United States President Donald Trump is the icon of American exceptionalism. It is a mistake to think that Trump does not have popular support for his tariff war, which is aimed at resurrecting America as the dominant economic and technological power in the world. Ultimately, it is the winning that counts, and America isn’t winning now. While the waiting game is being played in the US ahead of the mid-term elections to the House of Representatives, the world isn’t waiting. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), and Mexico, Canada, and the European Union are not just resisting Trump’s demands, they are looking for alternative trade arrangements/frameworks. The Canada-China trade agreement, the emerging EU-India mother of all trade deals, the dogged refusal of the founding BRICS countries to do a disadvantageous side tariffs deal with Trump indicate that powerful ‘green grocers’ of the world are hesitating to put up the ‘sign in the window’ parroting Trump’s version of Rule Based International Order (RBIO). Instead, they are directly or indirectly calling out Trump unilateralism. Carney’s speech in Davos only brought to the surface the existing subterranean currents of resistance to Trump’s bullying. And yet, the West could still kiss and make up with Trump. To that extent, the raging belief that the old order – meaning the united G-7 – will not return may not be true. The West still sees China, or rather China’s meteoric rise against the US, as the villain responsible for Trump’s tariff madness.China-led technology bypassGone are the days when technology denial and sanctions can be weaponised by the US to achieve foreign policy goals vis a vis China and its partners. Ready alternatives have blunted the effectiveness of those instruments. American exceptionalism is going through an industrial and technological bypass due to the stunning creation of a parallel technological universe led by China, free of American control. It encompasses independent satellite communication; complete architecture of cross border payments system bypassing SWIFT, and in currencies other than the USD; advanced nodes semiconductors challenging the global domination of NVIDIA; state of the art ground, air and sea transportation network within China, and even abroad through the massive Belt & Road Initiative; world class universities & research institutions focussed on innovations; unmatched renewable energy infrastructure; a manufacturing powerhouse that accounts for ~30% of world output backed by a pool of ~5 million STEM graduates; and a techno-military ‘partnership without limits’ with Russia that possesses far greater nuclear and conventional warheads and vectors than those possessed by the US. Aspects of this bypass were flagged by Marco Rubio, when he was a senator, in an interview to Fox News in March 2023: “They (China) took our jobs, took our factories. They got rich, we got poor, their middle class grew, our middle class shrunk. They make things, we don’t… Just today, Brazil, the largest country in our hemisphere, south of us, cut a trade deal with China. From now on they trade in their own currencies, get right round the dollar. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in five years because there would be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them. We have a power (reference is to China) that basically wants to become the world’s dominant super power at our expense”.Material foundations of the bypassChinese resistance to Trump’s tariff war is powered by China’s sustained leadership in producing STEM graduates, its world class manufacturing, growing culture of innovations reflected in the record filing of patents backed by massive R&D expenditure, and the explosive growth of exports.ExportsYearChina’s Exports In $BillionUSA’s Exports In $Billion1995131.86812.812005773.341302201523622271202537703400 (estimated)Patents Filed At WIPOYearChina’s PCT ApplicationsUSA PCT Applications201012304 450892020689285843320247016054087202570500 (estimated)53000 (estimated)STEM PhD GraduatesYearChina’s STEM PhD GraduatesUS STEM PhD Graduates19952500 (estimated)17000 (estimated)2005220001932720154096331426202577179 (projected)39859 (projected)Comparative R&D Expenditure Data in PPP TermsYEARUS GDP %USPPP($B)CHINA GDP %CHINA PPP($B)EU GDP %EU PPP($B)INDIA GDP %INDIA PPP($B)19952.511820.5761.71600.64420052.613201.32401.742200.821220152.724702.064101.953000.695020253.608202.808502.244400.6080Source: All data sourced from GROK AI chatbot and search engine. In 2025, China produced approximately 5 million STEM graduates across all levels of higher education, reflecting its emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields amid a total of about 12.22 million college graduates that year. In comparison, the United States produced around 800,000 STEM graduates across all degree and certificate levels.Chinese resistance in actionDisregard of US sanctions: What has majorly contributed to tariff contestations within the G-7 is the Chinese techno-economic challenge to the US which has destroyed much of the manufacturing in US, and undermined the status of the USD as the world’s reserve currency through bilateral trade in local currencies. While Modi government partially legitimised American unilateralism by failing to levy counter tariffs on the US, by reducing oil imports from Russia and increasing petroleum imports from the US, by seeking extension of the Chabahar waiver from US which is due to expire on April 26, 2026, and which is none of their business, China did nothing of the sort.Unlike India, China did not ask for waivers. It also defied US sanctions on other countries, as in the case of continuing China-Iran trade and China-Venezuela