimal overt bloodshed.

Apr 07, 2025

From Kyle Bass: https://x.com/Jkylebass/status/1909049204632412438

Trump’s Tariff RESET

Much can be made of the US/UK neoconservatives and their quest for sprawling wars. Much can also be said for the Trump desire to “trade reset” the United States economic might back to the year 1970. At the crossroads of 1970s geopolitical mistakes, Taiwan’s present day existence and Trump’s trade and economic reset policies, lay the CCP’s Paramount Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for reunification and expand PLA dominance of over the Pacific Rim, and later, the World.

1970 was just prior to Nixon’s two great and enduring policy errors fueling much of the present day confrontations: going off the gold standard in August 1971 (thanks France!) and greater recognition of Communist China over Taiwan (ROC) through Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. By decade’s end, Communist China primacy was logged in among President Jimmy Carter’s major policy blunders. This along with giving away the Panama Canal (by 1999) that China later bought the Atlantic and Pacific control ports from the Panamanians.

As of 2025, the year of the wood serpent (snake), Xi Jinping has made clear his desired march to China’s supremacy and quest for sole world superpower status runs through Taiwan. This is 24 years since 2001, a serpent year – when in December – China entered the WTO under a favored nation status. Just months after 9/11, the Chinese coup on the world was to acquire US manufacturing knowledge, intellectual property and factories to its shore and proclaim lukewarm desires to become more democratic. (Although, their leaders never said anything directly about becoming any sort of democracy. Meanwhile, all the short-sighted hustlers in oligarchic and Wall Street class saw mainland China as just another market to conquer. Instead, the CCP conquered them.) These investors valued only profit, never their country or their own culture’s existence; and ignored the growing 2^nd and 3^rd order consequences of dealing with a rapacious and vengeance-seeking CCP party. The Century of Humiliation payback is the underlying bitch in this situation.

Our U.S. trade “experts” sales pitched the American people that consuming more flat screens, buying their puppy chow from China (remember the pet poisoning in the 2000s?) and later on, iPhones, was a good trade-off to get a continuous supply of cheaper goods made by peasants slaving ten to fourteen hours per day in a unsafe factory. (Foxconn added suicide nets to the buildings as their employees’ frustrations hampered morale in putting your spying cell phones together.)

Trump’s 2^nd administration decided tariffs (and messaged this for many months), can properly motivate countries to abolish their tariffs. Their tariffs are, and have been in fact, protecting their markets from U.S goods’ entry. Thus the U.S. manufacturers face both financial and regulatory barriers in Asia and Europe alike, and in most cases, these are substantially higher than U.S.’s most recent history on tariffs.

As China, Canada, Mexico are the U.S.’s biggest trade partners, these are a key focal point for the Trump Tariff Reset. Moreover, these three particular countries are in a close symbiotic relationship, a reverse Opium War. China long ago remembers the 19^th century Opium conflicts with the Brits, other European countries, and the burgeoning United States.

Just today, China and Europe has upped the ante of tariffs:

“The Chinese government announced that it would be retaliating by placing a 34% tariff on all imports from the United States and European officials said that they would be throwing up fresh trade barriers of their own to prevent industry-destroying dumping of cheap goods while they also prepare “countermeasures” against US tariffs.”

From RUSI: https://youtu.be/knVvKkMDEHI?si=J4AVJDW6xVdiJl4D&t=78

Prelude to a CCP-Taiwan War?

