Trade War: The Theatre Of The Absurd In Trump's New Fight On Tariffs

Updated: Mar 23, 2026 08:52 am IST Published On Mar 23, 2026 08:50 am IST Last Updated On Mar 23, 2026 08:52 am IST

Published On Mar 23, 2026 08:50 am IST

Last Updated On Mar 23, 2026 08:52 am IST

The US government's trade lawyers are working overtime. So what if the work in question requires more imagination than it does expertise?

Over the past fortnight, investigations into 16 countries for supposed manufacturing "excess capacity" have been launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The office of US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also announced that similar probes would begin into forced labour practices in 60 countries. Several of America's largest trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, India and Mexico, will be on both lists.

One can safely assume that these 76 enquiries will proceed at a somewhat speedier rate than is usual, and the answers will arrive with the same breathtaking rapidity at which the questions were asked. An even safer assumption is that these answers will just happen to be the ones that the Trump administration wants.

The White House is moving with commendable efficiency here, as it tends to do whenever it sets out to destroy institutions. Section 301 investigations serve a real purpose -- identifying countries that are deliberately setting out to violate trading norms -- and generally take months. Their purpose was to remove trade barriers, not raise them. It's perverse to employ them as post-hoc scaffolding for a policy that's already been declared unconstitutional.

The entire world can see what's going on. Everyone knew that President Donald Trump's response to the Supreme Court striking down his tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act would be to find another law that lets him do exactly what he was just forbidden from doing. "No" has never been Trump's favourite word, and if there's one skill that a certain sort of real-estate developer perfects, it's forum-shopping.

The list of countries is a bit of a giveaway that this entire process is a legal fiction. Picture an army of worthy USTR officials solemnly poring over Bangladesh's structural overcapacity in manufacturing with all the seriousness of purpose that the exercise demands. Then imagine them turning with equal care to cataloguing the forced-labour practices of Norway, one of the 60 countries being examined.

Hard though it might be, the rest of the world will have to take this seriously. It's far from certain that the courts will ride to the rescue again.

Yes, the margin on the IEEPA ruling was 6-3, and Chief Justice Roberts was quite emphatic. But Section 301 is different. It outlines a process that must be followed, and this investigation, however theatrical, checks off that procedural box. The world cannot assume that the justices will want to strike them down in toto again. The administration is counting on that; Greer has described these provisions as "incredibly legally durable."

Washington has clearly learned something from its failures over the past year. Have its counterparts in the rest of the world learnt anything from theirs?

First, is it safe to negotiate with Trump? As the European Union has found out, he will relitigate his own deals even when he isn't being forced to by the Supreme Court. What the Section 301 investigations do is reopen -- implicitly, perhaps explicitly -- every deal Trump's done so far, whether with Korea, Japan, India, or Southeast Asia. Must they go through the whole thing again? Can they?

Some, like Malaysia's trade minister, think they will. The bilateral Agreement on Reciprocal Trade that Trump signed with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to considerable fanfare at the ASEAN Summit last year is "null and void," the trade minister said: "It is not on hold. It is no longer there." The deal was as dead as Monty Python's parrot. It has ceased to be. Why should any country consider itself bound by agreements signed under coercive terms that a court has voided?

Over the past year, countries rushed to secure piecemeal deals; some allowed panic to overtake them; very few coordinated their actions or retaliations. Washington's pretence at investigations does at least give the rest of the world time to consider whether that was the best approach to take.

The worst part, of course, is that like all Trump's actions on trade, there is only one objective target. Only one country has enormous manufacturing overcapacity; only one large exporting economy has a structural problem with forced labour. But somehow Trump is too weak to take on China armed with fact, but strong enough to take on the entire world with fiction.

Using a more defensible, granular statute means there are many more points of weakness than there were with the original "reciprocal" tariffs. Each application of Section 301 should be tested in the courts; every target of tariffs should talk to the others about what it has learned; the House, if the balance of power shifts after midterms, will have to hold the USTR to account.

Nudging the US away from imagination and toward reality will not be an easy process. But it will have to be tried.

Opinion | Will Pakistan Regret Letting The Army Back At The Centre Of Power?

