CGTN Europe spoke to Khalid Nadvi, a political economist and Professor of International Development at the University of Manchester.
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00:00Khaled Nadvi is Professor of International Development at the University of Manchester.
00:05Well, if these tariffs go through as they were proposed on the so-called Liberation Day,
00:11then those countries are going to be very seriously affected,
00:14particularly small countries like Lesotho, Madagascar, Cambodia.
00:19These are countries that have basically developed their industrial development strategy
00:25around building up the clothing industry, which is largely focused on exporting to the United States.
00:32They have very little options other than exporting to the U.S.
00:38They could try and shift production and exports to other countries,
00:42but most of the firms that are located in those countries that are manufacturing clothing
00:47are geared to the U.S. markets.
00:49So if those tariffs remain at the level that was originally proposed by President Trump,
00:57then you're going to see massive job losses and a very severe impact on those countries.
01:03The other thing to note is that those countries are very heavily dependent on the U.S.
01:07as their main export markets.
01:09So they don't have very many options of going elsewhere.
01:13So you mentioned the clothing industry in particular there.
01:16Are there opportunities, though, for perhaps other countries in different industries
01:20that might now be able to refocus their priorities when it comes to exports
01:23and think about partnerships either regionally or with other countries like China, for example?
01:29You know, if you look at a country that's not too far away from Lesotho, Eswatini.
01:34Eswatini used to have the U.S. as its main export market.
01:38But some years ago, it began to switch over to supplying the South African market in clothing.
01:44And it's now wholly geared to that.
01:47So there are the opportunities for regional value chains to emerge, for regional exports to grow.
01:52But it takes time.
01:54The other option is, as you said, China is an important end market in itself.
01:59So many countries have been exporting raw commodities to China.
02:04And I think the interesting thing will be as this tariff process rolls out
02:10and as the U.S. becomes less reliable in market,
02:14is whether some of these countries start seeing China as a real option.
02:19And to what extent the Chinese government opens up their markets
02:23to low-income developing country exports.
02:27So we may well see us change then perhaps in the business arena.
02:31But what about the geopolitical arena?
02:32Will we see a new kind of coalescence perhaps of the Global South?
02:37I mean, that's already been happening for some time now.
02:39You know, if you look at the trade data,
02:42the Global South is largely trading with other countries in the Global South.
02:46And that's been happening for at least a decade.
02:50And it's not just in raw commodities, it's in finished goods.
02:53You're also seeing the emergence of a whole range of institutions in the Global South around the BRICS in particular,
03:02but also the Asian investment bank, infrastructure and investment bank that's been set up in Beijing.
03:08So you will see new forms of regional and bilateral configurations emerging in terms of geopolitics.
03:20China has also been building a whole raft of bilateral trade agreements,
03:24free trade agreements in the region, in the developing world, both in Southeast Asia,
03:30but also in sub-Saharan Africa.
03:33And you have the Belt and Road Initiative.
03:35So there's been a whole range of new, what you might see as geopolitical alignments taking place.
03:42The other thing that's very interesting in this regard is that the U.S. seems to be pulling out of Africa.
03:49So, I mean, if you see the recent reporting about the State Department potentially or likely to cut down its presence in sub-Saharan Africa,
03:59for most sub-Saharan African countries, their main trading partner is not the U.S.
04:05It's not the European Union.
04:06It is China.