FILE: Washington D.C., USA - Oct 2024 (CCTV Video News Agency - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of White House

Los Angeles, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
2. Various of vessel, crane moving container at port

USA - April 6, 2025 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
3. SOUNDBITE (English) David Firestein, president and CEO, George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations (partially overlaid with shot 4):
"Now, with these new tariffs at much dramatically higher levels, we're not only violating the WTO, we're violating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which the Trump administration itself negotiated and said was basically the platinum standard of all trade agreements. Evidently he doesn't think that now. And it essentially ends the world trading system as we know it. It essentially ends the construct of globalization, which is predicated on the idea of 'comparative advantage' and that each country should do what it is relatively best at doing and produce what it is relatively the best at producing compared to the various other players of the economy. Trump's entire approach seems to fail to recognize that there exists a concept or a construct called 'comparative advantage', and it brings an end to the very notion of globalization."

++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
FILE: New York City, USA - Oct 2024 (CCTV Video News Agency - No access Chinese mainland)
4. Various of port scene, Statue of Liberty
++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++

FILE: Los Angeles, USA - Nov 9, 2017 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
5. Various of cranes handling containers at port

FILE: USA - Date Unknown (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
6. Various of vessels, containers, cranes at port

U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping new tariffs are set to derail international commerce and could spell the end of the idea of globalization, according to a former U.S. diplomat, who warned the controversial trade measures will cause serious upheaval in the world trading system.

Trump signed an executive order last Wednesday imposing a 10-percent "minimum baseline tariff" on all imports, with elevated rates for specific countries. The impact of the policy has continued to ripple across the globe and triggered widespread panic on the global financial markets.

David Firestein, a former career diplomat who is now president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, warned that Trump's policies greatly undermine international trade and could prove fatal to the concept of economic globalization.

He said Trump's actions violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and also called into question how the president has seemingly gone against a much heralded agreement reached with the country's North American neighbors during his first term in office.

"Now, with these new tariffs at much dramatically higher levels, we're not only violating the WTO, we're violating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which the Trump administration itself negotiated and said was basically the platinum standard of all trade agreements. Evidently he doesn't think that now," he said in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV).

"It essentially ends the world trading system as we know it. It essentially ends the construct of globalization, which is predicated on the idea of 'comparative advantage' and that each country should do what it is relatively best at doing and produce what it is relatively the best at producing compared to the various other players of the economy," he said.

"Trump's entire approach seems to fail to recognize that there exists a concept or a construct called 'comparative advantage', and it brings an end to the very notion of globalization," Firestein added.