Mihir Sharma, Bloomberg

Updated:Nov 20, 2025 12:47 pm ISTPublished OnNov 20, 2025 12:44 pm ISTLast Updated OnNov 20, 2025 12:47 pm ISTShareTwitterWhatsAppFacebookRedditEmailIt's usually easy to know when a country has fallen to a military dictatorship. Tanks on the streets, uniforms in gilded palaces, the political class interned en masse. Sometimes, however, the takeover is more subtle, more insidious. That is what has befallen Pakistan over the past few years, culminating in a constitutional amendment last week that gave its army chief, Asim Munir, additional powers and lifelong immunity from prosecution.The “establishment” — Pakistanis' euphemism for their powerful military and the industries and organisations it controls — has held a large share of power since its first decade as an independent nation. But democratic politicians have usually been arrayed in opposition, displacing it when it stumbled, such as after the country lost its eastern half, now Bangladesh, in 1971.That's not the case now. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is very conscious that he serves at Munir's pleasure, not the National Assembly's. As is his rival-turned-coalition partner in the Pakistan People's Party, President Asif Zardari. In recent years, they have surrendered civilians' hard-won privileges back to the army, and to Munir in particular. First, the general was granted economic decision-making powers, co-chairing a special investment council with Sharif meant to oversee strategically important projects. Then he was elevated to the rank of Field Marshal, becoming only the second person in Pakistan's history to hold that distinction — alongside its first military dictator, Ayub Khan.LATESTMusk Offers To Pay Salaries Of US Airport Security Staff AmiCIA Ex Chief Who Hunted Bin Laden Has A Hormuz Advice For TrOld, Ugly 'Flying Tank' US Wanted To Scrap Shines In Hormuz Alia Bhatt Reacts To Ranveer Singh's Emotional Dhurandhar 2 'Pak Must Not Think Twice, Hit Mumbai, Delhi': Ex Envoy's ChDeepika Beams With Joy As Ranveer Gets Loud Cheers After DhuNaqvi Left Frustrated As Overseas Stars Ditch PSL For IPL, MCitizens Must Be Safeguarded From Iran War Effect: PM Modi AWoman Dies Mid-Flight, Passengers Spend 13 Hours With Dead BNot A "Short Excursion": Iran War Escalates Beyond Trump's CVishal Dadlani Takes Indirect Dig At Dhurandhar 2 Over DemonSasikala-Ramadoss Alliance May Incur Heavy Cost On NDA In TaT Velmurugan's TVK Exits DMK Alliance In First Setback For RMusk Offers To Pay Salaries Of US Airport Security Staff AmiCIA Ex Chief Who Hunted Bin Laden Has A Hormuz Advice For TrOld, Ugly 'Flying Tank' US Wanted To Scrap Shines In Hormuz Alia Bhatt Reacts To Ranveer Singh's Emotional Dhurandhar 2 'Pak Must Not Think Twice, Hit Mumbai, Delhi': Ex Envoy's ChDeepika Beams With Joy As Ranveer Gets Loud Cheers After DhuNaqvi Left Frustrated As Overseas Stars Ditch PSL For IPL, MCitizens Must Be Safeguarded From Iran War Effect: PM Modi AWoman Dies Mid-Flight, Passengers Spend 13 Hours With Dead BNot A "Short Excursion": Iran War Escalates Beyond Trump's CVishal Dadlani Takes Indirect Dig At Dhurandhar 2 Over DemonSasikala-Ramadoss Alliance May Incur Heavy Cost On NDA In TaT Velmurugan's TVK Exits DMK Alliance In First Setback For RNow the army chief has been raised above the leaders of the other two forces, and put in sole charge of the country's nuclear weapons systems. As Chief of Defence Forces, the clock on Munir's tenure has been reset; instead of retiring, he will serve out a fresh five-year term in his new post.If, at the end of that time, he tells the prime minister and president that he wishes to be re-appointed, will they deny him? Given the power that they have already granted Munir, it is impossible to imagine they will.And that's the problem. Munir may have reached for power, but it is the civilian leaders who have given it to him.They might think their reasons for doing so are sensible. Zardari, who has spent years in prison already, may be so tired of prosecution that he welcomes a constitutional change that effectively confers immunity on the president as well as the defence chief. Sharif might well want to keep the military satisfied while the government goes about what he probably thinks is the far more urgent business of repairing Pakistan's creaking economy. Inflation, at 38% in his first year, is now under control at around 3.6% year-on-year, and GDP is growing at 2.9% although it was negative in 2023.And both will see Munir as an ally against the danger of the unstable populist Imran Khan, a former prime minister who was first propped up by the army and then turned against them. Khan's party got the most seats in the last election — even though it had been crippled by its leader's imprisonment — and he remains popular in large parts of the country.But none of these count as a compelling reason to so easily relinquish advantages over the establishment that civilian politicians had worked long and hard to achieve. Two decades ago, Pakistan's last outright military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, had to put on civilian mufti and pretend to be a regular president. (He resigned in 2008 because he feared the democratically elected national assembly was about to impeach him.) Musharraf's successor as army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chose to retire when he decided his time had come, declaring that he shared “the general opinion that institutions and traditions are stronger than individuals and must take precedence.” And by the time Munir's immediate predecessor, Qamar Javed Bajwa, retired, he was willing to admit that the army was unpopular because of its “interference in politics for the last 70 years” and promised that it would never do so again.At no point did Pakistan's democrats completely escape the shadow of the army — but institutionally and symbolically, the uniforms had begun to give way to the suits. The fear of instability, India, and Imran shouldn't have led the politicians to give up on these two decades of progress.Perhaps it's been easy for the army men precisely because, this time, there have been no tanks on the streets. Munir, unlike Musharraf, is willing to share the limelight with civilians. His new prominence in affairs that shouldn't be his remit — foreign affairs, economics — is accompanied by a theatrical deference to the civilian authorities even as his own power increases.This is visible at international summits, most recently in Saudi Arabia, Beijing and Washington. Sharif brings him to meetings, introduces him to foreign leaders, and then the general steps back and lets the prime minister do the talking. The courtesies of civilian supremacy are punctiliously observed, while real power ebbs away — or, perhaps, is handed over. Pakistan's fragile democracy is damaged either way.(Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, he is author of “Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy.)Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Nov 20, 2025 12:47 pm IST