But back to Taiwan: The most vital maker of high-end microchips in the entire world and the technological and financial reason the timeline for a kinetic war may come before year’s end. As bad as Eastern Europe, the Middle East and our own Western Hemisphere is on the ground, the potentiality of a game-tipping moment may hinge off the takeover of Taiwan by China. This is largely due to one single industry and predominately one company in TSMC. As NASDAQ.com wrote in August 2024:

“TSMC, as the company is also known, makes more semiconductors than anyone else in the world. It's the manufacturer that chip designers and tech giants like Apple, NVidia, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and others all rely on, [consistently over 60% of chips worldwide revenue]. In other words, TSMC is a crucial linchpin in the global economy as the electronics the world depends on wouldn't get made without the company. The chart [left] helps illustrate just how big a role it plays in the chip industry…
TSMC has an even larger 90% market share of advanced chip manufacturing. That includes 3-nanometer chips [now 2-nanometer] that are quickly growing in popularity and becoming standard, as well as advanced chip packaging for larger components.”[i]

The importance of microchip technology to the 21^st century world cannot be understated. Such dominance in this industry while being a mere 155 miles away from a highly-motivated enemy[ii] (that does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty) should also motivate U.S. interests to energize our own chip industries and protect our national security interests jealously.

Some propaganda pieces (Bloomberg) published that TSMC (Arizona) is achieving higher satisfactory chip production than in Taiwan.[iii]^,^[iv] This said, until the United State is a peer producer and has the operations (and redundancy) to keep afloat its critical industries, this is a primary geopolitical and military issue. Bloomberg mentions that Arizona’s 1^st plant is behind schedule for full production by at least one year; and the 2^nd plant is delayed in opening as well.[v]

Xi’s War Options

From The Federalist, three options were presented by retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Chuck DeVore. Colonel Devore, in my humble opinion, is fighting World War II style here. Because while Ukraine has not sparked nuclear booms, if either side incurred capital ship losses via a hypersonic missile, sending an aircraft carrier of 3-6,000 men to the bottom of the Pacific, the escalation ladder may come into play sooner rather than later.

[Read the entire article. These are snippets of his three options.]

China has three basic ways to grab Taiwan: a slow naval stranglehold, a lightning strike on Taipei, or a wild global attack that might even employ Mexican cartels. Each carries its own logic, risks, and U.S. counterpunch. To unpack them, we’ll lean on three strategic titans: Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Carl von Clausewitz, whose ideas still speak to today’s contests.

Option One - Blockade, the Boa Constrictor Method

China’s navy rings Taiwan like a steel noose, turning the Taiwan Strait into a kill zone. Of course, 90 percent of Taiwan’s food and all its natural gas come by ship. Snip that lifeline, and the island starves in months. No invasion, no blood-soaked beaches, just a slow strangulation. This is American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan’s gospel: Sea power rules the world. Mahan, the prophet of naval supremacy, argued that whoever controls the waves controls the world. China’s fleet, now outnumbering America’s 290 ships, could flex that muscle, squeezing Taiwan’s economy and daring the U.S. to blink. But it’s not a slam dunk.
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian master of war, would label this as attrition warfare — grind the enemy down, break their spirit over time. But time’s a double-edged sword. Taiwan might be tough; it might hold out longer than Beijing expects. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy with 11 carriers, attack subs, and a pack of allies, could steam in and turn the blockade into a shooting gallery. Japan’s 40 destroyers and Philippine airfields would join the fray, making it a Pacific cage match.

Buy me a coffee!

Option Two: Two AM (East Coast) Taipei Two-Step

Taiwan is at GMT +8 while the Washington DC is at GMT -4. Half Day ahead differential.

Now imagine this: Chinese missiles rain on Taiwan’s defenses, hackers crash its grid, and 100,000 troops hit the beaches — all before the U.S. wakes up. The goal? Seize Taipei in days and present the world with a done deal.
This is Clausewitz’s sweet spot: Decisive action, maximum force, crush the enemy’s will in one blow. War, he said, is politics with guns, and China’s political prize is Taiwan’s flag under Beijing’s boot. A blitz could deliver it fast. Mahan would love the payoff. Taking Taiwan shatters the First Island Chain, handing China the Pacific’s sea lanes. Those semiconductor plants? A trillion-dollar bonus. But Mahan knew sea power needs endurance. China’s 370 ships must fend off America’s 290, plus Japan’s fleet, in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Speed is the key; if the blitz stalls, it’s a quagmire.
…
For China, speed and shock could clinch it, leaving the U.S. scrambling and boosting Xi’s domestic standing. But Taiwan’s terrain favors defenders, and failure means global pariah status and a wrecked military. The U.S. gains by defending a democratic ally, flexing air and sea muscle, and reinforcing Pacific credibility. Still, America needs split-second coordination across allies, and if China digs in, it’s a brutal, bloody slog.

