{"id":50,"date":"2026-05-22T21:43:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=50"},"modified":"2026-05-22T21:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:43:20","slug":"global-trade-at-gunpoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"Global Trade at Gunpoint"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Donald Trump stood behind a\u00a0podium in a\u00a0large clearing of the Rose Garden, American flags hanging vertically between each White House column, to lambast a\u00a0global trade system in which \u200b\u201c<\/span>our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe\u00a0alike.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Dick Cheney: A Profile in Impunity<\/a><\/p>\n

It was April 2<\/span>, which Trump deemed \u200b\u201c<\/span>Liberation Day,\u201d and he was declaring \u200b\u201c<\/span>economic independence\u201d from the rest of the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

The message was that of an underdog finally standing up against abuse. Workers have \u200b\u201c<\/span>watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream,\u201d the president said. \u200b\u201c<\/span>We had an American dream that you don\u2019t hear so much\u00a0about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The headlines were dramatic. \u200b\u201c<\/span>Trump\u2019s tariffs mark the end of an era for free trade in North America,\u201d the Washington Post<\/em> proclaimed.<\/p>\n

But what were the president\u2019s actual grievances? About five minutes into the announcement, Trump started waving what he called a \u200b\u201c<\/span>special book\u201d back and forth, like a\u00a0prosecutor holding up evidence in a\u00a0courtroom. The misdeeds against the United States, he said, are \u200b\u201c<\/span>detailed in a\u00a0very big report by the U.S. Trade\u00a0Representative.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At President Donald Trump\u2019s self-proclaimed \u201cLiberation Day\u201d event on April 2, he waves a 377-page report on \u201ctrade barriers\u201d to tout his regime\u2019s increase on tariffs, or import taxes. CHIP SOMODEVILLA\/GETTY IMAGES<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The document, the 2025<\/span> National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, is a\u00a0377<\/span>-page laundry list of what the United States views as \u200b\u201c<\/span>trade barriers\u201d but what people in other countries might see as legitimate protections and regulations. These barriers, for example, include a\u00a0bird-flufood safety measure in Morocco and a\u00a0requirement in Nigeria that certain imports are certified \u200b\u201c<\/span>safe for human use and consumption.\u201d They also include Canada\u2019s \u200b\u201c<\/span>comprehensive agenda to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030<\/span>\u201d and Colombia\u2019s requirements that imports of U.S. milk powder meet lactic acid and other quality\u00a0standards.<\/p>\n

The barriers Trump cited in his Liberation Day address are, in many cases, measures that protect working-class people in the United States and around the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

There is little clarity about the trade deals Trump claims to be pursuing; his administration says he wants to negotiate 90<\/span> deals in 90<\/span>\u00a0days. But there is every reason to be concerned he is using tariffs as leverage to advance some of the most coercive aspects of U.S. power: to undermine national sovereignty of other countries, trample on public goods and expand the brute power of the United States and its multinational corporations. Put another way: Behind all the lunch pail rhetoric, antiestablishment posturing and feigned concern for the working class, what Trump is proposing is more heavy-handed, anti-worker, military-driven economic\u00a0policies.<\/p>\n

But the situation is not just \u200b\u201c<\/span>free trade\u201d as usual. It is an agenda to expand corporate power, in the hands of a\u00a0president who takes coercion to new heights. In the same executive order that established \u200b\u201c<\/span>reciprocal tariffs\u201d on April 2<\/span>, Trump was explicit about setting up a\u00a0protection racket. The order states that the United States may decide to reduce tariffs if a\u00a0country changes its policies to \u200b\u201c<\/span>align sufficiently with the United States on economic and national security\u00a0matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For Trump\u2019s Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), it\u2019s a\u00a0problem that South Korea prioritizes domestic technology for its own weapons production. South Korea is a\u00a0close U.S. ally and and nearly 29<\/span>,000<\/span> American troops. Yet, for this administration, South Korea must also keep its doors perpetually open to purchases from the American weapons industry, which is already the largest in the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

