Decolonizing Trade Relations: The US Tariff Regime and Postcolonial Economic Resistance

The article begins by explaining that global attention has increasingly returned to tariff-based economic policies, especially those enacted by the United States. These tariffs are not treated merely as tools of economic protection, but as expressions of deeper asymmetries in global trade. The article argues that recent U.S. tariff policy reactivates historical patterns of domination and dependence.

The article situates the U.S. trade war under the Trump administration, and its continuation under the Biden administration, as part of a broader global hierarchy rather than an isolated economic episode. Tariffs are often justified through domestic industry protection, intellectual property concerns, or trade fairness, but the article argues that these explanations conceal a wider logic of geopolitical control.

The introduction highlights that the United States has increasingly directed tariff measures toward Global South countries. India, Brazil, South Africa, and several Southeast Asian countries have faced punitive tariffs or threats of tariffs, often linked to their refusal to align with U.S. commercial interests. This pattern shows that trade policy can function as strategic negotiation and economic coercion.

The article identifies a major problem in mainstream trade discourse: tariffs are often reduced to technical or short-term protectionist measures. Such analysis overlooks the historical and postcolonial dimensions of global trade politics. The article argues that tariffs must be understood as mechanisms that can reproduce unequal access to global markets and preserve imperial forms of control.

The literature review notes that international political economy has long focused on material trade flows and tariff policies, but has not sufficiently engaged with postcolonial theory. Dependency theory and world-systems analysis offered earlier critiques of inequality, but contemporary trade debates often neglect the epistemic and symbolic dimensions of global hierarchy.

The article also identifies that most empirical studies on U.S. tariff regimes focus on China or the European Union, while neglecting the vulnerabilities and resistance strategies of the Global South. India’s WTO appeals and Brazil’s pivot toward BRICS-centered trade networks are examples of agency, but these actions are rarely theorized as postcolonial resistance.

The article argues that Global South nations are increasingly developing counter-narratives and alternative economic practices. These include South–South cooperation, currency swaps, the New Development Bank under BRICS, and regional trade realignments. Such strategies are interpreted as forms of economic and epistemic resistance to U.S.-dominated trade structures.

The article aims to offer a postcolonial reading of the U.S. tariff regime and the resistance it has generated across the Global South. It examines India, Brazil, and South Africa as case studies and explores how these states use historical consciousness, institutional alternatives, and discursive strategies to challenge unequal trade relations. The article’s urgency lies in the fragmentation of the global trade order and the need to imagine more equitable, sovereign, and decolonial trade futures.

The article does not present a separate section explicitly titled “Research Method.” However, the abstract and introduction indicate that the study uses a qualitative, theory-driven, and postcolonial analytical approach. The research is based on a postcolonial framework that treats tariffs not only as technical economic instruments, but also as tools of strategic discipline, geopolitical hierarchy, and colonial continuity in global trade relations.

The study uses case-based analysis focused on India, Brazil, and South Africa. These cases are examined to understand how Global South states respond to U.S. tariff pressure through legal contestation, institutional innovation, regional cooperation, South–South diplomacy, and alternative economic arrangements. The article also draws on literature in international political economy, postcolonial theory, trade diplomacy, BRICS cooperation, de-dollarization, and global trade governance to analyze the relationship between U.S. tariff regimes and postcolonial economic resistance.

The article argues that contemporary global trade regimes retain colonial continuities even though formal colonialism has ended. Global trade is often presented as neutral, rules-based, and rational, but the article shows that trade institutions, tariff systems, and normative frameworks still reproduce structures of domination. The World Trade Organization and related trade mechanisms are described as institutions that often benefit industrialized states more than developing countries.

Colonial powers historically used tariffs to protect domestic industries while forcing open colonial markets. The article connects this historical pattern to contemporary U.S. trade policy, arguing that the United States inherited and refined a dual logic of protection for powerful states and liberalization pressure on subordinate economies. This shows that past colonial trade practices remain visible in modern tariff regimes.

The article explains that the language of “free trade” often conceals unequal realities. Developed countries promote open markets while maintaining tariff structures, subsidies, and non-tariff barriers that restrict goods from the Global South. Agricultural subsidies in the United States and European Union are presented as examples of policies that undermine producers in Africa and Latin America.

A key result is that tariffs are not merely economic instruments, but part of a larger geopolitical apparatus. They discipline states, determine access to markets, and reinforce a hierarchy in the international division of labor. From a postcolonial perspective, participation in global trade is often constrained by historical marginalization rather than freely chosen by Global South states.

The article also discusses epistemological coloniality in trade knowledge. Dominant theories such as neoclassical economics, comparative advantage, and Ricardian trade models are rooted in European intellectual traditions that emerged alongside colonial expansion. These theories continue to shape trade policy while excluding alternative economic knowledge from the Global South.

