Seriously, I’m trying to understand why the hell they would do this. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot to spite the shoemaker.

The international supremacy of the US economy relies on dollar hegemony and US imperialist foreign policy. The whole point is to be able to import cheap goods from other countries. If China’s rise is a threat to that then why accelerate the process?

The only rationale I can think of is the Biden admin legitimately thinks the Chinese economy cannot grow without access to the American market and that tariffs have the power to curtail such access. That seems so incredibly naive though for a whole number of reasons. It’s hard to imagine people with that much power are just that obtuse.