How the U.S.-China War of 2025 Could Begin over Tariffs and Trade

QUESTION: Could China get so frustrated with America on trade that it starts a war? – Could economic frustration with the United States eventually push China to war?

To most Western analysts, the idea still sounds too fantastical to take seriously—either too detached from reality, or too out-of-step with China’s supposed strategic patience.

But if we’ve learned anything in recent years, it’s that the world is no longer obeying the smooth, pacifying laws of globalization.

History is back. And yes, while today’s conditions are very different from those of 1941, it is not at all “crazy” to wonder whether Beijing might one day lash out in response to escalating trade and tech restrictions. In fact, we’d be crazy not to think seriously about the possibility.

How the U.S.-China War of 2025 Could Begin

There is an eerie echo between Imperial Japan in the late 1930s and the People’s Republic of China today. The economic encirclement Japan perceived in the face of U.S. sanctions—particularly the 1941 oil embargo—didn’t just challenge its economy; it threatened its national survival as an aspiring great power.

America’s cutting off of Japanese access to key strategic commodities was the final blow, the one Tokyo interpreted not as a delay, but as a death sentence for its imperial ambitions.

The result was Pearl Harbor.

Of course, Beijing today is not Tokyo in 1941. It is wealthier, more integrated into global markets, and commanding a far larger domestic economy. But the strategic logic of desperation hasn’t been repealed by modernity. The Biden and Trump administrations—each in their own way—have steadily ratcheted up pressure on China through trade restrictions, export controls, and technology bans. In the name of national security and “de-risking,” the West is slowly strangling China’s access to the high-end semiconductors, tools, and financial flows that once underpinned its meteoric rise. There is no clear offramp. The logic of escalation, decoupling, and confrontation continues to drive U.S. policy in both parties.

So, it is worth asking: what happens if China’s leadership begins to interpret America’s economic warfare as existential?

This is not to suggest that a war is inevitable—or even likely in the near term—but it is to say that we are no longer in the world of absolute economic interdependence and rational-choice moderation. The Chinese Communist Party is not a technocratic consultancy with nuclear weapons. It is a Leninist regime with historical grievances, nationalist ambitions, and a deep fear of domestic instability. Like Japan before Pearl Harbor, China believes it has a right to great power status. It believes it has been humiliated by the West and is now finally returning to its rightful place atop the Asian hierarchy. And it sees U.S. economic actions not as isolated policy decisions, but as part of a coordinated effort to contain, slow, and possibly cripple that return.

Sound familiar?

Xi Jinping doesn’t need to imagine a literal blockade for the strategic analogy to hold. A slow-motion tech chokehold may prove just as effective—and just as provocative. Washington’s war on Huawei, its blacklisting of advanced AI and chip firms, and its tightening of export controls on lithography tools may not immediately collapse the Chinese economy, but they strike at the heart of China’s long-term geoeconomic vision. China knows it cannot achieve parity with the U.S. military without first catching up in computing, AI, and aerospace. And the United States knows that too—which is precisely why the tech war is being waged so aggressively.

In other words, America has already opened the economic front. What happens when China decides to answer on the kinetic one?

The realist answer is stark: when states perceive the costs of inaction as greater than the risks of war, they often choose war. This is especially true for revisionist powers hemmed in by rival coalitions, who fear that delay will only worsen their position. And while China’s leaders may sound patient and confident in public, there are signs of growing anxiety behind the scenes. Youth unemployment has soared. Property markets are imploding. Private investment is fleeing. The state is tightening ideological control. There is no Chinese equivalent of the “Roaring Twenties” ahead. There is stagnation—and the growing fear that the window for achieving strategic goals like Taiwan or regional hegemony may be closing.

The U.S. should not lull itself into thinking that sanctions, tech bans, and tariffs are cost-free tools that will “manage” China indefinitely. Nor should it fall for the idea that economic war is somehow more moral, more manageable, or less escalatory than the military kind. There’s a reason the phrase “casus belli” has historically included blockades and embargoes. Economic coercion—especially when it feels permanent—has a way of transforming rivalries into existential conflicts.

If you were sitting in the Zhongnanhai compound today, what would you see? A still-powerful America with the capacity to deny you access to the most advanced technologies. An unstable domestic economy reliant on Party propaganda for cohesion. And a tightening noose of regional alliances—AUKUS, the Quad, NATO-Asia dialogues—all circling around your periphery. In such a scenario, waiting patiently starts to look like slow death. Taking the initiative—say, a quick strike on Taiwan before its defenses are fully hardened, or a decisive push into the South China Sea—might seem like the only way to break the encirclement.

We must not project our assumptions of stability and moderation onto regimes that operate under very different constraints and civilizational outlooks. To Western policymakers, economic containment is a strategy. To Beijing, it may soon be interpreted as a threat to regime survival.

This is not a call for appeasement. It is a call for realism. And realism requires acknowledging that the current path of techno-economic warfare may not be sustainable forever without provoking a much more dangerous reaction. Just as American policymakers in 1941 underestimated how far Japan was willing to go when cornered, we may be underestimating the degree to which China now feels trapped.

The question is not whether China will start a war over a single tariff or ban. The question is whether it will decide that the U.S.-led order is closing off all other options. In that case, the calculus shifts. War becomes not a first choice, but a final recourse—and history shows that final recourses have a way of erupting faster than we expect.

What Happens Now? Is a U.S.-China War Coming Soon?

We have entered a period of global de-integration, not convergence. Trade no longer guarantees peace. And the more we rely on economic weapons, the more we must prepare for unexpected kinetic responses. If we truly want to avoid war, then Washington must begin thinking strategically, not just tactically—because history doesn’t care whether you thought a semiconductor export ban was “escalatory” or not. It only cares what the other side *does* in response.

In the meantime, the shadow of 1941 lingers—not because history repeats, but because geopolitical rivalry still obeys its ancient logic. And if we continue to wage economic war without understanding where it might lead, we may wake up to find ourselves in a conflict we didn’t expect but very much provoked.

About the Author: Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.