Opinion | Trump’s tariffs are a gift to America’s adversaries - The Washington Post

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/05/tariffs-diplomacy-india-brazil-china/

Pivotal countries are moving away from the U.S. and toward China

Nations once friendly to the U.S. now lean toward Beijing after years of hostility.

Fareed Zakaria

September 5, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTToday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Look at the pictures that dominated this week’s world news. They are vivid illustrations of the failures of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

The photographs that captured most attention were of China’s massive military parade and of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un striding together. Those visuals were to be expected — a reminder that the West faces a determined set of adversaries who see it as their mission to destroy the Western-led international order.

What was surprising were the images from the days before, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization hosted leaders from India, Turkey, Vietnam and Egypt, among others. All these regional powers were generally considered closer to Washington than Beijing. But a toxic combination of tariffs, hostile rhetoric and ideological demands is moving many of the world’s pivotal states away from the United States and toward China. It might be the greatest own goal in modern foreign policy.

Consider the BRICS, a grouping of countries originally meant to represent the big emerging markets of the future — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — along with several other members now, too. At meetings, three of the core countries, Brazil, India and South Africa, would generally resist the Russian and Chinese effort to turn the organization into an anti-American grouping. For decades, Washington has been building ties with these three countries, each a leader in its region, to ensure that as they grew in size and stature, they would be favorably inclined toward the United States.