It happened with no fanfare. No saber-rattling. No choreographed press conference. Just one quiet statement from Beijing’s Customs Tariff Commission: "Tariffs on US goods will rise to 125% — and this will be our final adjustment. Regardless of future US actions, China will no longer respond." In Washington, they saw a concession. In reality? Beijing walked away from the last imperial leverage DC had left.
» Tariffs on US goods will rise to 125% — and this will be our final adjustment.
Regardless of future US actions, China will no longer respond. «
China's Customs Tariff Commission, April 11, 2025.
Regardless of future US actions, China will no longer respond. «
China's Customs Tariff Commission, April 11, 2025.
In Trump's chaotic circus, tariffs are sold as economic patriotism, blunt-force trauma marketed as “tough negotiation.” But tariffs are the last resort of a hollowed-out empire that no longer produces, competes, or innovates, only thinks it can still dictate.
Trump’s latest move, slapping a 125% tariff on Chinese goods, was meant to flex dominance. Beijing waited, matched it perfectly, then froze the board. "There is no possibility of market acceptance of US goods in China." Translation: “We don’t need you anymore.” No further hikes are necessary. The US is de facto cut off from the colossal Chinese market. That's not de-escalation. That's de-dollarization in practice. Geoeconomic Aikido, using the empire’s aggression to accelerate the break from it.
Chinese Embassy in the US, April 10, 2025.
Washington still believes in a world that no longer exists. It thinks it can dictate trade terms while running trillion-dollar deficits, threaten its way into solvency while its factories rust, and that China will forever tolerate economic warfare just to retain access to Walmart shelves and US Treasury bonds, bonds that are a ticking time bomb for the hollowed empire.
But that world is gone. China has reoriented trade through Belt & Road. It’s fortified currency alliances with BRICS+, hardened internal markets, and invested across the Global South. Most importantly, it has shifted away from Western export dependency.
Chinese Embassy in the US, April 11, 2025.
So when Beijing says, “we will ignore further US tariff moves,” it’s not a concession. It's sovereignty. The US has already been priced out, there’s no need for more theaters. This is the reckoning of a rentier empire built on financial parasitism, not production.
The definition of narcissism.
America doesn't have the tools to win a trade war, it doesn't make the tools anymore. Wall Street eviscerated its industrial base. Labor was deskilled by decades of outsourcing. Infrastructure crumbled while $10 trillion burned in forever wars. Trump’s 125% tariff isn’t policy, it’s a symptom. An empire in late stage declined. The power of Beijing’s response isn’t the tariff, it’s the refusal to respond again. No escalation. No panic. Just a clean break from a failing system.
A message to the Global South: “We won’t be dragged into Washington’s chaos. We won’t fight over a burning house. We’ll build new ones.” It's multipolar maturity. Let the US isolate itself, tariff its own supply chains, and raise rates until its middle class fractures. Beijing will trade in yuan with the Global Majority, while America tariffs itself into irrelevance.
Markets have lost nearly $6 trillion net since February, despite brief rebounds. Wall Street knows: this isn’t 2001. China isn’t cowering. It now holds the keys to rare earths, battery tech, and semiconductors. Trump framed the tariffs as punishment for “ripping off the USA.”
A message to the Global South: “We won’t be dragged into Washington’s chaos. We won’t fight over a burning house. We’ll build new ones.” It's multipolar maturity. Let the US isolate itself, tariff its own supply chains, and raise rates until its middle class fractures. Beijing will trade in yuan with the Global Majority, while America tariffs itself into irrelevance.
» The reckoning of a rentier empire built on financial parasitism, not production. «
But who really gutted America’s industries? China? Or Goldman Sachs? Who looted pensions, turned homes into hedge fund fodder, and spent trillions on wars that only enriched Raytheon and BlackRock? The real theft wasn’t done in Beijing. It was done in boardrooms, think tanks, and Senate halls under the banner of “free markets” and “security.”
This moment isn’t the climax of a trade war. It’s the end of illusion, that the US can sanction, tariff, and bully its way to eternal dominance. Beijing just called time. 125% is the ceiling. From here forward, they won’t play the empire’s game. They're building a new one, with bricks, not bombs. With real trade, not tribute. With allies who don’t need threats to stay loyal.
» There is no possibility of market acceptance of US goods in China. «
The US is de facto cut off from the colossal Chinese market.
This moment isn’t the climax of a trade war. It’s the end of illusion, that the US can sanction, tariff, and bully its way to eternal dominance. Beijing just called time. 125% is the ceiling. From here forward, they won’t play the empire’s game. They're building a new one, with bricks, not bombs. With real trade, not tribute. With allies who don’t need threats to stay loyal.
Quoted from:
Gerry Nolan (April 12, 2025) - The Last Tariff: How China Ended the Empire’s Trade War With a Whisper.
Gerry Nolan (April 12, 2025) - The Last Tariff: How China Ended the Empire’s Trade War With a Whisper.
Trump economic counselor Peter Navarro accuses China of killing "1 million Americans with fentanyl" and "destroying over 60,000 American factories and 5 million manufacturing jobs". Who prescribes opioids to millions of Americans, leading to addiction? Did China choose to ship these factories offshore and deindustrialize for tax evasion and cheap labor?
See also:
And, of course, no one understands tariffs—only Trump does.
