How Washington’s tariff “victory” looks like new economic colonialism — and why the trade deals are unequal treaties

A tariff notice now does the job a cannon once did.

Editor's note:

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What does power look like for Washington in 2025? A percentage sign. Threats of 30 percent to 50 percent tariffs hung over capitals from Brussels to Manila like a sword, and “agreements” followed in a rush — each one trading a tariff cliff for a still‑punishing baseline: a 15 percent wall on all EU goods, 15 percent on Japan, 20 percent on Vietnam, and 19 percent on Indonesia and the Philippines. U.S. goods, meanwhile, often slipped in duty‑free, while multibillion‑dollar purchase orders and investment pledges were funneled toward America. Tribute by any other name would smell as steep.

When tariffs replaced gunboats

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Washington pried open markets with literal gunboat diplomacy—from Commodore Perry’s Black Ships off Edo Bay to U.S. cruisers enforcing debt payments in the Caribbean. Trade concessions were negotiated under a broadside’s shadow. In 2025, the warships stayed in port, but the logic survived: a tariff notice now does the job a cannon once did.

Europe’s experience set the pattern. Brussels arrived insisting on zero‑for‑zero. It left with a flat 15 percent tariff on most of its exports — roughly six times last year’s average U.S. rate — plus a promise to channel about 600 billion U.S. dollars of investment into the United States and to buy roughly 750 billion U.S. dollars of American energy and defense products. Steel and aluminum remained hit with 50 percent. The White House reserved the right to crank duties back up if deliveries lagged. “The best we could get,” Ursula von der Leyen conceded. In Paris, it was simply “a dark day.”

Tokyo’s script scarcely diverged. Japan avoided a harsher levy only by accepting a 15 percent ceiling and assembling a 550 billion U.S. dollar package deployed largely at U.S. discretion, with Trump boasting of a 90 percent profit share. Detroit promptly cried foul: American carmakers still face 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum and 25 percent on many parts, leaving them, they say, “definitely at a disadvantage.”

Further south and east, leverage hardened into outright asymmetry. Indonesia agreed to zero tariffs on almost all U.S. goods, dropped key resource and regulatory barriers, accepted U.S. auto and FDA standards and signed up for billions in U.S. aircraft, farm and energy purchases — even as Washington locked a 19 percent duty on Indonesian exports.

The Philippines took the same 19 percent rate — down a token point from the threat—while granting zero tariffs for American imports and deepening military cooperation. Vietnam accepted 20 percent across the board and 40 percent on goods Washington deems “transshipped,” while opening its own market duty‑free to U.S. products.

Tariff fire even reached the produce aisle. Tomatoes — 90 percent of which the United States imports from Mexico — lost their long‑standing duty‑free status and now face a 17 percent levy. Salad, salsa, ketchup and pasta sauce will cost more. Domestic growers cannot fill the gap.

New economic colonialism

The tariff pacts Washington struck embody what can be called new economic colonialism, built on tariff‑tributaryism: a system that swaps imperial gunboats for tariff clocks and cannonades for compliance clauses. It runs on three moves.

First, threaten annihilation to make “consent” inevitable. Partners negotiated under a countdown to ruinous duties. Signing staved off disaster. It did not signal parity. The signature sealed coercion, not compromise.

Second, convert mercy into one‑way flows. The reprieve carried a price tag in capital, commodities, and standards. Europe’s energy payments flow west. Japan’s half‑trillion fund props up U.S. priorities. Indonesia’s minerals and regulations are rewritten to American codes. Vietnam’s market swings open while its goods still pay the toll. Technical‑sounding rules — auto safety, FDA approvals — hand Washington the gatekeeping keys and lock other economies into U.S.-led value chains.

Third, keep the trigger within reach. Even after the ink dried, U.S. officials said the White House could restore higher tariffs—potentially back to the originally threatened levels—if a partner “fell short.” Mercy is provisional, leverage perpetual. Where a gunboat once loitered offshore, a tariff letter now sits in a drawer marked “if needed.”

This isn’t classic neocolonialism in treaty form, nor mere protectionism. It is a hybrid — tributary logic fused to modern instruments — hence new economic colonialism centered on tariff‑tributaryism. Coercion without conquest. Dependency without direct rule. A sphere of influence drawn not with borders, but with baselines, quotas, and purchase commitments.

Unequal treaties won't make America great again

Europe calculates that a 15 percent tariff is roughly quadruple the pre‑Trump average. Japanese exporters have already slashed prices 19.4 percent year‑on‑year to keep their foothold, eroding profits and threatening the wage gains that finally nudged Japan out of deflation. Vietnamese manufacturers now juggle impossible deadlines and razor‑thin margins to meet U.S. rules while paying double penalties for alleged “transshipment.” None of this spells “win‑win.”

Americans are hardly insulated. Analysts warn U.S. firms are absorbing much of the tariff cost and will pass it on. Bloomberg’s models show the new levies already stunting global growth as investment stalls and supply chains contort. Even niche duties — like that tomato tax — flow straight to grocery bills. And at home, U.S. automakers complain the patchwork left them paying more for steel, aluminum and parts than their foreign rivals, undermining the very “Made in America” push tariffs were supposed to defend.

Politically, “submission,” “imbalanced,” “dark day” aren’t the words of partners celebrating reciprocity. They are the vocabulary of coerced compromise. History’s verdict on such arrangements is clear. Unequal treaties breed resentment, not durable peace. They paper over conflict until the bill comes due.

If Washington’s goal is a rules‑based order and making America great again, tariff tribute is the wrong foundation. Real prosperity grows from predictability and perceived fairness, not new economic colonialism.

The lesson from a century ago still applies: victories secured by pressure unravel. Only genuinely mutual agreements endure.