Published OnNov 20, 2025 12:44 pm IST

Published OnNov 20, 2025 12:44 pm IST

Last Updated OnNov 20, 2025 12:47 pm IST

Last Updated OnNov 20, 2025 12:47 pm IST

It's usually easy to know when a country has fallen to a military dictatorship. Tanks on the streets, uniforms in gilded palaces, the political class interned en masse. Sometimes, however, the takeover is more subtle, more insidious. That is what has befallen Pakistan over the past few years, culminating in a constitutional amendment last week that gave its army chief, Asim Munir, additional powers and lifelong immunity from prosecution.

The “establishment” — Pakistanis' euphemism for their powerful military and the industries and organisations it controls — has held a large share of power since its first decade as an independent nation. But democratic politicians have usually been arrayed in opposition, displacing it when it stumbled, such as after the country lost its eastern half, now Bangladesh, in 1971.

That's not the case now. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is very conscious that he serves at Munir's pleasure, not the National Assembly's. As is his rival-turned-coalition partner in the Pakistan People's Party, President Asif Zardari. In recent years, they have surrendered civilians' hard-won privileges back to the army, and to Munir in particular. 

First, the general was granted economic decision-making powers, co-chairing a special investment council with Sharif meant to oversee strategically important projects. Then he was elevated to the rank of Field Marshal, becoming only the second person in Pakistan's history to hold that distinction — alongside its first military dictator, Ayub Khan.

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Now the army chief has been raised above the leaders of the other two forces, and put in sole charge of the country's nuclear weapons systems. As Chief of Defence Forces, the clock on Munir's tenure has been reset; instead of retiring, he will serve out a fresh five-year term in his new post.

If, at the end of that time, he tells the prime minister and president that he wishes to be re-appointed, will they deny him? Given the power that they have already granted Munir, it is impossible to imagine they will.

And that's the problem. Munir may have reached for power, but it is the civilian leaders who have given it to him.

They might think their reasons for doing so are sensible. Zardari, who has spent years in prison already, may be so tired of prosecution that he welcomes a constitutional change that effectively confers immunity on the president as well as the defence chief. Sharif might well want to keep the military satisfied while the government goes about what he probably thinks is the far more urgent business of repairing Pakistan's creaking economy. Inflation, at 38% in his first year, is now under control at around 3.6% year-on-year, and GDP is growing at 2.9% although it was negative in 2023.

And both will see Munir as an ally against the danger of the unstable populist Imran Khan, a former prime minister who was first propped up by the army and then turned against them. Khan's party got the most seats in the last election — even though it had been crippled by its leader's imprisonment — and he remains popular in large parts of the country.

But none of these count as a compelling reason to so easily relinquish advantages over the establishment that civilian politicians had worked long and hard to achieve. Two decades ago, Pakistan's last outright military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, had to put on civilian mufti and pretend to be a regular president. (He resigned in 2008 because he feared the democratically elected national assembly was about to impeach him.) 

Musharraf's successor as army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chose to retire when he decided his time had come, declaring that he shared “the general opinion that institutions and traditions are stronger than individuals and must take precedence.” And by the time Munir's immediate predecessor, Qamar Javed Bajwa, retired, he was willing to admit that the army was unpopular because of its “interference in politics for the last 70 years” and promised that it would never do so again.

At no point did Pakistan's democrats completely escape the shadow of the army — but institutionally and symbolically, the uniforms had begun to give way to the suits. The fear of instability, India, and Imran shouldn't have led the politicians to give up on these two decades of progress.

Perhaps it's been easy for the army men precisely because, this time, there have been no tanks on the streets. Munir, unlike Musharraf, is willing to share the limelight with civilians. His new prominence in affairs that shouldn't be his remit — foreign affairs, economics — is accompanied by a theatrical deference to the civilian authorities even as his own power increases.

This is visible at international summits, most recently in Saudi Arabia, Beijing and Washington. Sharif brings him to meetings, introduces him to foreign leaders, and then the general steps back and lets the prime minister do the talking. The courtesies of civilian supremacy are punctiliously observed, while real power ebbs away — or, perhaps, is handed over. Pakistan's fragile democracy is damaged either way.

(Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, he is author of “Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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