Trump Wages Economic War on US Allies while BRICS Builds Alternative System

ANGLO AMERICA, 22 Sep 2025

Ben Norton and Michael Hudson | Geopolitical Economy - TRANSCEND Media Service

Donald Trump imposes tariffs and unequal treaties on Europe, Japan, and South Korea, forcing them to move factories to the US, while BRICS creates a multipolar world order. Trump’s imperial strategy to exploit US allies.

17 Sep 2025 – Donald Trump is imposing tariffs and unequal treaties on longtime allies in Europe, Japan, and South Korea, forcing them to pay and move their factories to the US.

Meanwhile, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are building a new multipolar world order based on mutually beneficial trade and investment.

Ben Norton is joined by economist Michael Hudson to discuss.

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Transcript

(Introduction)

Ben Norton: The US government has always had a very aggressive foreign policy. The United States has intervened in dozens of countries all around the world.

But what is unique about Donald Trump is that many of his aggressive policies not only target US adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, but also longtime US allies.

Trump has imposed high tariffs that have hurt the economies of key US allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Europe.

In fact, the details of the agreement that Trump imposed on Japan are quite shocking. This was reported on by the Financial Times, which wrote that “Japan confronts the increased price of US friendship”.

Although I would say it’s not so much “friendship”; rather it’s vassalage. Japan has been militarily occupied by the US for 80 years, and we’re now seeing the cost of this imperial relationship.

Because as part of the trade deal that Trump imposed on Japan, the US will be putting 15% tariffs on Japanese exports to the US, whereas Japan is not allowed to impose tariffs on US exports to Japan.

Moreover, what’s shocking about this deal is that Japan is being forced to invest $550 billion in the US economy, and Japan must do this by January 19, 2029, which is Trump’s last day as US president.

But that’s not all. In this extremely one-sided, imperial agreement, the US government has complete control over Japan’s investment. We’re talking about half a trillion dollars of investment. And as the Financial Times put it:

[The deal] reeks of coercion: a sovereign nation forced to funnel private and public-sector investment to a much richer one under a structure unashamedly directed by the US president.

Once Japan recoups its investment, it then reaps only 10 per cent of the cash flows from the project, to America’s 90 per cent. Yes, Japan has nominal input via a consultative committee into which projects are chosen, but there are no Japanese on the more powerful investment committee and it’s Trump who makes the ultimate call. Yes, Japan can elect not to fund an investment, but if it does so the US may impose new tariffs on Japan “at the rate determined by the President”.

So this is an extremely one-sided deal. The US gets 90% of the return on investment, and Trump personally has control over Japan’s $550 billion of investment in the US.

But it’s not just Japan. South Korea — another longtime US ally that has been militarily occupied by the US for over 70 years — has also been forced to sign an unequal treaty with the US, in which the US imposes 15% tariffs on Korean exports, and Korea is not allowed to retaliate.

But that’s not all. Trump has been humiliating Korea, and the US immigration agency ICE carried out a raid against a major factory in Georgia run by the Korean companies Hyundai and LG, and detained more than 300 South Korean workers in humiliating circumstances, putting handcuffs on them and treating them like criminals.

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