The political economy of U.S. tariff regimes is presented as a combination of domestic economic interests and geopolitical strategy. U.S. tariffs have historically supported industrial development and American economic leadership. In the contemporary era, especially after 2016, tariff policy has returned through nationalist slogans such as “America First” and through unilateral measures that weaken multilateral trade norms.

The Trump administration is described as a turning point in the reactivation of tariff-based coercion. Tariffs were imposed not only on China, but also on allies and Global South nations through instruments such as Section 301 and Section 232. These actions created uncertainty and dependence among targeted states and revealed the coercive function of the U.S. tariff regime.

The Biden administration is described as more diplomatic in tone but substantively continuous in many tariff policies. The maintenance of key tariffs on China and the emphasis on reshoring supply chains show that U.S. tariff policy reflects deeper structural interests, not only the preferences of one administration. Tariffs are therefore connected to national identity, economic nationalism, and ideological assertion.

The article argues that tariff measures against Global South countries are often linked to geopolitical leverage rather than trade fairness alone. Tariffs can be used to pressure states on defense cooperation, digital governance, intellectual property, or labor rights. This shows that trade is instrumentalized to secure wider strategic outcomes.

The article identifies postcolonial resistance in trade diplomacy through legal, institutional, rhetorical, monetary, and epistemic strategies. India and South Africa’s actions in WTO debates, including their challenge to intellectual property restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, are presented as examples of resistance grounded in equity and historical justice. These actions challenge the assumptions embedded in Western-dominated trade governance.

Regional cooperation and alternative alliances are also discussed as forms of resistance. AfCFTA, ASEAN, ALBA, BRICS, and South–South cooperation are described as attempts to reduce dependence on U.S.-dominated trade structures. These initiatives emphasize mutual development, policy autonomy, regional capacity, and historical solidarity.

The article gives particular attention to BRICS and emerging alliances. BRICS is presented as an institutional and ideational challenge to Western-led trade and financial institutions. Through the New Development Bank, local currency settlement, de-dollarization efforts, and coordinated positions in multilateral forums, BRICS provides Global South countries with alternative tools for trade sovereignty and economic realignment.

The analysis in this paper has demonstrated that the United States’ tariff regime functions not merely as an economic policy tool, but as a continuation of a broader historical logic of domination rooted in colonial structures. These tariffs disproportionately target nations in the Global South, not solely for economic reasons, but as part of a wider apparatus of geopolitical discipline. By framing trade relations through a postcolonial lens, this study has uncovered how modern tariff practices retain the asymmetrical patterns of extraction and control that defined colonial trade. What appears as policy pragmatism in official narratives is, upon closer inspection, a strategic assertion of economic hierarchy and conditional inclusion.

Through a detailed examination of both the architecture and application of tariffs, the paper has highlighted the persistence of epistemic and institutional exclusions in global trade governance. The marginalization of alternative economic logics, the universalization of Western trade theories, and the selective enforcement of trade norms all point to a system that operates through both material and symbolic forms of power. Global South nations are not simply disadvantaged by tariffs; they are positioned within a discursive order that delegitimizes their developmental priorities and denies the validity of their historical grievances. This condition underscores the need to go beyond conventional economic analysis and adopt a multidimensional critique that incorporates historical, political, and epistemological insights.

At the same time, this study has shown that postcolonial resistance is neither monolithic nor purely reactive. From South–South cooperation and legal contestation in WTO forums to discursive interventions and institutional innovation, Global South nations have demonstrated significant agency in navigating and challenging the global trade regime. The emergence of BRICS and related alliances reflects a growing will to reshape the terms of global economic engagement. These responses, while uneven and at times contradictory, collectively contribute to a shifting geopolitical landscape where the monopoly over trade norms is increasingly contested. Resistance is thus not a refusal to trade, but a refusal to trade on unequal terms.

The proposal of a decolonial trade ethic, developed in the final section of this paper, seeks to reorient global trade from an extractive and hierarchical enterprise toward one grounded in mutuality, justice, and epistemic plurality. Such an ethic is necessary not only to rectify historical wrongs but to ensure the sustainability of global commerce in an era marked by ecological crisis, political fragmentation, and institutional fatigue. The decolonial turn in trade policy requires both a critique of existing structures and the articulation of alternatives rooted in the lived realities and aspirations of postcolonial societies. It is a call to reimagine trade as a space of encounter and co-creation rather than dominance and dispossession.

Decolonizing trade relations entails more than reforming specific policies; it requires rethinking the philosophical and institutional foundations of the global economic system. Tariffs, when viewed through a postcolonial lens, reveal a persistent logic of control that must be confronted through ethical, intellectual, and political transformation. This paper has contributed to that effort by linking U.S. tariff practices to a broader critique of trade coloniality and by highlighting the diverse forms of resistance emerging across the Global South. As the world enters a period of economic realignment, the imperative to imagine and build a more just and inclusive trade order has never been more urgent.

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