Kuala Lampur, Sept. 16 -- Tariffs haunt the global economy once more. Washington under Trump, driven by a potent mix of economic anxiety and political nostalgia, slaps high duties on imports coming from literally all countries of the world, dreaming of smokestacks rising again across the Rust Belt. It is all about making America great again, MAGA. Many see it as a desperate lunge to reclaim a manufacturing supremacy, which USA once ruled high, perceived as lost to the East, primarily China.

Yet, economists rightly warn this is an impossible path. Why? Because the past three decades haven't merely shifted factory jobs; they have forged an industrial ecosystem in China so vast, integrated, and advanced that tariffs are less a strategy and ...