Among the unfair trade barriers that must be torn down, the USTR report says, are \u200b\u201c<\/span>policies that prioritize local technology and products over foreign defense\u00a0technology.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cathi Choi, executive director of Women Cross DMZ, which organizes for peace in Korea, explains that the idea aligns \u200b\u201c<\/span>with all of the vested financial interests in maintaining the forever war in Korea. Weapons manufacturers profit from this war, and it\u2019s everyday people who are losing out.\u201d The Korean War, to which the United States is officially a\u00a0party, never formally ended, which has led to a\u00a0dangerous demilitarized zone littered with landmines, as well as perpetual, forced family\u00a0separations.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s mention of these \u200b\u201c<\/span>defense\u201d barriers is no small thing, as the document provides guidance for trade policy under Trump. \u200b\u201c<\/span>This report lays out both the type of policies and the exact policies that the United States is trying to dismantle around the globe,\u201d says Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a\u00a0coalition of environmental, labor and other civil society groups. It\u2019s \u200b\u201c<\/span>one of the best indicators we have right now of the Trump administration\u2019s trade\u00a0priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The annual report typically skews pro-corporate. It\u2019s been published every year since 1985<\/span>, and the reports have purveyed \u200b\u201c<\/span>free trade\u201d dogma under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But Trump\u2019s national trade estimate is more extreme than in recent years, especially when it comes to opposing big tech regulations, like privacy protections, and pushing back against most anything that would limit profits for the weapons industry. The report reads like a\u00a0corporate wish list, identifying environmental protections and public health and safety measures as barriers to trade. And Trump is using tariffs as a\u00a0bludgeon, to force other countries to agree to these\u00a0demands.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s really the coercion of the tariff threat that\u2019s new,\u201d says L\u00e9a Auffret, a\u00a0Brussels-based leader with the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, a\u00a0network of 76<\/span> consumer and digital rights\u00a0groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 2025<\/span> report marks an escalation from previous years when it comes to the U.S. weapons industry, and the barriers to U.S. weapons companies in South Korea it mentioned were never brought up under Biden. The report also charges that measures around the world that limit the purchasing of American arms are barriers to trade, from Brazil\u2019s prioritization of domestic defense manufacturing to Colombia\u2019s requirement of \u200b\u201c<\/span>government-to government agreements for some defense procurements.\u201d In all, there are 62<\/span> mentions of \u200b\u201c<\/span>defense\u201d in the 2025<\/span> report, up from 29<\/span>\u00a0in 2024<\/span> and 33<\/span>\u00a0in 2023<\/span>. It also mentions more jurisdictions (countries and regions)\u2009\u2014\u200917<\/span>\u00a0in 2025<\/span>, versus 11<\/span>\u00a0in 2024<\/span> and 15<\/span>\u00a0in\u00a02023<\/span>.<\/p>\n

But the USTR is not just protecting American weapons companies. The new report also targets environmental policies, including Thailand\u2019s renewable energy incentive, which \u200b\u201c<\/span>aims to increase biofuel and renewable energy consumption to 30<\/span>% by 2037<\/span>.\u201d Climate change poses an immediate existential threat to Thailand: Bangkok is sinking into the sea as ocean levels rise, and the capital could be 40<\/span>% flooded by 2030<\/span>, according to the World\u00a0Bank.<\/p>\n

The report also names a\u00a0European Union plan to reduce deforestation as a\u00a0trade barrier, as well as an EU regulation to protect public health and the environment from toxic chemicals, including carcinogens. Labor unions supported the regulation, known by its acronym REACH, when it was first implemented in 2007<\/span>; workers had a\u00a0stake in ensuring they were not exposed to hazardous chemicals on the\u00a0job.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time the EU\u2019s chemical regulations have been in the crosshairs of the United States. When the Obama administration tried, in 2013<\/span>, to negotiate the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a\u00a0massive trade deal, the administration also took issue with the EU\u2019s chemical regulations, along with a\u00a0host of other protections, from \u200b\u201c<\/span>reimbursement of medicines to how we treat food safety,\u201d Auffret recalls. In light of Trump\u2019s national trade estimate report, she is bracing for\u00a0more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A worker packages garments for Chinese e-commerce giant Temu. Faced with worldwide economic calamity, the Trump administration walked back its trade war with China on May 12, at least temporarily. JADE GAO\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201c<\/span>When your laws are listed, you\u2019re under pressure,\u201d Auffret says. \u200b\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s a\u00a0signal from the U.S., \u200b\u2018<\/span>We\u2019re watching this issue and we\u2019re going to bring it up and up and up all over again.\u2019\u2009\u201d Esther Lynch, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, says \u200b\u201c<\/span>there can be no doubt\u201d that the Trump administration is going to use trade deals to undermine protections around the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We are calling on the [European] Commission not to give in to this type of bullying,\u201d Lynch\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