Option Three: All-In Chaos to Escalate to Total War

Here’s the wild card: China goes big. Missile barrages on Taiwan, U.S. bases in Japan, Guam, and the Philippines then throws a curveball. Beijing’s 20,000+ men of military age smuggled in under President Joe Biden, along with Mexican cartels, unleash hell on America’s infrastructure and border: attacks on power grids, shootouts at border crossings, smuggled saboteurs in Texas. It’s 1917’s Zimmermann Telegram redux — Imperial Germany tried to sic Mexico on the U.S. to distract from World War I — even sending military advisors to Mexico. Britain cracked the code, and America declared war on Germany.
This time, the stakes are higher. Clausewitz would recognize it as total war. Strike everywhere, confuse the enemy and attack his will to resist. But Clausewitz also warned of “friction” — war’s messy unpredictability. Cartels aren’t disciplined mercenaries. They might take China’s money and wreak havoc, or they might botch it. As for the Chinese nationals in the U.S., legal and illegal, have largely unknown capabilities and intentions.

A Fourth option: Multi-headed Dragon of Countries

These would work in coordinating order of battle to destroy United States ability to handle multiple crises with its finite assets. The Europeans, EU, are developing their own battle thoughts on how to make the United States a bit player in the world going forward.

Their political leaders are not doing this themselves - just weak hucksters put in front of the sheeple - but the oligarchs are more aligned to Beijing in their mutual disdain for the Americans and its Constitution. Wonder if the EU would do an escalating action in Ukraine, alone, to draw in the Russians, who are in a compact with the Chinese, to destruct Ukraine - and forcibly keep the United States out. The EU and Russians take out the Ukrainians forces, whose gonna know really?; and thereafter, cut the Americans out of any mineral deals. Which the UK started in January 2025.

This too would come with an Iranian escalation on Israel. China also backstops Iran. Turkey has dreams of conquest in the ME and beyond and is currently attempting to slice off a piece of Syria for itself.

If China was to deploy assets - substantial men - to Middle East - this to put direct pressure on Israel - then US would have to adjust their forces and logistics to hold at bay these two conflicts ongoing with their own NATO allies turning on them, just enough, to destabilize and reshape maps contrary to U.S. desires, or Trump’s plans in these theatres of conflict.

Russia is the substantial wild card. How much further would Putin go for Xi? Would he operate substantively to help China achieve its long sought ends? Provide weaponry or hacking of US domestic infrastructure and/or military assets?

As in option three, the infiltration is key to bring on domestic hostility. Color Revolutions are brewing….getting the U.S. population moving towards Civil War is exactly the right lever to pull to get so much concentration on internal affairs, as to be solely a Navy operating without an adequate focus, from the Pentagon or We the People, to build up moral support in a Taiwan conflict.

Our allies in the East are weak at the moment. South Korea has political turmoil - a rolling coup it appears - triggered by Chinese communist infiltrators. Japan is unsteady - economically - and has its own trade to worry about. Australia could become a threatened country due to its massive natural resources. China knows their military is no match for any invasion by a substantial army. Australia has even less manpower than the United Kingdom. Moreover, Australia has lots of CCP infiltration and links in their political class that would be willing to sell out to China for minimal harms.

The GO BIG Strategy would involved such a TOTAL WAR takeover on Taiwan, and coordinated efforts on 3-5 other hot spots - that much of the world map would be remolded in weeks, or months. The United States would lose three big resource-rich contests, Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with Panama Canal also under duress. Meanwhile, internal problems could bog down the majority of the population with an growing array of economic, trade, infrastructure, cyber, drug, social and political wars brewing hot, while kinetically defeated abroad from a host of hostile nations, including some very new entrees to that list.