How should Hongkongers react to being dragged into Trump’s tariff war?

How is the ordinary person supposed to react to the chain of events set in motion by the launch of US President Donald Trump’s tariff war? We are being bombarded daily by a string of extraordinary headlines for which nothing in our experience could have prepared us.

Trump has bragged in public about the number of foreign leaders “calling us up, kissing my ass”. Canadians, some of the nicest people on the planet, have been stirred to fury and are boycotting any product made in or associated with their American neighbours, the very people they have lived peacefully alongside for generations.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father from Maryland, was snatched off the street by law enforcement agents without just cause or due process and has been deported to another country where he sits in jail. The very government that perpetrated the misdeed is now defying court orders to bring him back.

International tourists with valid visas have been arrested and detained on arrival, then deported. European officials going on duty to the United States are being issued with burner phones and basic laptops to preserve security.

You could be forgiven for asking if the world has gone mad. To which the only honest answer must be that some parts of it have.

The first reaction of most Hongkongers is likely to be to question what any of this has to do with us. After all, we are the world’s freest economy, with no tariffs, quotas or anti-dumping legislation. If this whole fuss is supposed to involve “reciprocal” tariffs, then ours must be zero, right?

  

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