The report lists public health and safety measures, too, as barriers to trade, including higher standards and regulations on vehicle safety in Japan, Taiwan and Egypt. Egypt has one of the highest rates of deadly road traffic accidents in the world, around 12<\/span>,000<\/span> people a\u00a0year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The so-called barriers continue into, for example, price caps on coronary stents and knee implants in India. The report also identifies the Indian Patents Act that imposes limits on frivolous patents, which thereby helps ward off pharmaceutical monopolies, as a\u00a0barrier. This law helps keep the cost of medicines down in a\u00a0country where 7<\/span>% of the population\u2014or 100<\/span> million people\u2009\u2014\u2009are thrown into poverty every year because of healthcare spending.K.M. Gopakumar is a\u00a0New Delhi-based legal advisor and senior researcher with the Third World Network, which promotes just and sustainable development in the Global South. He says this language is concerning, because \u200b\u201c<\/span>price control offers an important tool to protect people from the exploitation of commercial\u00a0actors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When it comes to the regulation of big tech, Trump\u2019s report has more corporate giveaways to \u200b\u201c<\/span>commercial actors\u201d than the Biden administration. Trump\u2019s USTR identifies \u200b\u201c<\/span>digital trade barriers\u201d in 35<\/span> countries plus the European Union, and takes aim at the regulation of artificial intelligence, privacy protections and digital services taxes, which allow countries to tax big tech companies that aren\u2019t physically located within their borders. \u200b\u201c<\/span>In essence, President Trump has declared a\u00a0trade war on countries who have the temerity to regulate Big Tech in the interests of their people,\u201d Public Citizen, a\u00a0watchdog organization, asserted in a\u00a0statement.<\/p>\n

The 2024<\/span> report recognized that countries have \u200b\u201c<\/span>a sovereign right to adopt measures in furtherance of legitimate public purposes,\u201d wording that had given some social justice organizations hope that the USTR, under Katherine Tai, would take a\u00a0different tack. Melinda St. Louis, the director of Public Citizen\u2019s Global Trade Watch, says, \u200b\u201c<\/span>Last year\u2019s report under President Biden had a\u00a0more nuanced approach, removing a\u00a0number of public interest laws from the list. But now they\u2019re back in.\u201d Canada\u2019s policy to decrease plastic waste, for example, was included in 2022<\/span> but then omitted in 2023<\/span> and 2024<\/span>. Now it\u2019s\u00a0back.<\/p>\n

The very concept of a \u200b\u201c<\/span>non-tariff barrier\u201d to trade has been used since the Nixon administration as a\u00a0euphemism for steamrolling basic public goods and regulations to make way for corporate profits, David Dayen points out in The American Prospect<\/em>. Stamoulis, of the Citizens Trade Campaign, is concerned that the concept is now at the center of Trump\u2019s trade policy. \u200b\u201c<\/span>This is the most powerful country on Earth dictating what governments are and aren\u2019t allowed to do to protect the health and well-being of their populations on a\u00a0day-to-day basis,\u201d he says. \u200b\u201c<\/span>This impacts food safety, access to medicine, online safety. Real stuff with real life-and death\u00a0consequences.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Radical Booksellers Do More Than Just Retail<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Liberation Day, Trump announced a\u00a010<\/span>% baseline tariff on all countries, as well as dramatically steeper \u200b\u201c<\/span>reciprocal tariff \u201d rates for dozens of countries from South Korea to Taiwan to China. The steeper rates were soon suspended for 90<\/span>\u00a0days, except on China, to allow Trump to negotiate trade deals\u2009\u2014\u2009an open strategy to use tariffs as a\u00a0stick to extract concessions. (Though on May 12<\/span>, the United States reached an agreement to temporarily reduce its tariffs on China to 30<\/span>%, while China cuts its import duty to 10<\/span>% on U.S.\u00a0goods.)<\/p>\n

We already know that Trump has a\u00a0propensity toward using tariffs to reward friends. He did so during his first term, when he imposed tariffs on some imports from China in 2018<\/span>, yet granted exemptions to donors and associates. A\u00a02024<\/span> study in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis<\/em> found that companies had a\u00a01<\/span>\u00a0in 5<\/span>\u00a0chance of getting an exclusion from the tariffs if they had donated to Republican candidates, versus a\u00a01<\/span>\u00a0in 10<\/span> chance if they had given to\u00a0Democrats.<\/p>\n