trade. Imposing counter sanctions: Not just that, China imposed counter sanctions on the US. Even before Trump became president for the second time, in December 2024, China had banned the export of gallium, germanium and antimony to the US. American entities were placed on the Chinese denial list for supply of rare earths and related elements (REEs) and rare earth magnets and related equipment and commodities and associated technologies in response to US tariffs and restrictions on semiconductor exports to China.In April 2025, following the imposition of new US tariffs, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced export controls on seven heavy rare earth elements – samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium – along with related permanent magnets. This disrupted supply chains for the US weapons systems, such as the F-35 jets, Tomahawk missiles, radars and drones. On October 9, 2025, ahead of a potential Trump-Xi meeting, China escalated its measures by adding five more medium and heavy REEs – holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium, along with related magnets and materials to the list of denied items. This affected high-precision military applications like missile guidance systems..Unprecedented technology chain denial: From mining to manufactureChina specifically targeted US chipmakers. US analysts warned of potential shut downs. For the first time, China’s denials extended to technologies for rare earth mining, smelting, separation, metal refining, magnetic material manufacturing and secondary resource recycling. They forced America to sue for peace.Following US-China diplomatic talks in Busan, South Korea, the US paused semiconductor export controls to Chinese entities. MOFCOM announced on November 7-9, 2025, a one-year suspension of several restrictions including for magnet licensing, and dual-use requirements for US entities. Premature celebration of India-EU Free Trade AgreementFree Trade Agreement (FTA) requires the approval of each of the 27 EU member states, as it is a “mixed” agreement covering areas of shared competence (e.g. trade as well as investment protection, and sustainability). This is a long process involving adoption by the EU Council (representing member states); signature by the EU and India; consent from the European Parliament; ratification by each EU member state in line with their national procedures (for mixed elements like investment); and thereafter legal review and translations. It can easily take two years if there is no resistance in the European parliament. Pure trade elements do not require approval of individual member states. These include trade policy such as tariffs, customs rules, trade facilitation rules, or sanitary measures, where the EU Parliament has exclusive authority. Substantive roadblocks: The EU-US bilateral goods trade was USD 975.5 billion in 2024 with an EU surplus of USD 235.9 billion. Despite US-EU tensions, the 2025 goods trade was USD 965.6 billion. The 1% loss has been made up by increase in trade in services in 2025 (total Q3 USD 395.8 billion for goods + services combined) as compared to 2024 (quarterly average of about USD 375 billion). Neither Ukraine nor Greenland has materially affected US-EU bilateral trade. In comparison, the EU-India goods trade in 2024 was only USD 136.5 billion with an EU deficit of USD15.17 billion. For the EU, trade with the US far outweighs the trade with India even as EU Commission and Council are trying to leverage the FTA with India to conclude early the US-EU ‘Framework on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade’ whose ratification has been temporarily suspended.An early US-EU Framework Agreement would be a priority for both the US and EU. That priority can easily delay the expected ratification of the EU India FTA even in respect of those areas of the FTA that are within the sole competence of European Parliament. US-EU Framework Agreement would most likely precede the ratification of India-EU FTA.Trump could then mount huge pressure on India for a better deal with India which includes agriculture and dairy, which will put a big question mark on the India-EU FTA that excludes these sectors completely. The US can mobilise several countries within the EU to torpedo the EU-India deal, both in the European parliament and in the member states. Possible far-right victories in France, Germany and Eastern Europe can pose grave danger to the EU-India deal.The current celebration in India is premature and aimed at drawing domestic political mileage for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at centre. As Shyam Saran says in his piece published in Indian Express on January 16, “In the geopolitical card game that Trump is playing, it is only China that holds a strong hand.” For India, there is no escape from technological dependence on the EU. Jawed Ashraf is spot on in saying in an article published in Indian Express on January 24 that “technology determines power and leadership”. But “the technological collaboration” that he sees in the FTA assumes a level of complementary technological prowess that India does not possess. All talk of the EU replacing India’s dependence on China is so much hot air. There is no alternative to building our own technological strength which is impossible with the current R&D expenditure of about 0.7% of our GDP. And finally while the India-EU FTA cleverly avoids the agriculture, dairy and mass consumption automobile sector from its purview, it paradoxically will be these that will come up before the European Parliament during the ratification debate.Rahul Singh is a former civil servant who retired from the Ministry of Defence, Government of India.