There is reason to think that this trend is continuing into the present. ProPublica found that firms with political connections, or those that heavily lobby the Trump administration, \u200b\u201c<\/span>might be winning carve-outs\u201d from sanctions. And the Washington Post<\/em> found that, amid tariff trade talks, U.S. embassies and the State Department are pressing countries to license with Starlink, the satellite internet company owned by Elon Musk, Trump\u2019s powerful associate and largest\u00a0donor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Liberation Day tariffs are far more sweeping than any in Trump\u2019s first term, and any concessions will be extracted at\u00a0gunpoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The guns are not just metaphorical. There are signs that Trump will try to use tariffs, or trade more broadly, to fortify the U.S. military, which is by far the most heavily funded on the planet, with an estimated 750<\/span> military bases around the globe. Bloomberg<\/em> reported April 21<\/span> that Trump has \u200b\u201c<\/span>raised the financial contribution Tokyo makes to support U.S. military bases in Japan as an issue of concern, including before a\u00a0meeting with Japanese trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa last week.\u201d (There are at least 50<\/span>,000<\/span> U.S. troops stationed in Japan, where U.S. military bases have faced local protests for decades over environmental pollution, sexual assaults and other\u00a0issues.)<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>China is clearly the number-one target of these tariff policies,\u201d says Lindsay Koshgarian, program director for the National Priorities Project, which produces research about military spending. \u200b\u201c<\/span>Diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and China have fallen apart. This is a\u00a0key ingredient setting us up for actual military\u00a0conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the \u200b\u201c<\/span>reciprocal tariffs,\u201d China is stepping up its own efforts to cultivate trade and investment deals with other countries, a\u00a0move that could ultimately weaken the U.S. empire. But even this tit for tat has consequences. \u200b\u201c<\/span>This is the classic Cold War arrangement of lack of diplomacy and aligning countries against each other,\u201d says Koshgarian. \u200b\u201c<\/span>There\u2019s the possibility not just of direct war, but proxy wars and military\u00a0buildup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has used tariffs to bolster other violent aspects of the U.S. security state. Even before declaring Liberation Day, he used the threat of tariffs to press countries into participating in his imprisonment and deportation of immigrants, or escalating their own border militarization. In January, for example, Trump successfully used the threat of tariffs to pressure Colombia into accepting flights of deported migrants. (Colombia had initially resisted to protest the administration\u2019s poor treatment of migrants.) In February, Trump threatened tariffs unless Mexico deployed its military to parts of the border with allegedly high rates of border\u00a0crossing.<\/p>\n

Trump already has one major domestic policy proposal we can review to understand his trade priorities. His proposal of a $1<\/span> trillion military budget is the most bloated domestic industrial policy we have in this country (and is actually higher when militarized spending in other budgets is included). Every year, around half of the military budget goes to military contractors like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, which are manufacturing the bombs being dropped on Yemen and Gaza or loaded onto the warships encircling\u00a0China.<\/p>\n

In turn, Trump\u2019s USTR does the bidding of the U.S. weapons industry, giving countries black marks for measures limiting U.S. weapons industry\u00a0profits.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I think what we\u2019re witnessing is an embrace of all the tools of U.S. imperialism,\u201d says David Vine, a\u00a0political anthropologist and author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.<\/em> According to Vine, we are seeing this imperial bent with Trump\u2019s territorial claims, \u200b\u201c<\/span>threatening to invade and seize Greenland,Gaza, Canada,\u00a0Panama.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>He is embracing forms of economic imperialism that certainly have been part of past administrations, but he\u2019s embracing them in profoundly broader ways and deeper\u00a0ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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No doubt, capital was not happy with Trump\u2019s announced reciprocal tariffs. The stock market tanked near bear market territory, and millionaires and billionaires took the rare step of speaking out against Trump\u2019s policies. But just because the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock vocally denounced them doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re somehow a\u00a0bulwark against the excesses of capital; the pushback likely came against uncertainty, day-to day volatility and caprice, rather than against the ultimate goal of maximizing American corporate\u00a0power.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Trump is trying to use the failures of the system to win workers\u2019 votes,\u201d says Manuel P\u00e9rez-Rocha, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, who has spent nearly three decades researching trade. \u200b\u201c<\/span>But workers are being\u00a0defrauded.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a\u00a0debate to be had about the role sectoral tariffs could play in a\u00a0larger industrial policy to protect wages and working conditions. United Auto Workers, for example, has argued in favor of certain tariffs and even praised Trump\u2019s auto tariffs in late March, parting with the Canadian auto union Unifor. Labor journalist Luis Feliz Leon has suggested there are more internationalist frameworks for labor to take up, like cross-border coordination focused on protecting workers throughout corporate supply\u00a0chains.<\/p>\n

But perhaps Trump\u2019s reciprocal tariffs are not, functionally, tariffs at all. As David Dayen argued in The American Prospect<\/em> on April 3<\/span>, they\u2019re best understood as sanctions, \u200b\u201c<\/span>only he\u2019s doing it against the whole world, all at once, for the assumed harm of \u200b\u2018<\/span>ripping off \u2019 the United States for\u00a0decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Dayen wrote: \u200b\u201c<\/span>It is no different from a\u00a0mob boss moving into town and sending his thugs to every business on Main Street, roughing up the proprietors and asking for protection money so they don\u2019t get pushed out of\u00a0business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One major thing Trump\u2019s tariffs have in common with sanctions: On Liberation Day, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977<\/span> as the authority for his reciprocal tariffs. For decades, the act has been used by presidents to impose sweeping\u2014 and devastating\u2009\u2014\u2009economic sanctions on countries from Venezuela to Cuba to Iran to Vietnam. Before Trump took office, it had been used by presidents 69<\/span> times, according to the Congressional Research Service, and it \u200b\u201c<\/span>sits at the center of the modern U.S. sanctions\u00a0regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are also key differences. Sanctions are framed as punitive against \u200b\u201c<\/span>enemy\u201d countries, whereas reciprocal tariffs are ostensibly aimed at trade relations with the entire world. And they are being used against U.S. allies, raising questions about whether Trump is pursuing empire in traditional terms, by expanding spheres of American\u00a0influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether or not reciprocal tariffs constitute formal sanctions, Trump is using them (or the threat of them) as a\u00a0cudgel against other countries in what appears to be a\u00a0bid to project American strength. They should be viewed as part of a\u00a0longer history of the United States using economic pressure to achieve might. Even should Trump ultimately be bluffing, his bluffing has tremendous economic and policy implications, as we are seeing with the global frenzy to respond to tariff threats. This is true even as U.S. courts question the fundamental legitimacy of the \u200b\u201c<\/span>Liberation Day\u201d tariffs, with the chance that they could be overthrown for good, though the Trump administration is digging in its\u00a0heels.<\/p>\n

Does this moment mark a\u00a0break from neoliberalism, or an intensification of it? Are we closer to a\u00a019<\/span>th<\/sup>– or 20<\/span>thcentury colonialism, or a\u00a0more modern form of economic nationalism coupled with imperialism? Trump himself has been erratic: He has presented himself as a\u00a0defender of American workers despite waging an unprecedented war on the basic rights of workers to collectively bargain, meanwhile gutting public programs for the poor at a\u00a0headspinning pace. He bemoans the free trade system while embracing its most destructive components, such as opposition to public health, environmental protections and welfare programs, and his own renegotiation of NAFTA during his first term ended up being a\u00a0huge disappointment for workers. And there are reasons to think there are divisions within the Trump administration, as Elon Musk parts with Trump on tariffs while some advisors, like Peter Navarro, double\u00a0down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ultimately, it\u2019s not rhetoric or buzzwords that are important, but the material policies the most powerful person on Earth is advancing. And while it is difficult to know what is going on in the president\u2019s psyche, there is a\u00a0consistent throughline that runs throughout his actions: marrying trade and militarism as a\u00a0means to undermine other countries\u2019 sovereignty and democratic decision-making, and projecting an image of American strength that is rooted in violent domination and the erosion of the welfare\u00a0state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Liberation Day, Trump stood on the Rose Garden lawn and called out \u200b\u201c<\/span>American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen, we have a\u00a0lot of them here with us today. They really suffered gravely.\u201d And they have, in the United States and around the world, due to decades of pro-corporate measures that have battered workers and left them without basic\u00a0protections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a\u00a0trend Trump is by no means reversing, but escalating\u2009\u2014\u2009complete with new, faux-populist branding\u2009\u2014\u2009at a\u00a0breakneck pace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This article is a\u00a0joint publication of <\/em>In These Times and Workday Magazine, a\u00a0non-profit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of\u00a0workers.<\/em><\/p>

Read more Turning the Page on Corporate Bookselling<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump is setting up a protection racket to expand corporate power around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nGlobal Trade at Gunpoint - Summit Relocation Timess<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=50\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Global Trade at Gunpoint - Summit Relocation Timess\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump is setting up a protection racket to expand corporate power around the world\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=50\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Summit Relocation Timess\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-22T21:43:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/a6a756bdb7865fcbcbf8dfd19a52778b.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"18 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/78261b7043eb436872da19e7c8eda597\"},\"headline\":\"Global Trade at Gunpoint\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-22T21:43:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50\"},\"wordCount\":3569,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/a6a756bdb7865fcbcbf8dfd19a52778b.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Feature\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/summitrelocationtimess.com\\\/?p=50\",\"name\":\"Global Trade at Gunpoint - 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